TCS: Using AI and Digital Twins For Sustainability

Artificial intelligence's role in sustainability is complex.

While AI is a powerful tool for advancing climate goals, it also contributes to global emissions through its electricity and water consumption.

A 2025 report from TCS suggests the current technology landscape allows enterprises to balance profitability with purpose.

The TCS Digital Twindex Report details how digital twins, AI and IoT are transforming sustainability from a compliance issue into a factor of competitiveness.

The report explores how combining digital twin technology with AI is changing industries and forecasts how this integration could reshape business ecosystems by 2035.

From business risk to regenerative models

The TCS report shows sustainability is moving beyond risk mitigation to a broader regenerative business model, which focuses on restoring ecosystems in harmony with economic growth.

“The beauty of accepting climate risk as business risk means companies will take more steps to reduce the risk,” says Hemakiran Gupta, Head of Global Sustainability Services at TCS.

Using AI-powered digital twins, organisations can simulate effects across value chains to anticipate disruptions and optimise resource use.

This supports a transition from reactive business models toward circular regenerative frameworks.

Haley Price, Head of Sustainability at TCS North America, adds that businesses are aiming to become regenerative.

“A lot of times these regenerative capabilities are self-funding, which leads to the C-suite viewing sustainability efforts in a different way.”

This reframing of economics positions sustainability investments as catalysts of innovation and cost savings. For some business leaders, embedding sustainability into governance is essential.

As Ravi Prasad Nimmalapudi, Senior Director of Sustainability at The Coca-Cola Company, says in the report: “By making sustainability part of every decision, we can achieve progress today while safeguarding the world for tomorrow.”

Creating a technology ecosystem for sustainability

TCS’ findings show that emerging technologies are creating ecosystems integrating sensors, AI and digital twins to optimise environmental footprints in real time.

Hemakiran Gupta says this allows organisations to “build purpose-led resilient businesses.”

This integration of instrumentation and intelligence supports a new generation of adaptive operational platforms.

Enterprises can use large datasets from sources like energy meters and supply networks to feed AI models that forecast risks and suggest actions to improve efficiency and reduce emissions.

Jayasree Kottapalli TCS’ Head of Sustainable Solutions, notes that leaders now realise sustainability must include the supply chain, energy consumption and operations.

Digital twins act as the nerve centre for these efforts. Zeeshan Rashid, TCS Global Head Advisory for Sustainability, explains they are a “predictive brain that uses real-time sensor data to optimise operations.”

This synergy allows businesses to model and implement eco-friendly solutions. By analysing operational data, these virtual replicas identify inefficiencies and test scenarios without costly physical trials.

AI’s dual role in a sustainable future

AI accelerates sustainability by synthesising vast data points across supply chains, offering insights impossible to achieve manually.

Eric Weitzman, SVP at FactSet, notes that AI helps “quickly get a sense of the ecosystem”, something difficult years ago.

This capability enhances ESG reporting and risk assessment. However, AI's energy demands present a major challenge.

The computational intensity of training models increases energy consumption, highlighting the need for ethical AI deployment.

Haley Price says businesses must have an approach to ensure their AI efforts are “responsible, ethical, and ultimately help to make the world a better place.”

In response, organisations are using Responsible AI frameworks to balance AI's promise with its environmental footprint.

Amanda Gardiner of the UN Global Compact says AI helps turn “data into action” by equipping teams to use data strategically.

This approach ensures AI acts as a catalyst for ethical and transparent sustainability.

The integration of these technologies forms the backbone of a new industrial era defined by human-machine collaboration.