Addressing the Sustainability in Technology Conundrum

When you’ve been in the technology mix for a while, you bear witness to your fair share of horizon events. Bubbles that have blown and burst, pocket-sized consumer tech that reshaped society and now the heralding of a new economic and technological age courtesy of AI.

But one of the most urgent, and oft neglected, impacts on our sector is sustainability.

Every global organisation worth its salt has a well-funded ESG programme with sincere sustainability commitments but, as an industry, can we honestly say these programmes are fully integrated into the solutions we provide and the services we offer? I’m not convinced, on the whole, that we can.

This is the conundrum that we, as technologists, are all facing. How to drive sustainability efforts that are intrinsically linked to our offerings (and that are commercially viable) whilst also contributing to our customers achieving their own sustainability goals. At Version 1, we’re at an inflection point when it comes to sustainability. This is a clear strategic priority for us and we recognise that this is something our customers want substantial action on too. But we want to go beyond that.

Version 1 CTO Brad Mallard discusses the technology and sustainability conundrum.

That’s why in 2024 we, as an organisation, have decided to redouble our focus on sustainability in technology and explore the tangible connection between the two in much greater detail. But what does that mean? Well, for a start, you can expect to see a number of reports and blog posts (like this one) from thought leaders across our organisation as they share their own exploration journeys deeper into this subject.

How to drive sustainability efforts that are intrinsically linked to our offerings (and that are commercially viable) whilst also contributing to our customers achieving their own sustainability goals.

And that’s the key word here: journey. We don’t have all the answers, nor do we claim to, but we know we can’t wait for perfection. This subject is too important, too disruptive, too big not to try and tackle it head on. The journey has to start somewhere and that’s why we wanted to lay down a marker.

Over the coming weeks and months, you’ll also see a number of campaigns hit the market and events hit the schedule. This will be part of a strategic effort to raise awareness about innovations in sustainable technology and supply chains, but also to start conversations and stir debates.

We have three sustainability pillars on which we’ll be building out activity from. We call them the 3 Ds:

• Decarbonising digital
• Diversifying digital
• Dividends of digital sustainability

You’ll be hearing a lot more about the 3 Ds in due course as well as some thought-provoking, dare I say, controversial perspectives on what the future of work could look like when organisations fully embrace a sustainable approach to technology services and solutions.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to embracing imperfection in the pursuit of discovery. Remember, the journey is often the destination.

Stay tuned for more blogs from Brad and Version 1 thought leaders on sustainability and other important issues. If you want to discover what makes Version 1 different and get more of Brad’s perspectives on technology, be sure to follow him on LinkedIn.