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Sustainable Technology in Enterprises: Towards a Greener Future
Sustainable Technology in Enterprises: Towards a Greener Future

March 14, 2024

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Sustainable technology is a powerful tool to drive economic prosperity and simultaneously minimize adverse impacts on the environment. With environmental challenges such as air pollution, resource scarcity, and climate change on the rise, the role of sustainable technology becomes even more crucial. Many influential politicians and leaders have acknowledged the urgency of addressing environmental issues and emphasized the need for innovative solutions to mitigate their impact. And, with customers also becoming ‘conscious buyers’, a lot of companies and even start-ups are incorporating sustainability into their businesses.

Here are some instances of how enterprises are moving towards sustainable technology:

  1. AI, for instance, can be leveraged to estimate energy requirements. Accordingly, supply can be adjusted so that there is minimal waste. Similarly, in agriculture, one can estimate the appropriate proportion of fertilizers and pesticides to be applied to different kinds of crops after considering the soil type.
  2. 3D printing and additive manufacturing can reduce waste compared to traditional manufacturing by building objects layer by layer using only the required materials. 3D printing also enables on-demand manufacturing and customization, thus saving from overproduction.
  3. Digital twin technology can create virtual replicas of physical objects, enabling real-time monitoring, optimization, and analysis. Therefore, improving efficiency. For example, in the energy sector, digital twins can improve grid management and optimize operations, leading to a smoother transition towards cleaner energy.
  4. Cloud computing is being increasingly leveraged in organizations, which is reducing the hardware footprint by eliminating the need to have on-premise infrastructure such as servers and storage arrays. Moreover, with consolidated computing resources, cloud providers can attain economies of scale. Hence, the environmental footprint is decreasing. IKEA, for instance, has deployed cloud infrastructure to optimize its virtual assets, cutting down on ~600+ CO2 emissions annually.
  5. IoT (Internet of Things) devices can optimize and monitor resource usage. E.g., smart meters to track energy consumption, ascertain pollution levels, improve supply chain management through enhanced transparency and traceability, and so on.

However, there are some challenges on the path to sustainability:

  1. The digital divide may hinder access to sustainable technologies in disadvantaged areas, exacerbating inequalities and obstructing economic growth, therefore necessitating efforts to bridge this gap.
  2. The energy consumption of some technologies is quite large. For example, data centers, blockchain applications, and cryptocurrency mining involve extensive energy usage for processing, storing, and data validation. According to CBECI, energy used in bitcoin mining was 67 TWh–240 TWh in 2023, equivalent to total electricity consumption in Australia!
  3. Some enterprises present false information about their environmental efforts, called greenwashing, to attract customers and investors. Lack of transparency with customers, long timelines, and weak environmental goals may signal greenwashing. To cite an example, in 2022, Goldman Sachs paid $4 million after violating SEC compliance rules with ESG funds.

Despite its challenges, sustainable technology is a reality because it is the future, and there’s no alternative to that. Globally, the majority of enterprises (~36%) have aligned or are aligning business activities and investments with ESG norms, which include green building certification, circular economy, sustainable finance projects, and so on, emphasizing the fact that companies are increasing their efforts towards sustainable practices, with the global green technology and sustainability market size expected to reach $61.92 billion by 2030.

Any enterprise that has sailed the journey to greener practices goes through five stages: viewing compliance as an opportunity, making value chains sustainable, designing green products and services, developing greener business models, and creating next-practice platforms. Each stage brings its own obstacles, but in the end, it is all worth it after all; it is about the planet!


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