Sebastien is the VP Sales North America of Wedia [https://www.wedia-group.com/], a provider of an Enterprise Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution.
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Across the world, companies are taking steps to ensure a more ESG (environmental social governance) approach to their business. One Edelman report found [https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2020-11/Edelman%202020%20Institutional%20Investor%20Trust_FINAL.pdf] that 92% of U.S. investors stated that “a company with strong ESG performance deserves a premium valuation to its share price.”
With added pressure from objectives such as the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, [https://sdgs.un.org/fr/goals] organizations now have to set clear objectives for how they are working to reduce emissions and promote green initiatives.
As companies look at various means of becoming more sustainable, the role that technology can play in this process is significant. Some tools, like intelligent building management, facilitate more sustainable change by working on physical activity—in this case, automatically switching off lights and heating systems when areas are vacant. Others have the ability to process large amounts of data and transform that information into clear ESG reporting.
Many of these technological innovations not only allow businesses to reduce their environmental impact but also forge new processes and ways of working that enhance their growth, attract new talent and streamline ways of working.
THE ROLE OF EFFECTIVE DATA COLLECTION
In a 2022 Deloitte study [https://www2.deloitte.com/th/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/importance-of-ESG-for-businesses.html], 106 companies in Thailand were surveyed about their approach to ESG. When asked about the gaps they saw relating to fulfilling reporting requirements related to sustainability, the top response was “lack of technology for effective data collection.” From what I’ve seen, this is true for most companies.
Certain digital tools can step in here and provide vital support to businesses looking for reliable data collection. In an increasingly digital world, the amount of data generated can be overwhelming and difficult to translate into relevant and useful reporting.
Amazon, for example, released its Customer Carbon Footprint Tool, which allows users of their AWS offering to “use easy-to-understand data visualizations to report on the emissions from [their] AWS usage following Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol standards.” Microsoft does the same with its Emissions Impact Dashboard, which is related to users of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 cloud services. In this way, companies are now seeking to understand how their digital products contribute to their carbon footprint and are using dedicated tools that allow them to understand carbon-related data.
For online businesses with a large volume of digital assets, software such as a digital asset management (DAM) platform can be incredibly powerful. DAMs store a wide variety of assets (like images, videos and audio files) and can quickly understand how such assets are being used online and provide communication and marketing specialists with a detailed overview across all channels. This means experts can take action to reduce online storage, optimize each asset for the relevant channel and even put in place the automatic distribution of assets, which automatically resizes images for each user, thereby reducing bandwidth.
Many companies, particularly those spread over multiple locations, have a vast array of duplicate assets, taking up valuable space and contributing to digital emissions. Through duplicate identification and automatic metadata tagging, companies can make waves to reduce their online carbon footprint. In this way, a DAM acts as a single source of truth, keeping only the most up-to-date media.
THE RISE OF AI-POWERED SOLUTIONS FOR SUSTAINABILITY
AI technology provides another way for companies to optimize certain procedures or processes and offers real ways of cutting digital emissions. Deployed in the right way, it can have valuable input in companies’ ESG strategies.
For example, there are AI solutions on the market to help reduce food waste by automatically tracking waste in restaurants and other commercial kitchens, helping chefs pinpoint how to cut costs and save time. And Google uses AI to enhance the cooling systems in its data centers, thereby driving down energy consumption and emissions.
Here, an AI-powered DAM solution can be useful for companies in their digital ESG initiatives, particularly for the marketing and communication department.
With our DAM solution and most DAM solutions these days, AI is carefully incorporated for data tracking but also for content creation. This allows users to do things like create assets from text prompts without having to redo photoshoots or get agencies to rework artwork. This means social media assets can be easily mocked up, and existing product photoshoots can be modified to change the background or add elements such as shading or light, adapting them for new markets or audiences.
FINDING THE RIGHT TOOLS
ESG commitments can now be built into the technology of the future, shaping how individuals and businesses operate. With a multitude of solutions out there, it is important that businesses choose the ones that are going to best support them in their emission-reducing objectives.
Companies, as they work to reduce their carbon emissions, are looking to build a suite of tools that work together to be as sustainable as possible. This means, for example, opting for tools that seamlessly integrate, such as a content management system (CMS), product information management (PIM) and data and storage systems and exchange links instead of files. Working in this way is not only intuitive but avoids saving the same assets on multiple systems, therefore taking up unnecessary storage space and optimizing diffusion. Centralize data and diffuse content without having to always copy the information.
Our future is only going to become more digital, and as we work to fight rising emissions, certain technologies are going to be crucial to how we operate sustainably. Keeping pace with the changes of the present and future, it is essential companies think about the tools that will support their ESG objective. While the future looks bright, it also looks green.
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