We are living in a time when everything seems to be changing. Major social transformations affect every sector, every company and every consumer. Digitalization is a striking example of this. Sustainability is also undergoing a transformation. This is moving in a similar direction: not everyone will have a sustainability role, but most positions will come into contact with it. Sustainability belongs to everyone.
Two sides of the same coin
The sustainability transformation can be compared to the digital transformation. “IT is a wonderful booster in this,” Maaike states. “It can reduce waiting times in healthcare, reduce truck travel movements or save energy through smarter designed applications.” But no matter how effective IT solutions are, it has its own impact on people and the environment. Consider the production of IT hardware and the energy consumption of the digital landscape. “This duality of the digital world should definitely not be underestimated. It brings with it a great responsibility for the IT sector. As an IT service provider, we therefore do not shy away from this responsibility. On the contrary; at Conclusion we proactively balance the duality of the resolving and burdening side of the digital world. And we make IT-related ethical issues open for discussion. Only in this way will a sustainable and digital world go hand in hand.”
IT as an important piece of the puzzle
That we must also seek the solution to the sustainability issue precisely in IT is beyond dispute, according to Maaike. “Technical innovations provide unprecedented opportunities, also in the field of sustainability. With IT, we are able to make a positive contribution to the issue, for example by using IT to help other organizations achieve their sustainability goals.” Conclusion already has great examples of this. “We guide clients from on premise to the cloud with green data centers, make wind turbines run at the right time with IoT in the energy sector and we are betting on responsible AI. In other words, we proactively use the services, knowledge and innovative power of our ecosystem to help ourselves and other organizations make responsible choices. This will not only help customers become more sustainable, but also cause a sustainable chain reaction.”
Joining forces
A chain reaction like this is necessary, because for sustainable digitalization, cooperation is a key concept. Maaike: “No one can exploit or solve the opportunities and challenges of the sustainable and digital world alone. It requires cross-sector collaborations without financial incentive, where more driving forces are needed to achieve real change. Not just the IT sector or business, science and politics have their part to play in this.” Initiating collaboration, keeping it going and bringing it to a result therefore requires “connectors". A role Conclusion is well suited to. “We are an ecosystem of independent companies that together are one,” says Maaike. “This positions us well to contribute to the solution of sustainability issues. We are therefore happy to take on the facilitating role. Because working with partners from a collective vision is the key to accelerating the journey to digital sustainability.”
Business as usual
The sustainability transformation is complex and requires responsible choices. In the journey towards a digital and sustainable future, it should therefore not be about fancy words, but about fancy deeds. “It is important for the IT sector to engage in the difficult conversations about the negative impact of IT and what we as a sector can do about it, and to do our part. So that soon sustainability - just like digitization - will be so much a part of society that it will have become business as usual. Let's bring IT and sustainability in symbiosis!”
