What is digital sustainability? And why is it a crucial topic for businesses nowadays? In this article, Deborah O'Neill, partner and head of digital for the UK and Ireland at Oliver Wyman, and Mariane ter Veen, director of data sharing at INNOPAY, discuss these topics and share their vision of a digitally sustainable future.
“The digital future must be built on trust, data sovereignty, and robust cybersecurity measures,” say the two industry-leading experts. “This starts with providing a comprehensive framework that ensures long-term value, transparency, and equity for all stakeholders.”
Deborah emphasizes the urgency of transitioning to sustainable digital practices. “In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations must untether themselves from outdated systems and embrace modern, efficient infrastructures that promote long-term sustainability,” she states. Her work revolves around helping companies in their digital transformation, with a focus on building self-sufficient engineering and delivery capabilities that are adaptable and secure.
Mariane underlines the broader implications beyond environmental impacts. “Digital sustainability is about more than just reducing the ecological footprint of technology. It’s about generating long-term value, transparency, and equity for all stakeholders involved,” she explains. She advocates for secure and trusted data ecosystems that allow individuals and organizations to maintain control over their data. This ‘data-sovereign’ approach contributes to sustainable relationships, ensuring a continuous flow of data. In turn, this data can inspire new business models and drive innovation.
5 pillars for digital sustainability in business strategy
1. Creating alignment for digital sustainability in business
Organizations must optimize their systems and processes to ensure that digital sustainability initiatives are fully integrated with broader business objectives. This enables companies to change and adapt to maintain alignment between their operations and strategic goals, ensuring long-term success and efficiency. Every digital initiative should support the company’s strategic objectives for sustainable development.
A key component of this adaptability is increasing the digital skills in the organization, effective workforce planning, optimizing talent management, and ensuring the right resources are in place to support sustainable growth. In other words, digital sustainability should not be an afterthought but a core part of the business strategy. Every digital initiative should support the company’s strategic objectives for sustainable development.
2. Building trust and data sovereignty in digital transformation
Data sovereignty refers to allowing individuals and organizations to maintain control over their information, while ensuring that data is managed in compliance with local regulations. This is crucial because it empowers individuals and organizations to decide how and under what conditions their data is shared, and safeguards privacy and security.
Organizations need to ensure that their data practices are transparent and equitable. Stakeholders need to feel valued and that their data is secure, which builds trust.
3. Creating internal awareness and transparent communication
Comprehensive educational initiatives and transparent communication are necessary to foster a deeper understanding of digital sustainability. The first step is to create awareness within the organization about the importance of digital sustainability so that business leaders understand the value of integrating it into their overall strategy. Organizations need to clearly set out their goals, so staff feel empowered to and excited about being part of the process. Next, the organization should clearly communicate its own digital sustainability vision, data practices, and sustainability efforts so that all internal stakeholders can internalize and act on them.
Continuous education helps employees to stay ahead of emerging risks. Regular workshops and training sessions are essential to keep teams updated on the latest security threats, data management practices, regulatory changes, and innovative technologies. Such activities also fit well with a broader focus on enhancing employees’ digital skills in order to safeguard the company’s organizational sustainability.
4. Practical implementation through data ecosystems
One challenge when sharing data is to ensure that the benefits of that data are fairly distributed. Data ecosystems or data spaces are secure and trusted environments where data can be shared in a decentralized manner, and where data sovereignty and the benefit balance are prioritized. Thanks to agreed policies and rules, everyone knows their role in the ecosystem and understands the business value of sharing data and how to create value with it.
By facilitating the flow of data across sectors and borders while protecting sensitive information, data ecosystems enhance collaboration. Leveraging data ecosystems enables organizations to improve operational efficiency and tackle industry-specific challenges more effectively. Ecosystem thinking also fosters innovation as the basis for future success. The uptake of AI is making it increasingly important for companies to organize access to business data, both their own data, and data within their wider ecosystem.
5. Regulatory compliance and standards in digital sustainability
Organizations can set themselves apart in terms of their commitment to digital sustainability by adhering to the highest standards of data protection and security. This demonstrates that their digital sustainability-related measures are comprehensive and effective.
The regulatory framework can play a strong role in shaping a more digitally sustainable future. For example, the European Union’s data strategy, which focuses on creating a single market for data, is pivotal. It promotes data sovereignty and ensures that data rights and privacy are protected through regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Governance Act (DGA), and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA).
A call to action: embracing digital sustainability for long-term success
O’Neill and Ter Veen have a powerful call to action for business leaders. “Digital sustainability is not just a buzzword. It’s a critical component of modern business strategy that offers significant economic and social benefits,” O’Neill emphasizes.
“Organizations need to start today,” Ter Veen urges. “By integrating digital sustainability into their core strategies, businesses can build trust, foster innovation, and ensure long-term success.”
The two experts are committed to promoting digital sustainability and helping business leaders navigate the complexities of the digital age with confidence and responsibility. They aim to set a new standard for safe, secure and value-added data sharing, paving the way for a more equitable and sustainable digital future.