Digital Technologies Enable 25% Energy Consumption Reduction
Digital technologies are set to continue to have a positive impact on company’s focusing on reducing their energy consumption.
Somewhat untapped when it comes to potential, digital technologies have the potential to unlock a multitude of opportunities, with the eco-digital economy set to double by 2028 according to Capgemini, to a value close to US$33 trillion.
Its latest report, The Eco-Digital Era: The dual transition to a sustainable and digital economy, has been curated alongside developed the Digital Value Lab at Harvard’s Digital Data and Design Institute.
For the report, the Capgemini Research Institute surveyed 1,500 senior executives from 1,350 large organisations with annual revenue of more than US$1 billion, as well as 150 startups valued at more than US$1 billion, all of which are actively pursuing multiple digital initiatives and/or have a comprehensive digital strategy in place.
Highlights from Capgemini’s The Eco-Digital Era report
“In the eco-digital era, there is greater exploration of digital technologies’ value to business – for instance by the scaling of data and cloud, and by having digital technologies play a crucial role in achieving sustainability goals. There is also a fast evolution of emerging tech such as generative AI and synthetic biology, and greater collaboration giving rise to digital ecosystems,” said Dr Suraj Srinivasan, Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Head of the Digital Value Lab at the Digital Data and Design Institute at Harvard.
“This shift is truly fundamental, cross-sectoral and global in nature. One of the biggest questions that organisations have to address and manage, as they scale, is knowing what to centralise and what to decentralise in terms of platform architecture, and most importantly, data governance.”
The report found that implementing digital technologies has equipped organisations with the ability to reduce their energy consumption by almost a quarter in the last five years alone, as well as delivering a 21% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across the same period. It estimates emissions will only be cut further from here as the study predicts the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions through the use of digital technologies by 2028 will outweigh the expected increase of emissions attributed to digital.
It also concluded that almost three quarters of organisations feel digitally-driven models will be key when it comes to driving revenue growth. Shy of two thirds also anticipate this form will be more successful over traditional business models.
“The eco-digital economy is unlike anything that has come before it, and society has harnessed only a fraction of the overarching potential that mainstream technologies
such as cloud, AI, and automation hold,” added Fernando Alvarez, Chief Strategy and Development Officer at Capgemini and Group Executive Board member.
“Organisations will need to leverage focused efficiencies in their core business, enabled by digital, in order to free up investment to support their dual transition. We are at the dawn of a new transformative era and we have only scratched the surface of how digital technologies can help expedite the delivery of substantial economic, environmental and societal benefits.”
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