Sustainability on 1.2.3 + technology
I welcome you to a light touch on sustainability and sustainable technology. We will touch upon defining sustainability, the three pillars environmental, social, and governance(ESG), Net-zero, and a carbon-thoughtful technology partner and provider.
The United Nations definition of sustainability “..Development that meets today’s needs, without destroying the opportunities for future generations to have their needs met.” Drilled into 17 concrete goals. 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a global partnership to improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth — all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
Good for society, environment and BUSINESS
The capital market has found it an excellent investment to bet on more sustainable companies. According to Morgan Stanly, investors increasingly search for sustainable investment opportunities and analyze corporations’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance.
1. Three pillars — Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)
Often sustainability builds on three pillars Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG). The three pillars support the categorization and collection of data, reporting structure, and insights into organizations’ sustainability performance.
ESG performance indicates a maturation of business practices to a more precise measurement of a portfolio’s performance. Regulatory initiatives as seen in the finance industries such as the EU Taxonomy enforces our awareness, reporting, and acceleration towards our global sustainability goals.
2. The environmental pillar
The environmental pillar often involves calculating the carbon footprint of the reporting organization. To be carbon-efficient is to minimize the amount of carbon emitted per unit of work. Carbon, which is often used to refer to all Green House Gasses (GHG).
The goal set by the UN IPCC and agreed and ratified by 195 states in the Paris Climate Agreement is to reduce carbon pollution so that the temperature increase stabilizes to a 1.5°C increase by 2100 when compared to pre-industrial levels. The temperature increase on the Earth is dependent on the total amount of carbon we have in the atmosphere, not the rate at which we are emitting. To completely halt the rate of temperature increase, we need to stop adding carbon to the atmosphere or achieve net-zero emissions.
Net-zero means for each gram of carbon we emit we also extract one gram, so the overall mass of carbon in the atmosphere remains fixed.
Microsoft defines a net-zero scenario where electrons supplying the electricity are generated from zero-carbon energy sources (wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, or point-source carbon capture and sequestration). Powering vehicles and manufacturing plants with electricity holds the promise of wiping out vast sections of the global emissions portfolio.
We observe the world has experienced unprecedented economic growth, primarily driven by energy use. See graph below.
Microsoft also has the ambition to be carbon negative by 2030. Use the link below the graph to read more about how they will systematically approach this goal on their pathway and its mathematics.
3. Select with purpose
To collect, measure, optimize and report on ESG data, technology plays a big part.
To improve or optimize our environmental pillar cloud migration, cloud provider and IT-operating models play a significant part as our path in digital transformation is evolving. According to Accenture, “cloud migration can deliver a double effect gaining shareholder and stakeholder expectation by simultaneously reducing costs and carbon emissions if approached from a sustainability perspective. Leading to a greener planet and a boost in profitability. IaaS migrations can reduce carbon emissions by more than 84% compared with conventional infrastructure. Moreover, reductions can be pushed even higher — by up to a whopping 98% — by designing applications specifically for the cloud.
The graphic below indicates the incremental levels of carbon reduction that can be achieved — the greater the ambition, the greater the reduction in carbon emissions.”
Whats next?
- Selecting a carbon-thoughtful partner and provider.
Partnerships and cloud providers set different corporate commitments towards sustainability, which determines how they plan, build, power, operate, and retire projects and data centers. - Sustainable software engineering practices.
According to Microsoft, eight principles of Sustainable Software Engineering form a shared understanding of what it means to be a Sustainable Software Engineer. To learn more about Sustainable Software Engineering, go here. - Application re-engineering and development optimized for the cloud. “Companies can stretch carbon emission reductions to 98% by configuring applications for the cloud.”
Summary
Sustainability is an even more important topic on the agenda and prioritization for companies worldwide. To be upfront on sustainability prioritization and actions gains a bigger reward than a more robust bottom line; it also supports a better future for the coming generation. I hope this article gave you some valuable inputs and some learning outcomes.
