Computer Science and Sustainability/ESG: these two areas of expertise combine increasingly well with every passing month and year. In fact, I am tempted to say that the two worlds of sustainability and digitalisation are surprisingly similar to one another. In a number of ways – not in all, of course! – they overlap more than they differ. And mutually benefit each other.
Both areas represent critical skill-sets for boards and senior executives in the current and upcoming decades. This is why I thought I’d take the time to reflect on the overlaps, the synergies, but no doubt also the differences.
And I would say that would I not. The strange union of expertise1 that I am. MSc in Computer Science, PhD in Human-Computer Interaction … and well over a decade of strategic and hands-on sustainability expertise in consumer goods.
The pragmatic viewpoints though – whatever my personal opinion may be – talk for themselves though.
Systems thinking: A foundational skill
Understanding the impacts of digitalisation as well as ESG/sustainability aspects on a business, society requires systems thinking. And the ability to analyse built-in mechanism, inherent contradictions and system failures, recognising the exceptions and marginal cases of importance, as relevant information interfaces, as well as backdoors for fraud and tampering; and of course the related opportunities and levers for change and improvement.
For example, a reason why distributed ledger technology such as blockchain is coveted both in financial services as well as in ESG terms is for the exact same reasons:
- Recording of transactions, non-deleteable, only ammendable
- Backwards and forward traceability of transactions
- Prevention of transactional fraud and tampering
- Prevention of ID theft, and subsequent fraud and tampering
- Avoidance of a single point of failure of the system
- Automatisation allowing for real-time checking
To just name a few.
The units though are different from one context to the other. In financial services the unit is something like a banking transaction. Whereas in consumer goods the unit would be an individual physical good.
Now, distributed ledgers are a relatively recent invention and has had a number of predecessors some of which are still the factual state of the art. I only use the example here to illustrate why one technology is applicable to different context for the same reason: because the underlying systems concepts, fundamentally, are the same or extremely similar.
And unless one is able to understand the weak points of these systems, and the knock-on effects of any changes introduced, disaster will be imminent.
Automatisation is the name of the game
Digitalisation is credited for a lot of the expected efficiency gains the globe is hoping for. Anything from smart meters in the house (which btw. also can be read from remote), to our current home office set ups, never mind manufacturing robots or AI applications. If interfaces are set up suitably, data is read, distributed, digested, reported and evaluated miraculously. Prettier than we could ever hope for to achieve by running after them with with pencil and eraser.
Whether that applies to financial data, supply chain data, order status, dead stock and other inventory, failed transactions, stock option trends does not really make a fundamental difference. The technology is the same. The fundamental issues are the same. Even if, yes, the actual lines of codes are different, as are the specifics of each transaction that takes place.
Processing power is allowing us to mainstream things that only a few years ago where part of our afternoon games in the research lab only: immersive VR, digital modelling of materials and shapes with or without haptic feedback; big data and deep learning; 3D views of objects, spaces in different physical contexts; virtual models of machines that can be ‘propped’ into the interfaces of the real machine so that seconds later manufacturing starts. Or: dancing robots.
Much of that technology existed in the mid-90s already. But processing power and cost of memory came down to a fraction, making the present surge viable. And with that it allows us to automatise processes in the mainstream that research was aware of and using already a couple of decades ago. The big exception here is indeed the distributed ledger technology. Because even the cloud is per se nothing new and existed in the shape of distributed computing historically, albeit in much clunkier versions (distributed processing in so called super-computers).
And for just about any industry: Automatisation is what will make reporting interesting. Because now we can focus on what the data tells us. And have to worry less about where the data is, what data we have at all, and how we get it from A to B into format C. Automatisation is the lowest common benefit denominator of these two worlds.
The issue with business model disruption
That technology disrupts business models is nothing new. And yes, the pace has become much quicker than it used to be.
This said, the interesting part about the impact technology has is not whether or not it will disrupt (it will, no doubt about that), but the most unlikely opportunities that open up thanks to cheap processing power and memory. In other words: the ideas people have in order to make away with some pretty painful state of the art ‘things’ we all are so used to. So very much so that we take them as a given.
If the pain goes away, we do change habits and expectations for good.
As example: Amazon did not teach us first and foremost that we could buy books online. Instead it taught us to change our reading habits: From browsing and getting inspired in a book shop to making a beeline for the one book we want to read.
Catalogue and TV shopping already taught us that we could purchase goods without leaving the house. Digitalisation just added in first instance stock availability and price comparison to that. And with that made we were being made aware that not all we asked for was indeed immediately available. Or it indeed is available, but cheaper elsewhere.
We suddenly had the opportunity of choice like never before.
Transparency is the another area were we see this happening right now. Transparency used to be the farmer around the corner. His cows, his fields. But thanks to tech we get that surveillance-to-trust feeling back – even if the surveillance target is located half way around the globe.
The disruption though is rarely something radical. What makes it radical is the uptake by our society, or better: a significant minority of individuals in society. Which then again starts to trigger a shift. Why is that? Why do some things take off, and others somehow just never do?
