Opinion – Why? Economês in good Portuguese: Digital pollution on the sustainability and ESG agenda of organizations

The benefits of technology are many. In the business world, digital transformation refers to the integration of digital technologies into business processes. Digital transformation offers opportunities to integrate functional, organizational and geographic products and services, providing new tools to deal with management challenges, innovation, relationship development and business strategies.

Regarding digitized products, the integration of digital components into physical products offers customers more effective features and functions. Still from a business point of view, digital platforms, also known as ecosystems, allow for better coordination of the value chain and the stakeholders involved. Finally, digital infrastructures provide tools that enable data collection and analysis, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, facilitating the planning, execution and control of business strategies.

Some research, carried out in the global and Brazilian contexts, evaluates the impacts of technology on sustainable development. I recently had the opportunity to co-supervise a master’s research on how artificial intelligence can contribute to sustainable business models. One of the conclusions of the study is that artificial intelligence can improve the productivity of companies, by automating activities performed by humans or making systems work and adapt to circumstances according to the routines of use or human control intervention.

However, we know that not all externalities of technology on the environment and society are positive. One of the topics being debated among the sustainability and ESG groups I participate in is digital pollution, a term that refers to sources of environmental pollution produced by technology. It is commonly divided into two dimensions: one related to the manufacture of any digital tool, another to the functioning of the internet.

This means that digital is not always greener or more sustainable. The advance of the digital world can contribute to climate change due to the amount of energy needed to keep the technology working, be it a webpage, be it a data collection and storage tool. This fundamentally depends on the behavior of decision makers and technology developers. According to a recent CMSWire editorial, 90% of the data produced and stored by organizations will never be used, and a 70 kb webpage emits, on average, 90% less CO2 than a 900 kb webpage. If well designed, based on the user’s needs, the lighter webpage can have the same content and the same functionalities as the heavier one and be more sustainable from an environmental point of view. In other words, less can be more.

The question that arises is the following: why do we keep collecting useless data and developing heavy webpages? The answer is not so difficult: first, because we were not educated or trained to consider environmental impacts when evaluating projects and interventions. And why weren’t we educated for this? Because from an economic perspective it is still “cheap”. After all, we do not account for the real and complete cost (environmental and social) of our choices.

I’m an optimist: I believe that with the increase in the cost of energy and with the pricing of carbon (based on direct and indirect emissions) the tendency is for this to change.

But until then, I see two challenges involving companies and academia. In companies, it is crucial that IT professionals responsible for artifacts, platforms and digital structures consider the environmental impacts of each solution and, in partnership with the business and sustainability areas, weigh the alternatives based on costs and benefits that are not only economic. , but also socio-environmental. Yet another example that sustainability should be perceived by organizations and leaders as a cross-cutting competence of every employee.

For the academy, it is necessary to review the way in which we integrate sustainability issues in the training and development of students of all professions. From the most technical to the most academic training, at undergraduate, graduate and executive education levels.

This will be one of the important topics in 2023 for organizations that are committed to sustainability and seek good ESG management and performance.