How technology can accelerate the journey towards sustainability

People around the world are demanding more progress on sustainability and social efforts and are looking to businesses to step up, according to a new study by Oracle and Pamela Rucker, CIO Advisor, Instructor for Harvard Professional Development. The “No Planet B” study surveyed more than 11,000 consumers and business leaders across 15 countries and found that people are fed up with the lack of progress society is making towards sustainability and social initiatives, want businesses to turn talk into action, and believe technology can help businesses succeed where people have failed.

The events of the past two years have put sustainability and social initiatives under the microscope and people are demanding material change. While there are challenges to tackling these issues, businesses have an immense opportunity to change the world for the better,” said Pamela Rucker, CIO Advisor and Instructor for Harvard Professional Development.

Said Juergen Lindner, senior vice president and CMO, Global Marketing SaaS, Oracle. “Business leaders understand the importance, yet often have the erroneous assumption that they need to prioritize either profits or sustainability. The truth is this is not a zero-sum game. The technology that can eliminate all the obstacles to ESG efforts is now available, and organizations that get this right can not only support their communities and the environment, but also realize significant revenue gains, cost savings, and other benefits that impact the bottom line.”

Technology major, Oracle, has recognized the immense importance of sustainability, and has accordingly taken a series of initiatives.

Says Kaushik Mitra, Senior Director, Cloud ERP, Oracle India, “Technology is the way of the future and Oracle has always been a committed stakeholder to bring forth technology-driven initiatives that support achieving sustainability goals. To achieve that, we work closely with our customers to improve data transparency, drive renewable energy adoption, improve water efficiency, and attain environmental certifications. Oracle’s cloud-based solutions are designed in a way for all sectors to realize their responsibility and help design more environmentally friendly products, source materials responsibly, and transport goods in more sustainable ways.”

Kaushik says that the Oracle Cloud provides both environmental and business benefits by leveraging the company’s experience in data center management, maximizing energy efficiency, using renewable energy, promoting a sustainable supply chain, and optimizing the reuse and recycling of aging equipment. “We also have industry-specific solutions such as demand management for utilities that help in managing demand to reduce peak loads and minimize power generation requirements.”

Today, several major global and Indian businesses have begun taking steps by utilizing smart tech through their strategic cloud providers. The company’s cloud products, such as ERP and SCM solutions, are used by companies to promote sustainable growth. Brands like Apollo Tyres, and Benzlers Radicon Group have achieved major benefits such as reduced carbon emissions, operational cost, workload, and waste management by embracing cloud technologies, hence promoting both economic and sustainable development.

Says Satish Sharma, President, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, Apollo Tyres Ltd, “At Apollo Tyres, sustainability is at the core of our business, and we are looking to tackle it in multiple ways. I think improving efficiencies in the supply chain can certainly make an impact in our sustainability journey. We are trying to set up an integrated supply chain and the underlying foundation of this is data which when strategically integrated using automation and transport management applications over cloud, will help us in proper optimization of transport of our finished goods. Technology is helping us in demand planning, truck availability, shipments planning and productions and optimizing our assets better and reducing extra miles travelled by our trucks, directly reducing the carbon footprint. Further, we have embarked on a novel approach of making the delivery of our tyres green by using EVs for last mile delivery. This falls under Scope 3 or Value Chain Emissions, which refers to the reduction of carbon emissions emanating out of the value chain of any entity including its upstream and downstream set of activities.”

Adds Kapil Mahajan, Group CIO, Safexpress, “Thanks to Oracle, we have succeeded in faster onboarding and integration of customers with a 30% average reduction in overall time and effort. Further, we have achieved optimization of supply chain with operational efficiencies and a cost reduction of around 10%. Our employees enjoy more efficient task allocation, autonomy within their roles, and better accuracy in their work resulting in increased CSAT’s and higher employee morale. Safexpress is committed to sustainable growth by reducing the carbon footprint through our ‘Go Green’ initiatives. Our adoption of Oracle WMS platform was pivoted around agility and sustainability achieved via paperless operations, increased accuracy and efficiency of our overall logistics operations.”

The importance of ESG for organizations
With the world increasingly preferring sustainable goals, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is one of the top priorities for businesses today, as we would definitely like to leave a world that is ‘Net Zero’ for ourselves and the Generation Next.

Explains Kaushik Mitra, “Over the last few years, there is increasing interest in companies, their investors, and other stakeholders on ESG, owing to the growing concerns about the ethical status of organizations. These standards are the central factors that evaluate the ethical impact and sustainability of investment in any company. Technology definitely has a significant impact on advancing ESG goals and businesses can do so by evangelizing the use of emerging technologies in their organization, this holds the promise of putting the world on a much more sustainable path. Technology cuts across infrastructure including consolidation of Data Centre, by migrating to Cloud, thus using emerging technologies like Big Data, AI, and IoT to increase efficiencies and reduce waste, and by optimizing operations, using modern Cloud-based Applications. There are plenty of examples of such optimizations. For example, Unilever, one of the leading global providers of food, home, and personal care products with sales in over 190 countries (including India) is reaching out to over 2 billion consumers a day and reducing CO2 emissions. India is one of the key markets for the brand, and they are driving sustainability, improving load optimization, and lowering transport costs with the help of Oracle’s transportation management solution. Another noteworthy example would be Oracle Cloud Procure to Pay solutions, wherein suppliers share the invoices in soft copy format instead of a hard copy. Also, Expense Management solutions make booking and expense claims online thereby making the process seamless and efficient. Both these applications help in managing paper usage better, which helps the cause of sustainability. Similarly, Benzlers Radicon Group, a leading manufacturer and have introduced paperless invoicing to automate their entire process for invoice delivery. Finally, Analytics Platforms provided by Oracle, help in monitoring sustainability parameters set in the system and thereby help in effective decision making leading to improvement in ESG parameters in organizations.”