This is the point: the shift is rarely foreseeable. When it happens it happens fairly quickly. We normally have an inkling that some technologies, trends, developments are approaching a pivot point. But by far not all of these then create waves. Some do. But why exactly those?
Usability still is an underestimated asset
One significant part of the answer to the above question is ‘usability’. Or in other words: a combination of a new tool (digital or physical) reducing the pain threshold of an activity considerably, sufficiently intuitively for any trade off to be worth it. This can be as simple as finally making an existing technology relatively simple, relatively pleasurable to use.
Mobile phones with all sorts of capabilities, including access to ‘internet’ existed for quite some time in the late 1990 and early 2000s. Japan can sing a song on that topic. But it was not until the iPhone (with its first release in 2007) made these possibilities ‘fool proof’ easy and convenient to use that a significant shift started happening.
Usability is one of the most underestimated aspects drivers in all things digitalisation, but also sustainability. Not until main thresholds are crossed, and ease of use becomes ‘simple’ such that uptake at broad scale happens.
This is very well visible at the B2C level. But even at B2B level this is the truth. The added value of doing or applying something – a standard, a tool, a novel material – needs really to solve a problem. The easier the use is, the quicker the uptake.
And this is indeed where the disruption takes place: user friendly does not necessarily mean ‘same thing but just friendlier’. It can very well mean ‘same result, but completely different approach’.
Like Netflix and streaming. Same result as TV, but removed from the pain of a fixed broadcast programme, advertisement, and on top: geared to my particular tastes.
Usability does require to question the status quo and the variables we assume as a given. This is true also for ESG issues: be it for consumer engagement and change processes in a business. Usability can also mean: broad availability, ease of access, less idle time spent. Fairtrade and organically certified products used to be difficult to get hold of. But the wider their availability the larger their take up ….
Fraud, risk, tampering: security concerns are everywhere
Both in tech and in ESG/sustainability, fraud and opportunities for fraud are the name of the game of the ‘flip side’. Be it falsified certification documents (for cotton, for gold) or security back doors, these issues are real. Where individuals and organisations know the system inside out, someone, somewhere will give it a go to use loop holes for their own benefit.
Just as real are privacy concerns and infringement in banking, the consumer goods equivalent would be: if a manufacturer of jeans is identified with address and GPS coordinates. Could that create danger for the factory workers. In banking: identifying fund managers by name may turn them into a target for criminals.
These are realities we combat. Both in tech, in tech for finance, and tech for ESG/Sustainability. With all the technologies we apply in such contexts.
The Just Transition: Nothing new under the sun, but an opportunity to do better
Often overlooked, but it cannot be possibly ignored: Digitalisation and ESG/Sustainability really hold hands when it comes to the ‘Just Transition’. Not just in Climate Change terms, but notably when it comes to the question: what about those workers whose jobs have been taken by automatisation? Or who are overwhelmed by the pace of change digitalisation brings to their jobs? Or who need upskilling, but lack fundamental education as the base of departure?
In the centuries since the industrial revolution, technological transitions have often created social misery and devide. One generation of people falling out of jobs, while the next is getting into these newly, freshly defined jobs that did not exist only some time ago. Hand-spinners and spinning factory workers for example are these juxtaposition, thanks to an invention called the ‘Spinning Jenny’.
There were thousands of workers in car factories in the 1930. But many fewer today as they work hand-in-hand with high-tech robots and conveyor belts.
This is again nothing new. But in principle we do know the cycle now. History has taught us how the innovation process sidekicks onto society.
The good news: Now, with the opportunity to bring Digitalisation and ESG together, we can also do better than our ancestors did on the human side of it all.
1 Feel in the mood for some anecdotes? Here we go: I’ve had 2 email addresses back in 1994. In 1995 I chatted online with friends all over Europe and worked remotely on machines dozens of kilometres away. Bought my first CD online via a website in 1996, and built websites for others back then too – all in HTML code. ISO9001-documented legacy systems for banks and advertisement companies as well as textile processes in 1998, 1999 and 2001. Did a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction in 2004, and a MSc in Computer-Science Education in 2005. I helped build food logistics systems for a recently founded Japanese food bank and trained the volunteers in H&S in 2007. Took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test level 2 in 2008. Built my own website in while teaching fashion designers what questions to ask when sourcing for their brand in 2010; evaluated sales turnover of inventory, dead stock and product champions in 2011. Introduced remote videoconferencing for work in 2005, webinars in 2014. Repeatedly negotiated with NGOs from 2015 to 2018, and sat on and chaired a number of steering and standards committees. Scrutinised balance sheets for an NGO merger (that eventually did not happen) in 2016. And as we speak, I am building sector wide strategies, hold CEO’s hands to get the ‘ESG’ stuff done, and help people along using the right (digital) systems to reduce workload and increase efficiencies. I still work on Linux, and have worked remotely for the better part of the last 15 years – long before Covid hit.
