No greenwash: How SAS is taking a scientific approach to sustainability
Chief Environmental Officer Jerry Williams on using data to take a lead in sustainability
Many vendors proclaim their desire to 'make the world a better place' - certainly few would advocate the opposite. But their actions, or lack of them, sometimes tell a different story to that declared in their marketing materials.
Not so with SAS, says Chief Environmental officer Jerry Williams. The venerable software firm actively searches for new ways to use analytics and AI to address society's biggest challenges - from poverty to education access to arguably the most pressing of them all - climate change.
"We rally behind the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, closely aligning our social innovation efforts to education, health and climate goals. SAS's business strategy includes a commitment to supporting the aim of the Paris Agreement, to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and reach net-zero by 2050."
As Williams points out, companies like SAS are ideally suited to leading the sustainability movement because of the role that data science and analytics have and will continue to play.
"A sustainable future requires developing solutions grounded in science and data to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. Reducing environmental impacts and ensuring continued availability of natural resources is a shared responsibility that starts with intentional and ambitious goals and actions."
Another key indicator of how serious an organisation is about sustainability can be seen in the accountability for targets at an executive level. The existence of the post of Chief Environmental Officer is a clear sign of an organisation prepared to walk the walk on sustainability.
Williams' role is not just to implement environmental goals and strategies, but also to run the SAS Environmental Management Program which facilitates environmental efforts at company headquarters in the US, collects and reports key environmental performance indicators for global operations, conducts environmental risk and impact assessments and provides guidance and support to all offices worldwide. Offices around the globe have personnel who manage site-specific environmental initiatives.
Actions have to be as ambitious as the targets, Williams says. SAS assigns top priority to minimising energy consumption and related emissions from its operations. Key energy and emissions mitigation initiatives include establishing aggressive energy and emission reduction goals, building and maintaining facilities to LEED guidelines, installing electric vehicle charging stations, investing in renewable energy, pursuing smart energy-efficient technologies for office buildings and data centres, encouraging teleconferencing to limit travel, and developing analytics tools to help employees understand the environmental impacts of their business decisions.
Scope for greenwashing
Setting targets for energy and emission reduction are one way that enterprises can signal their environmental credentials, although many of these enterprises are not driven solely by principle.
Reporting on Scope 1 and 2 (direct and indirect) emissions has been mandatory in the UK for some time for larger and/or listed companies, but whilst reporting on Scope 3 emissions - which are a consequence of your business's actions - is strongly encouraged, it is still optional. One of the frustrations felt by technology vendors such as SAS who are pursuing the highest standards of sustainability, and indeed any customer who shares this vision, is that as soon as organisations move compute, data and storage into the cloud, emissions from Scopes 1 and 2, move to being Scope 3 - and therefore from mandatory to optional.
It isn't difficult to see how organisations who are keen to apply a green wash to their marketing without making a genuine reduction in their carbon emissions can massage their carbon reporting accordingly.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that the voluntary nature of Scope 3 reporting will soon become rather less voluntary. The recently published UK State of the Climate Report and a recent alarming run of extreme weather events are likely to have concentrated minds on the urgency of the situation humanity faces. The COP26 UN Climate Change Summit later this year may well produce many more mandates about corporate carbon reporting.
Leading by example
Nonetheless, SAS is well ahead of the pack in terms of transparency of reporting. For example, not only does it have approved SBTi targets to reduce absolute Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions 25 per cent by 2025 and 50 per cent by 2030 against a 2018 base year, it also report via its Corporate Social Responsibility Program on whether or not it has achieved these targets and/or is on target to do so.
This publicly available report is notably heavy on data. For example, it sets out that SAS decreased their global emissions by 37.7 per cent in 2020 and by 39.5 per cent compared to 2018 base year.
Another example is that renewable energy generation from solar installations totalled almost 3.8 million kWh, beating SAS's self-imposed target of 3.5 million kWh.
Williams sets out how he sees the next year shaping up.
"Now that SAS has included Scope 3 emissions in our SBTi and net-zero targets, we are ramping up efforts to reduce our impact. Examples of initiatives include providing an air travel dashboard to help employees understand emission related to their business travel, and reducing our employee commute impact providing free electric vehicle charging stations and premium parking spaces for electric vehicle owners.
"SAS also leads by example in reducing our carbon footprint through our own sustainable initiatives ranging from energy conservation and solar projects connected by our smart campus technology to green buildings and recycling.
"Most importantly, through the enormous leverage of our global customer and partner base and our investments in education and data literacy, we can truly make an impact by working together to accelerate progress to a more sustainable world."
Computing will run the Tech Impact Conference this year, exploring the relationship between tech and the climate - including case studies about the road to net zero, how to go green in your data centre and supply chain, and how to make small changes with a big impact. For those who are passionate about the planet - and those who are more wary - there has never been a better time to get involved.
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