Preface
For many years, scientists have sounded the alarm about climate change, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres has declared code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.
This year has been no exception. We are becoming intensely aware of the climate emergency unraveling right before our eyes. In the summer of 2022, we saw record temperatures across the globe, massive wildfires, flooding, and droughts. As an example, the United Kingdom experienced three massive heatwaves in June, July, and August leading to extreme temperatures, more wildfires than average, and droughts declared in many regions across the country. In London, Google and Oracle had to shut down servers in their data centers due to the heatwave. In the United States, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, two artificial Colorado River water reservoirs, shrunk massively in capacity, threatening the energy and power supply for tens of millions of people. Maybe the most significant event was the travesty unfolding in Pakistan due to the tremendous flooding, leaving one-third of the country under water and over 30 million people being forced to leave their homes.
The facts that are on the table are crystal clear. The need to act has never been more urgent. We need to limit the global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably around 1.5 degrees. Reaching net-zero emissions is often expressed in target dates, such as halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero in 2040 or 2050. In this book, I will continuously refer back to net zero or net positive, which should be our ultimate goal.
So why am I writing this book? Because, as a technology leader and sustainability advocate, I strongly believe that I can be part of a positive impact and inspire others to act. I strongly believe in the positive forces in motion to curb the climate crisis. Kids and teenagers growing up today have no part in creating this mess that we collectively find ourselves in. I have two small sons, two and five years old. I feel that we have a duty and moral obligation to pass on a healthy and habitable planet to our children and future generation. We are in the decade of climate change, and we need to do everything in our power to collectively find solutions to curb this crisis that is threatening our long-term existence on this planet.
In August 2020, during the global COVID-19 pandemic, I assumed a new role as chief information officer (CIO) at a global industrial manufacturing company in Stockholm, Sweden. I knew that I was in for a tremendous challenge and exciting journey simultaneously. The world as we knew it had changed dramatically, where a significant part of our global workforce was working from home, and scientists were still scrambling for a vaccine to curb the pandemic. As I entered my new role, I was determined not only to solve the expectations that were put on me in the role but also to use the power of business as a platform for change, as Salesforce’s altruistic founder and CEO Mark Benioff has famously coined it.
Not only was I determined, together with my team, to over-deliver on the CIO brief that I was tasked to do, but I was also determined to make sustainable IT an integral part of our overall IT strategy and underpin sustainability into our guiding principle and decision that we would make from here on out towards a sustainable future, a net zero future. What also helped me to reinforce my purpose was that my employer announced in the fall of 2020 that part of its new 2025 sustainability program would reinforce its long-term commitment to set science-based targets in line with the Paris Agreement. Having my employer establish a clear and sounding target for a sustainable future reinforced my commitment to making a long-lasting impact on future generations.
As I started talking to my peer network and researching how to approach this problem to transition into a more sustainable future using IT, I quickly learned that there was limited material on the subject or that it was vastly outdated. I also found that sustainable IT or green IT is often disconnected from the broader sustainability agenda.
As I went through establishing a sustainable IT greenhouse gas emissions baseline and our sustainable IT strategy, an idea for a book was born to enable other technology leaders to take a similar direction of travel. With this book, I hope to provide a practical framework to enable you to act. The aim of this book is not to explain why we have a climate crisis on our hands but rather to provide you with the what and how. The who and when is up to you to ultimately decide. This book is designed as a playbook where you can take relevant plays and adapt them to your context and environment to take systemic steps to reduce IT’s impact on the planet from an environmental, ethical, and social perspective because they are all interlinked.
IT and technology are huge consumers of electricity, but most of the industry is yet to have a strategy for making that use sustainable. Equally important, we also need to ensure that the products and services we procure are produced by fair worker market conditions, responsible use of material, and responsibly taken care of at end-of-use. This book will provide you with tangible case studies on how you can apply circular design principles to address energy consumption, usage of data centers and the cloud, manage IT equipment and e-waste, and leverage your buying power to make sustainable procurement decisions.
I humbly state that I do not have all the answers, and throughout the journey, I have met some fantastic people across the globe that share the same passion for sustainability and technology. Many have also been willing to share their experiences, knowledge, and wisdom, and you will meet some of them throughout this book. I am grateful for their contribution and humbly proud to share their perspectives. As in life, there are multiple ways to get to the same destination, which is valid for transitioning to a sustainable IT enterprise. I hope that reading this book will provide you with concrete actions you can apply within your environment that will produce a tangible outcome and result in transitioning toward a more sustainable future. I aim to inspire and bring a call to action across the IT and technology industry and enable companies, technology, and sustainability leaders to start their journey towards planetary stewardship towards a net-positive future.
What I will present in this book is not rocket science; most of it is common sense and practices already in use within the IT and technology community. However, it is not widely known. I hope to inspire and challenge IT and technology professionals to embed “sustainability by design” as an underlying layer into their overall strategy and execution. This book provides practical steps that can be applied to any company worldwide. I will share practical techniques for framing the problem, understanding your current state, and setting the direction of travel towards the net positive. I hope you will start your planetary stewardship journey today with this book.
I am not a scientist, but I have chosen to trust science and use “science as a blueprint for innovation.” After spending almost three years at the premier IT analyst firm Gartner, I was drilled to become more data-driven to thoroughly substantiate decision-making and back up recommendations with substantial qualitative and quantitative analysis. Based on the overwhelming data points at our disposal, we have irrefutable evidence that the earth’s life support system is undergoing immense trauma. If we do not eliminate 50% of the world’s emissions by 2030 and 100% by 2050 or sooner, the global temperature will likely increase to 1.5°C and above. The 2020s is no doubt a critical decade; it is the decade of climate action. We must act quickly and at scale to fight climate change and decarbonize our planet by 2050.
We are at a critical point in human history. Humanity is under threat, but all is not lost. We can take action! But how?
Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders will show you how. It will walk you through the construction and implementation of a sustainable IT strategy and enable you to do your bit for the future of humankind.
This book tells the story of the IT and technology journey toward planetary stewardship in three acts. Ultimately, this book is about changing course, about setting a new standard on how technology can be delivered more sustainably but also how it can unlock opportunities towards a more sustainable future.
Part 1 is the story of the why and the clear and present dangers that face humanity today, the climate crisis. How we got here, the immediate threats, and the planetary boundaries we need to peel back to safe levels. Part 1 will draw upon facts and figures from prominent institutions such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), our world in data; climate advocates such as Christiana Figueres, David Attenborough, Bill Gates, Al Gore, and John Doerr; and reputable climate scientists such as Johan Rockström and Michael E. Mann, among others, to present us with a picture of the current state of earth’s fragile life support system.
Part 2 will focus on the what. What key areas should you focus on, and what tools do we have in our toolbox to make a significant impact toward a more sustainable future? We will focus on data centers, cloud, applications, data, circular IT hardware, energy management, IT procurement, electronic waste (e-waste) management practices, and how IT can build sustainable solutions for the future.
Part 3 focuses on the how. How do you turn your ideas into action? What do you need to do to establish your baseline, create a sustainable IT strategy, and set your direction for a sustainable future? Part 3 will arm you with tangible, hands-on tools and resources to enable you to start your journey today, resulting in global and impactful objectives and key results.
By the end of this book, you will be equipped to plan, implement, and communicate a sustainable IT strategy and set yourself apart as a progressive technology and sustainability leader.