For far too long, the topics of environmental awareness, social commitment and a good corporate purpose were for the most part just material for insubstantial speeches and colorful advertising slogans – those days are now finally over. Companies have recognized that environmental social governance (ESG) alone and on paper only is not enough to survive in the current economic climate. What’s more, those who participate in the market without an operational and successfully implemented sustainability strategy will soon face considerable difficulties. Cloudflight will discuss exactly what this means with many corporate decision-makers from the DACH region at this year’s Digital Leader Summit in Berchtesgaden under the motto “DIGITAL SUSTAINABILITY – mastered by digital minds, enriched by green technology“.
From theory to action
The shift to sustainable business has moved away from the strategic level and is now having a very tangible impact on the business. This is not only evident at the business process and business model level, but encompasses the entire company. As a result, corporate cultures, organizational structures, corporate management or leadership, and the concrete use of technology are also being influenced more and more substantially right from the initial decision, but above all in ” day-to-day operations” as well.
The usual association of sustainability – not consuming more physical resources than are returned by the process or product – is no longer even sufficient. As suppliers or business partners, companies are increasingly required to demonstrate that their processes in industry, in the manufacture of products and goods, and their overall actions are consistently – and thus not only on balance – subject to increasingly stringent measures of resource conservation, environmental friendliness and innovativeness in the value creation process. As a company, sustainability also means dealing with increasing regulation (e.g. the forthcoming law on corporate duties of due diligence in supply chains) and anchoring social and overall societal issues in the decisions and management of the company.
But what do companies, decision-makers and digital leaders have to do in concrete terms to bring in the necessary measures for sustainability in the economic interest of the company? Investing in technology is one thing. Simultaneously building a resilient corporate structure that has the right cultural, digital and physical assets, both internally and externally, to meet the fast pace of innovation and increasing competitive pressures is another.
Digitization remains the No. 1 economic driver and is being reinterpreted once again as a catalyst for sustainability.
BCIOs and CDOs are the engineers of the digital future and the entrepreneurs of the coming economic generation. They must not only be charismatic thought leaders, but increasingly also the doers who can overcome coming challenges with the latest technological possibilities today.
Outlook and current trend-setters
The task is to close the gap between the enormous potential, the necessary measures and the current status quo: “Digital Sustainability” is growing out of corporate IT and the digital units into other corporate, social and economic areas.
FlixBus, for example, has been working for many years on an end-to-end green strategy that goes far beyond painting its buses and trains green. A sustainable fundamental idea is to be anchored here in all areas of the company, which at the same time supports the enormously competitive, target- and innovation-oriented growth story.
MEWA, which is active in the field of textile services for companies, has intensively studied the basics and implications of the Supply Chain Protection Act and Environmental Social Governance. Now, in an industry that has been analog for many years, the challenge is also to find digital ways for the company to combine sales growth, sustainability and digital innovation at the highest level.
Or Advanzia Bank from Luxembourg, which is one of the largest credit card issuers in Germany and at the same time a “Born Digital” bank that has no branches but offers primarily digital services, would like to be even more proactive and consistent in its commitment to this topic, in addition to the necessary sustainability measures, and is continuously questioning at the leadership, IT and business levels whether the previous level is sufficient.