Summary
As we reach the end of this chapter, if you were not already aware, you now have a better understanding of the great challenge humanity has in front of us to curb the climate crisis. As you learned earlier in the chapter, the environmental impact of technology is one of the most well-kept secrets of the IT industry. The environmental impact of IT is not insignificant. With the dramatic increase in IT in all sectors, projecting energy consumption will exceed the aviation industry by 4% or 5% by 2024 unless we find different ways to deliver IT more sustainably. That is why there is a step change needed toward sustainable IT practices. The purpose of this book is not to explain the intricacies of why we have a climate crisis, but what we can do as technology leaders to focus on the what and the how.
Naturally, every company’s starting point will be different. If you are a company operating in a traditional industry or an industry with many policies and regulations, you will most likely have infrastructure such as data centers in-house. In comparison, if you are a software technology start-up, you have most likely taken a cloud-first approach. Depending on the complexity of your IT landscape and the size of your data, you can have a massive impact on your GHG emissions. Depending on your company size and the size of your IT budget, IT procurement can be a very important lever to ensure adherence to a sustainable code of conduct, request for proposal (RFP), and master service agreement (MSA) requirements. Whether you have a strategy to buy commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software or whether you develop in-house will determine how much you must focus on sustainable software development. Where you are located around the world, your access to renewable energy, and the consequences of direct effects of climate change such as flooding, fires, scarcity of resources, and drought can have direct consequences on production lines and the ability to deliver goods and services. As we learned earlier in the chapter, the environmental impact of ICT equipment has a sizable contribution to your own carbon emission and your value chain emission. Depending on how mature you are in managing the whole life cycle of your equipment, this can have a big impact on your overall IT emissions.
The Chinese word for crisis consists of two symbols. One symbol means danger, and the other symbol means opportunity. Just as technological innovation has led us into this crisis, it can also accelerate recovery – exponential technologies – across power, mobility, and industry. IT can give rise to solving a global problem for all humanity. A recent strategy paper for a circular economy on network equipment by GSM Association (GSMA), which is published under Mobile World Conference (MWC) 2022, suggests an excellent opportunity to decarbonize four major sectors, energy, manufacturing, transportation, and buildings, by up to 40% by enabling mobile connectivity in the next decade. However, the report also recognizes that the ICT sector also has a massive impact on the environment.
With the acceleration of 4IR, increased hyperconnectivity, and the ICT sector growing tremendously, it is crucial to rapidly decarbonize and transition from a linear economy to a circular economy.
Solving the climate crisis can seem complicated to grasp and also seem like an overwhelming task. It requires a collective effort from individuals, corporations, organizations, and policymakers. To relate to what needs to get done, I tend to fall back on the definition of “top three for humanity” (Rockström and Klum 2012), as outlined by Johan Rockström and Mattias Klum in their book The Human Quest: Prospering Within Planetary Boundaries.
The top-three-for-humanity definitions outline what we need to transition to:
- 100% climate-neutral energy and transportation
- Healthy and sustainable food for all
- A circular economy
Most of the work needed in the next decade might feel like a daunting and impossible task. As a technology leader, I want to be part of the solution to solve the most significant challenge that humankind has ever encountered. I firmly believe that IT can play an essential role in transitioning to a sustainable future. We have seen how digital disruption has reshaped the S&P 500 in the past 22 years.
As Greta Thunberg, who was a 16-year-old at the time, proclaimed in her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2019, calling on the world to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if your house is on fire. Because it is.
We need to act quickly and decisively. As John Doerr proclaimed in his book of the same name, we need to act “with speed and at scale.” Although a daunting task, you should also embrace this as a fantastic opportunity to use your operating environment to be part of something bigger, to make a long-lasting change that benefits everyone on this Earth. This book will help you unlock opportunities toward achieving climate goals by delivering sustainable IT practices of proven methods, use cases, and examples. This book will enable you to lead and accelerate the journey toward planetary stewardship to curb the climate crisis.
The fact that you are also holding and reading this book shows that you have an invested interest in making a long-lasting change beyond your company or organization’s operating environment to create a future for a sustainable way of living and working within the constraints of planet Earth.
In the next chapter, we will go deeper into the concept of sustainable IT. What are the main drivers and critical considerations for a sustainable IT plan, and the importance of embedding sustainable IT into the overall corporate sustainability agenda?