DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION weak points mean unnecessary consumption of resources , thus increased costs and avoidable CO2 emissions ,” shares Janina Nakladal , Global Director of Sustainability at Celonis .
Nakladal does add , though , that there is a willingness there from the C-Suite to become more sustainable . Research from IBM and Celonis found that more than half of Chief Supply Chain Officers ( CSCOs ) would be willing to sacrifice up to 5 % of profit to become more sustainable .
“ This shows that whilst the will is there , businesses are being held back by other challenges ,” says the Global Director of Sustainability .
To overcome these challenges , most of which are reliant on technology , it is necessary to include CIOs in the discussion around sustainability strategies and goals . A study by Accenture found all respondents in agreement : technology is critical for achieving sustainability goals and so , with this , it makes sense that the CIO is firmly involved as a way to fully integrate their technology and sustainability strategies .
Bridging the gap and putting CIOs at the forefront of sustainability As the disparity between the expanding use of data to create commercial value and the comparatively inefficient use of data to solve social and environmental challenges remains , the onus is being placed on CIOs and CTOs to bridge the gap .
“ When addressing sustainable transformation , your agenda should focus on using data to understand what the current situation is and what operations can and
Business leaders agree that more progress needs to be made — but nearly all face significant challenges in meeting their ESG goals . According to Oracle , 91 % of business leaders are facing major challenges in making progress on sustainability and ESG initiatives , including finding the right data to track progress and existing timeconsuming manual processes to report on ESG metrics . On top of the operational challenges , 96 % of business leaders admit that human bias and emotion often distract from the end goal .
can ’ t be changed . If you limit yourself to a top-down target of ‘ reducing carbon by 10 %’, even if you hit that target at the end of the year , have you measured and understood how that was achieved ?” notes Mark Woods , Chief Technical Advisor , EMEA at Splunk .
To help measure success , Woods advises that companies need to move beyond the compliance-based ‘ nudges ’ of turning the lights off or zero plastic and instead develop deeper data literacy skills in the workforce . When the whole team , not just the tech team , can understand and analyse data in its context , they can then be empowered to make changes for the better .
“ This data , and the context needed to understand it , has often already been created by expert operational teams to address the increasing imperative to provide efficient , effective and secure products and services ,” adds Woods .
To allow teams to get to a point where they can enhance and challenge practices that are not fully sustainable , data needs to