Business leaders are increasingly embracing data collection and analytics to power sustainable business decisions. Major decisions critically rely on data ecosystems, and it is clear that sustainability decisions are quickly following suit.
Before taking environmental action, companies must first understand the scale and composition of their impact. After all, history has shown that leaders struggle to manage what they cannot properly measure.
To help companies make the most out of the digital transformation, we have identified three necessary foundations necessary to realize digital sustainability transformation:
First, we highlight the necessity of properly embedding philosophies and resources into company culture to catalyze digital transformation. Secondly, we stress the importance of standardization to ensure that similar benchmarks and reporting methodologies are integrated across the board. Finally, we emphasize the importance of collaboration, interactions, and collation, as we cannot advance nearly as quickly in a silo.
Foundations for Sustainable Business Decisions
A robust analytics capability is critical to inform sustainable business decisions and accelerate digital transformation. Organizations will need to invest in philosophies and resources to ensure proper implementation.
Philosophically, a company’s culture must be committed to environmental transparency and accountability. Just as a company considers its stakeholder returns with every decision, it must also evaluate its environmental impact.
Defining actionable environmental KPIs will help to promote this ideology through the entire organizational structure. In addition, a data-driven culture will enable decision-makers to align sustainable decisions with insight rather than instinct.
Once the strategic guardrails are set, companies need to allocate and implement the correct resources. Because the sustainability sector is still nascent, the correct resources will often need to be hired or onboarded. It is essential to integrate actors who can understand the nuances of ESG factors, carbon and plastic footprints, and other metrics depending on organizational structure.
Integrated philosophies and resources optimize data-driven sustainable business solutions and inevitably influence deeply embedded ideas about value creation, competitive advantage, and thought leadership.
Harmonized Sustainability Strategies
To generate consistency and transparency, data collection and analytics should be aligned with standardized frameworks and methodologies. Establishing a commonly fluent conversation across industries will develop a uniform system for goals, claims, and action.
An example of a universal standard is the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. This framework has been developed under a multistakeholder initiative and is commonly known as the world’s most widely used methodology to quantify greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly every Fortune 500 company reports on its carbon footprint using this protocol.
Aligning companies with established standards will drive trust from customers, investors, and regulators. Additionally, utilizing established standards can save time and result in a straightforward path to action.
If our society is intent on meeting the IPCC’s climate pathways of decarbonization, we must achieve sustainability at scale. A common system is crucial to accelerate change and achieve systemic progress.
Collaboration is Key
The concept of “we are all in this together” is even more prominent when considering the health of our climate.
Data may hold the key to optimizing alignment between policymakers, companies, and individuals. Therefore, sustainability data must flow between academia, legislators, and the private sector to achieve scale and sustained impact.
Two business ideologies will help to establish collaborative change. The first is a dedication to transparency. Data transparency is the first step toward setting actionable targets and allowing others to create shared accountability.
The second is an eagerness to form alliances. Aligning sectors will spur transformation and open the door for information to flow. By sharing information: resources, capital, and capabilities can work together in ways not achievable in silo.
Connecting through transparent partnerships will help to improve the sustainable business decisions of all actors. An open mind, a tolerance for risk, and a willingness to collaborate will ensure the lessons of one become the learnings of us all.
Opening Doors in an Uncertain World
Data-driven sustainable business decisions become vastly more attainable when the proper foundation is in place, standardization is ubiquitous, and collaboration is prioritized. Companies can then utilize collective data to optimize the time and energy to make complex sustainable business decisions.
By partnering with data providers, environmental accounting platforms, and established experts, companies can remove the entry barrier and ensure all decisions are formulated with the highest level of precision.
Ampliphi’s automated platform helps companies harness the power of collective data. The platform is built around Ampliphi’s science-based methodology, forming the foundation for an actionable approach to environmental accounting. Explore our suite of intelligent environmental solutions to help your organization get started.