Sustainable Processes and Systems: Implementing Sustainability with Digital Technologies
Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2025 6:22 am
At the beginning of 2023, the requirements for the disclosure of sustainability-relevant information and targets were tightened again for many companies. Violation not only means the risk of reputational damage, but in case of doubt also hefty fines of up to 10 million euros or 5 percent of annual turnover. Around 15,000 companies in Germany and around 50,000 in the EU will be affected by this by 2028. The situation is almost analogous with the Supply Chain Act, which affects every company with over 3,000 employees this year and every company with over 1,000 employees from next year.
However, for forward-thinking companies, achieving sustainability goals means much more than just meeting compliance requirements. They simply want to be better at what they do. More efficient, more effective, more cost-conscious and more resilient, and that also brings sustainability with it. In the last blog post on the role of sustainability data, we looked at why you first have to understand sustainability in order to avoid falling into ineffective actionism. However, sustainability is not created with data alone. In this blog post, we therefore look at how you can use this basis to make informed decisions in order to become truly more sustainable, supported by technology.
challenges
Sustainability is a complex field of action. It is about environmental turkey consumer email list​ impacts (ecological sustainability), social issues (social sustainability) and ultimately the whole thing has to be economically viable (economic sustainability). Each of these dimensions presents its own challenges and so the question often arises: "Where do we even start?"
If we take a look at the ecological dimension, it is about much more than just CO2 emissions. In the future, companies will also have to take their water consumption, waste and other environmental impacts into account when they publish their sustainability report as part of the new reporting requirements. Since the reports are audited by external third parties, they must also be just as robust as the financial report. For companies, this means that the time has now come for real changes towards more sustainable business models. Companies must actively avert sustainability risks and optimize their own processes so that their environmental impact is minimized. However, due to the complexity, diversity and heterogeneity of the data sources and the large number of stakeholders involved, this cannot work without digital technologies. Due to these challenges, we focus on the ecological dimension of sustainability in this article.
However, for forward-thinking companies, achieving sustainability goals means much more than just meeting compliance requirements. They simply want to be better at what they do. More efficient, more effective, more cost-conscious and more resilient, and that also brings sustainability with it. In the last blog post on the role of sustainability data, we looked at why you first have to understand sustainability in order to avoid falling into ineffective actionism. However, sustainability is not created with data alone. In this blog post, we therefore look at how you can use this basis to make informed decisions in order to become truly more sustainable, supported by technology.
challenges
Sustainability is a complex field of action. It is about environmental turkey consumer email list​ impacts (ecological sustainability), social issues (social sustainability) and ultimately the whole thing has to be economically viable (economic sustainability). Each of these dimensions presents its own challenges and so the question often arises: "Where do we even start?"
If we take a look at the ecological dimension, it is about much more than just CO2 emissions. In the future, companies will also have to take their water consumption, waste and other environmental impacts into account when they publish their sustainability report as part of the new reporting requirements. Since the reports are audited by external third parties, they must also be just as robust as the financial report. For companies, this means that the time has now come for real changes towards more sustainable business models. Companies must actively avert sustainability risks and optimize their own processes so that their environmental impact is minimized. However, due to the complexity, diversity and heterogeneity of the data sources and the large number of stakeholders involved, this cannot work without digital technologies. Due to these challenges, we focus on the ecological dimension of sustainability in this article.