Sustainability matters to tech buyers but cost remains top priority

How can partners and suppliers help buyers with an eye on ESG?

Despite having been dragged into the culture wars, Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) standards remain an important consideration for businesses, if for no other reason that they remain an important consideration for investors.

However, our recent research into IT trends suggests there are other reasons that tech decision makers are making buying decisions with sustainability, if not at the top of their priority list, certainly in the top three criteria.

When asked what was driving ESG within their businesses, more than half - 56% - of IT leaders cited a simple motivation to do the right thing. Admittedly, 32% had an eye on cost savings (which certainly ties in with a strategy of reducing waste), while matching up to industry best practice was the third most popular driver.

This suggests that industry standards matter, and are an effective way of encouraging individual organisations to raise the bar.

More interesting is how far down the list of responses both legislation and industry specific regulations are, suggesting that individual organisations, and individuals, are well ahead of legislators and regulators in the sustainability standards they set.

Sustainability matters - but cost matters more

It's also clear that organisations are taking plenty of measures to reduce their environmental impact. More than a third - 36% - are assessing all new suppliers and contracts against sustainability criteria, and 32% are reviewing and analysing processes to see how they can be made more sustainable. A small but significant 22% were in the market for new tech to enable them to reduce their operational footprint.

However, by far the most popular measure was waste reduction - the obvious reason being that reducing waste also reduces costs. It's the one environmental measure that can be taken that doesn't cost anything.

The leaders we surveyed told us that, whilst ethics matter, cost matters more. When choosing partners and suppliers, only five per cent said sustainability mattered more than cost. For 29% the two imperatives carried equal weight, but for the remainder, cost was the most important consideration.

What do decision makers want?

The answer to this question is in two parts, the first of which concerns the solutions and technologies organisation are looking at to help them become more sustainable.

As we can see, companies are looking closely at datacentres. Computing publishes annual research on cloud sustainability, which this year will be expanded to consider solutions such as Lenovo's Truesdale Infrastructure-as-a-Service, which compete with the big three hyperscale public cloud giants.

Other popular solutions included reductions in water and energy use, and a shift to renewable energy - again, both measures that could be money saving. The sheer range of solutions reflects the variety in the types of organisations represented in our research, with shifts to electric and hydrogen powered vehicles, battery tech and supply chain optimisation all making an appearance.

The potential for AI to have a positive impact was also apparent here, with AI-powered tools, intelligent tech and analytics for optimising operations, and the use of AI to build digital twins all cited. Computing has published several articles over the last year around AI being used for just this sort of purpose.

AI technologies are already demonstrating immense potential to reduce the impact of the foundational industries, and consequently to reduce built carbon emissions and find smarter, less damaging ways of either cooling or heating those buildings.

What do buyers, looking for these solutions, want from partners and suppliers? In summary, concise data and transparency. A selection of suggestions follows:

• "Clear, transparent reporting"
• "Evidence their claims"
• "Much more honesty and real meaningful information rather than something provided by marketing"

Some answers suggested a standard or trust mark like B Corp and plenty of others suggested the need for data in a form that was comparable to that of competitors, and some sort of industry standardisation. The need for this is why Computing started researching this area on the first place because often, when data is provided it's provided in such a way as to make meaningful comparison nigh on impossible.

For the providers of more physical products there was also a need for better product repairability, lifecycle data, disposal cost data etc. For example:

• "Right to repair"
• "Provide full details of product cycle including clear end of life costings e.g. Disposal costs for hardware"
• "Having a clear trade-in or take-back program for old equipment would be good, so that maintenance/disposal becomes part of the purchase process of the next item."

This research was conducted in January among 173 UK IT leaders. The full report will be published shortly.

You may also like

/news/4338523/tatas-uk-gigafactory-project-takes-major-step-forward

Components

Tata's UK gigafactory project takes major step forward

Sir Robert McAlpine to build multi-billion-pound factory

/podcasts/4333508/national-grid-analogue-digital-ctrl-alt-lead-podcast

Public Sector

National Grid is turning analogue to digital - Ctrl Alt Lead podcast

'We can't do what we've always done, just more efficiently'

/analysis/4332282/cyber-staff-uk-leaders

Security

Cyber? We can't get the staff say UK IT leaders

'Just having some more bodies in the team would be useful'