The Sustainability Imperative

This Advisor suggests a new framework for incorporating corporate responsibility into product design; its categories include equity and justice, transparency, health and safety impacts, circularity, and climate and ecosystem impacts. This method results in an inclusive design process that embodies corporate responsibility.

Pieter Waller, cofounder and previous chief commercial officer of Chargetrip, a leading start-up in the smart electric vehicle routing space, takes us on a journey to scale e-mobility through digital solutions. Focusing on the electrification of commercial fleets, he unpacks the multitude of constraints that complicate e-mobility scaling. Waller then provides clear managerial guidance on how to manage these constraints. Similar to the challenge in the general electricity system, the task of matching supply and demand through data must be the guiding mantra. Furthermore, companies must design a technology stack that is open to integration and allows for the coordination of multiple actors through APIs. Finally, Waller explains that given the differences in regulations and local conditions across countries and locations, a flexible and bottom-up approach to piloting and scaling smart-charging and routing applications is the key to success.

In a thought-provoking article on the butterfly effect of AI, Jonatan Pinkse, professor of sustainable business and director of the Centre for Sustainable Business at King’s College London, teamed up with René Bohnsack, professor at Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics, Portugal, where she also heads the Digital+Sustainable Innovation Lab. Since “seemingly harmless” AI applications can have adverse effects on the environment and society at large, they present a comprehensive framework for wisely managing AI for sustainability. Managers must control AI’s training data, the optimization drivers and parameters in AI algorithms, and the decisions taken based on training data and algorithms with potential biases. The authors demonstrate that successfully managing unintended consequences requires continually monitoring, measuring, modeling, and managing AI applications for sustainability.

Jannis Jehmlich, a senior product manager from 1KOMMA5, the German unicorn that set out to digitally transform the energy industry, provides a deep dive into the load management problem that comes with the integration of renewable energy sources into our energy systems. Because large-scale integration of renewables is probably the most important challenge for emission reductions, digital innovation can play a huge role. Jehmlich walks us through the complex supply and demand dynamics in Germany’s energy systems and introduces the idea of a digital power economy driven by real-time data and a dynamic electricity tariff that can solve the load management problem. However, this envisioned digital power economy depends on comprehensive data gathering through smart meters, enhanced data processing capabilities, and synchronous regulation and process changes in a heavily regulated industry.

Christina Bidmon, Laura Piscicelli, and Iryna Susha, along with Devin Diran, Francesca Ciulli, and Albert Meijer provide four core messages. First, that a successful twin transition requires rigorous conceptual and empirical research that provides us with the tools and insights to help navigate the complexities of the transition. Remarkably, the second core message entails a warning to stay clear of tech optimism, which speaks directly to issues related to unintended consequences. Digital innovation can be the key to sustainability but will not solve all our problems — often, other approaches and nature-based solutions should be prioritized. Third, Bidmon et al. highlight the need to understand the factors that facilitate or prevent collaboration for digital sustainability. Finally, the authors point out that neither policies nor businesses can achieve the twin transition alone; rather, comprehensive policies are needed to provide smart incentives for businesses to engage responsibly.

Aspen Institute Fellow Alessia Falsarone sheds light on an often-overlooked aspect of digital sustainability: the digital talent needed to manage digital sustainability solutions. Unlocking the benefits of digital sustainability and managing its unintended consequences requires the right digital talent. Falsarone’s best practices for growing the talent pool for digital climate transformations include: (1) identifying climate-resilience skills and capabilities, (2) leveraging collaborative tools and research for learning, and (3) embracing AI and feedback for advancement. Finally, going beyond the perspective of a single firm, she presents best practices for building and leveraging stakeholder networks for digital talent: leveraging living laboratories, fostering diverse networks, and championing collaborative initiatives.

Damla Diriker and Amanda J. Porter team up with Ilse Hellemans from the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) to show how we can use digital innovation for mission-oriented innovation policies. Based on several years of research and practice, they present crowdsourcing as a vehicle for mission-oriented policies. The ability of digital innovation to leverage the “wisdom of the crowd” facilitates policy agenda-setting because it allows initial broad exploration and refinement into sub-challenges. It also promotes solution development through targeted experimentation and broadens the scope of experimentation. Finally, it facilitates policy implementation by collecting local insights on planned interventions and testing and gathering feedback on implementing interventions.

This issue of Amplify offers a set of insightful articles from leading researchers and practitioners working on digital innovation for climate action. They share a common message: digital innovation can be the key to accelerated climate action if managed correctly. Of course, it will lead us directly to climate disaster if used irresponsibly. Applying the carefully crafted frameworks presented in this issue can help us avoid the latter and enable the former.