Achieving sustainability ambitions with IBM AI technology

Share this post:

I recently attended The Economist Sustainability Week where I had some interesting conversations with other Heads of Sustainability. The one common thread was the belief that there’s never been a more pressing time for urgent, effective action to achieve our sustainability ambitions. We are at a critical juncture.

Stakeholders are demanding a greater commitment to take action on sustainability and are questioning how data is collected and reported.  Consumers no longer see sustainability as a nice-to-have but as a fundamental requirement for purchasing and are inspecting suppliers’ sustainability credentials. Demonstrating how your supply chain upholds environmental and social standards in an end-to-end fashion is a challenging but essential task. In my mind every business needs to address the demands for increased reporting and regulations, this is a key challenge for organisations globally and presents the sustainability agenda as a business case CFOs to understand and act upon.

So how can you turn sustainability ambitions into something that is positive on your balance sheet? You need to operationalise sustainability with conviction, technology and open innovation. Whether it’s pursuing challenging Net Zero goals or addressing evolving ESG requirements, I believe these cannot be achieved without a strong technology and data foundation.

To take sustainability seriously, you need to build it into your day-to-day operations. By integrating sustainability and digital transformation into your business, I’m convinced you will not only help your business succeed and meet stakeholder demands, but ultimately drive stronger business performance. There are countless examples already: farmers don’t have to spend additionally on fertilizers to enhance crop yields; manufacturers produce just the right amount of stock and it’s delivered to the right dept JIT; or companies can reduce expensive utility bills by better understanding their property estate.

At IBM, we have world-class expertise and products that are already helping organisations such as Transport for London and NASA to address sustainability goals. Our research has shown that sustainability is not only a major challenge for society – it is also the most challenging issue for business, according to a CEO study conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value it found that despite 95% of companies having operational ESG goals, only 10% have made significant progress toward meeting them. IBM is now working with a whole cross-section of organisations, big and small, to help customers understand their specific challenges, help create realistic ROIs and then deliver their projects.

We believe AI can help accelerate the path from sustainability insights, through actions, to outcomes. Many organisations are already seeing benefits from using AI to automate IT, business or network processes, including cost savings and efficiencies. This is key in sustainability as 66% of companies are either currently executing or planning to apply AI to address their sustainability goals.

I would be delighted to meet you at our forthcoming event on 16^th April in London, on Scope 3 regulations or tailor a bespoke session so that we can explore this topic together and share our insights and technology demos with you. This can be done either virtually or at our London Innovation Studio.

We can demonstrate our technology in action and show the difference it can make. I look forward to starting a conversation, and to exchanging ideas and potential areas of collaboration to drive meaningful change towards a more sustainable future.

You can reach me directly at KEFFORD@uk.ibm.com to make the arrangements.