More than 95% of chief technology officers (CTOs) are playing a key role in embedding sustainability within their organisations, a new report by consulting firm Kearney has found.
Kearney’s report, Targets to Technology: How CTOs Are Rewiring Sustainability, surveyed 600 CTOs across eight countries, examining how sustainability has ‘moved from a policy ambition to a practical technology challenge that affects costs and efficiency’, it noted.
Energy efficiency
Respondents consistently reported prioritising renewable energy, energy efficiency, cloud optimisation and AI-driven energy management as part of their roles, with energy efficiency measures cited as having the most impact from a sustainability perspective.
As they noted, this focus is largely driven by economics rather than ideology, with reductions in energy costs quickly translating into savings and margin improvements, Kearney noted. At the same time, other sustainability initiatives, such as circularity, receive less attention due to weaker short-term business cases.
“The sustainability and technology agendas have clearly begun to overlap, with business economics at the intersect and CTOs as key actors,” commented Nigel Andrade, partner and chair of Kearney’s Strategy, Growth, and Organisation Transformation practice.
“The data shows that the adoption of sustainable practices accelerates when it aligns with economics, which is very promising to see. As the sophistication of business cases increase, we will see more overlap, more agenda alignment – and more momentum.”
Other findings from the report include that 84% of businesses are incorporating sustainability considerations into research and development decisions, however just 38% are embedding it in standard decision-making frameworks.
Elsewhere, CTOs see artificial intelligence as central to sustainability efforts, however close to two fifths (38%) cite the availability and quality of data as a major barrier, while 31% point to shortcomings in legacy infrastructure.
AI for sustainability
“Our research shows CTOs are increasingly integrating sustainability into tech decisions, with AI as a great potential to accelerate sustainable solutions,” added Angela Hultberg, global sustainability director at Kearney.
“It’s not AI or sustainability – it’s AI for sustainability. But success will depend on getting the prerequisites right. Scattered and incomplete data will become a problem when you use it to make decisions, even more so with AI. Garbage in – garbage out, as they say.”
As Kearney noted, the study concludes that sustainability delivers the greatest impact when it is ‘engineered, funded, and governed like core technology – not treated as an add-on’.
For the study, Kearney surveyed CTOs of organisations that boasted at least $1 billion in annual revenue, headquartered in the United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, Germany, UAE, South Africa, India, and Japan. Read more here.
