In the broadest sense, sustainability is about working to preserve continuous operations over time; work that never ends in an ever-shifting landscape of challenges and opportunities.
Today, business leaders understand AI reflects both a challenge and an opportunity. AI is accelerating the discovery of lifesaving drugs and sustainable materials, optimizing supply chains and mining efforts, and supporting the transition to more renewable, decentralized electric grids. Yet AI adoption, like other major transformations, comes with new environmental challenges that force businesses to reevaluate and adapt their strategies.
For business leaders, the task ahead is how to maximize the business value of AI—delivering the results clients need better, faster and with higher quality—while minimizing its costs and environmental impacts.
New data from IBM global report The State of Sustainability Readiness 2024 shows organizations understand the enormous opportunity for AI, if implemented correctly, to drive both organizational and environmental sustainability. Of respondents:
At the same time, the report shows there is room—and need—for growth. More than half of organizations (56%) are still not actively using AI for sustainability, and 48% say investments in IT for sustainability are “one-off” rather than coming from a regular operational budget. Yet only 50% of surveyed leaders feel prepared to deal with increasingly disruptive climate risks.
Successfully operationalizing sustainability is not about an annual report, it is about using data and technology to tackle an organization’s core mission with a smart, strategic, long-term approach.
The data shows that more than ever businesses are starting to, and must, approach sustainability in its broadest sense—using every tool at their disposal to mitigate climate threats, support more streamlined and cost-efficient operations and stay competitive with their peers.