Digital development is like a double-edged sword and now more than ever, it’s time to understand its power
Photo: Juho Länsiharju
Why do plastic straws get more media attention than the sustainability of digitalisation? The carbon footprint of the ICT sector is on par with that of air travel, yet awareness of this issue has only begun to emerge in recent years. Or to be honest — we’re not even waking up yet, just rubbing the digital sleep from our eyes.
Sustainability strategies still rarely extend to companies' digital development, and the impact of digital services, whether their footprint or handprint, is not considered part of sustainability in most Finnish companies. You can easily verify this claim by asking a company executive what sustainability means to them. Their answer will likely focus on CSRD reporting or strategy, with hardly a word about digital development.
Digitalisation is like a double-edged sword
Digitalisation is like a double-edged sword that we need to start taking seriously. It has immense potential to shape both positive and negative futures, for you, your loved ones, and your children. Are we really going to allow companies to create digital services that work against international agreements like the Paris Agreement? Are we going to let Finnish companies develop services that go against the UN’s Agenda 2030 climate goals? Right now, the answer is yes.
We are creating a world based on "we do what’s ordered" instead of "we do what has a positive impact." It’s not that companies don’t want to do good, but there simply isn’t the bandwidth for it. Can we afford to do digital business without keeping a sustainability hat on? My answer is, yes, we can afford it, but not in the long run. Those who are ahead of the game now, with sustainability in mind, will be the ones who win and collect the rewards.
Technology can perpetuate inequality and undermine democracy, but it can also create peace – what will we choose?
Technology is known to deepen injustice, maintain inequality and undermine democracy through cyber warfare, AI-driven propaganda and surveillance systems. However, it also has the potential to revolutionise peace building, promote collaboration and accelerate sustainable innovation. AI can predict conflicts, blockchain can enhance transparency and digital platforms can connect stakeholders to solve global challenges.
The question is: what kind of world do we want to build and who is responsible for ensuring that we even have a direction for digitalisation? Who interprets the responsibility strategies to guide digital development? Or perhaps we should think about this differently: could digital technology be the guiding force for businesses?
The IT sector has been at the forefront of corporate culture, innovation, processes and business model development for decades. Interdisciplinary teams are richer in ideas and the often undervalued psychological safety in IT companies is the perfect breeding ground for systemic thinking. These, we, magical IT people, see opportunities for your business in sustainability.
The responsibility of businesses in wielding digital power is substantial
I believe that businesses’ responsibility in relation to digital power and the direction of digitalisation will be significant. This is not about an alternative, optional direction; the path must be taken radically, by deciding what cause we are willing to stake our chips on and what we are ready to take our chips off. Will we choose AI to enhance humanity and services for well-being or will we opt for an unethical, corrupt alternative, where the consumer is not allowed to make a choice, but a decision is made on their behalf for the sake of maximising profit?
Digital development, since the early days of the internet, has been about optimising processes and systematically and automatically creating value, but at what cost? Digitalisation has brought peace and created much good, but it has also led to an imbalance on our planet. Consumer-driven digitalisation alone has led to the limits of both people and the planet being stretched to the breaking point.
I would like to raise another important question in the digital discussion: Are we creating silos and separations, detaching things from one another (people from people, humans from nature, nature from nature), or are we creating connections?
The rise of ecosystem services
Sustainability actions are primarily the deeds through which businesses can reconnect the broken links between nature and human systems, and/or create new connections. We are talking about ecosystem services, which offer enormous market potential because business models are both sustainable and diverse. They are based primarily on creating value with stakeholders, rather than just focusing on consumerism.
We haven’t yet challenged our creativity to create planet-centric and sustainable digital services and business models because we’re stuck in the old ways, and no one is yet pushing us to the edge. But could stepping to the edge open up new growth opportunities, new innovations, new perspectives, and new value-creation spaces? My answer is yes! We have the opportunity to create planetary well-being, where both people and the planet thrive.
But are we ready for this? Is your company ready to take a radical direction? If your answer is maybe, I challenge you to try and step into the realm of possibilities. You might be sitting on a flow of revenue without even realising it.