Sustainability Magazine - April 2023

ERNST & YOUNG ON HOW CSO s ARE NAV I GAT ING

ECONOM I C HEADWI NDS

We speak to Steve Varley , EY’s Global Vice Chair of Sustainability, to discuss his insights

IKEA

MAKING GREENER CHOICES WITH DEMOCRATIC DESIGN

ESG DATA: HOW INTELLIGENT SOFTWARE CAN KEEP YOU AHEAD

LOWERING EMISSIONS IN A CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Are you looking to be ahead of the curve on all sustainability topics? To become a part of the conversation, cement existing relationships, and make meaningful new business connections?

On April 19th 2023, Sustainability LIVE New York is bringing together the greatest voices in the industry to further the discussion about what should, can, and must be done for a sustainable future. Brought to you by BizClik, and in association with Sustainability Magazine, this exclusive one-day virtual event, which includes renowned keynote speakers, engaging fireside chats, and panel discussions are a crucial deep dive into challenges facing the future of sustainability, net zero, and ESG.

It’s time for DISRUPTION.

Sponsorship Opportunities

This is your chance to share your innovations with the Sustainability community by making an impact in front of fellow groundbreakers, decision-makers and influencers at Sustainability LIVE New York 2023.

Position your business as a pioneer in Sustainability, access thousands of potential partners and influence businesses at the highest level.

Both global giants and innovative start-ups alike can discover the ideal platform with easy access to an engaged and active audience.

See you on 19th April 2023

Be part of the revolution. One of the innovators changing the industry by doing things differently. It’s time to change the rules of the game.

▶ Watch our promo video for Sustainability LIVE New York Virtual 2023

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

CAMERON SAUNDERS

CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER

SCOTT BIRCH

MANAGING EDITOR

NEIL PERRY

PROOFREADER

JESS GIBSON

CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER

MATT JOHNSON

HEAD OF DESIGN ANDY WOOLLACOTT

LEAD DESIGNER

MIMI GUNN

issue!

The Sustainability Team

FEATURE DESIGNERS

MIMI GUNN

SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL

HECTOR PENROSE

SAM HUBBARD

JUSTIN SMITH

REBEKAH BIRLESON

ADVERT DESIGNERS

JORDAN WOOD

CALLUM HOOD

DANILO CARDOSO

VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER

KIERAN WAITE

SENIOR VIDEOGRAPHER

HUDSON MELDRUM

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

MARTA EUGENIO

ERNEST DE NEVE

THOMAS EASTERFORD

DREW HARDMAN

JOSEPH HANNA

SALLY MOUSTAFA

JINGXI WANG

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN

DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ

PRODUCTION MANAGERS

JANE ARNETA

MARIA GONZALEZ

CHARLIE KING

YEVHENIIA SUBBOTINA

MARKETING MANAGER

LAUREN ALICE TYE

PROJECT DIRECTORS

TOM LIVERMORE

MEDIA SALES DIRECTOR

LEWIS HAMMOND

MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

CEO

GLEN WHITE

MARCHING INTO ECONOMIC HEADWINDS SUSTAINABLY

Find out the latest in what companies and industries are doing to stay ahead of the curve as uncertainty becomes the economic game of the day

The spectre of economic uncertainty is rising in the world. There’s the war in Ukraine, the fluctuations of inflation, and a looming economic recession, all of which have all caused anxiety among economic watchers. Companies have to stay ahead of the game to ensure that they do not compromise their sustainability values.

In this issue, we look at what EY has to say about this matter. What, it is asked, must be done by Chief Sustainability Officers to ensure that companies stay on their game?

Elsewhere in this issue, we take a closer look at what Swedish furniture and homewear giant IKEA does to lower its carbon footprint. There are also features on the circular economy – the adoption of which provides hope for the future – as well as another on what the fossil fuel industry has been doing to keep its emission level low.

CAMERON SAUNDERS

editorial@bizclikmedia.com

“The spectre of economic uncertainty is rising in the world”

CONTENTS

014 BIG PICTURE

Coastlines, as seen from space

016 THE BRIEF

The latest insights from the world of sustainability

018 TIMELINE

The history of global warming in the 20th Century

020 TRAILBLAZER

Science that feeds the world, with Dr. Pamela Ronald

024 FIVE MINS WITH Falk Rieker, Global Head of Banking at SAP

UP FRONT WOMEN

FEATURES

052 EY

The state of sustainability: Ernst & Young’s take

086 ESG

Green energy and democratic design across the Ingka Group

110 NET ZERO

A sustainable future for fossil fuels?

132 SUPPLY CHAIN SUSTAINABILITY

Lowering emissions in a circular economy

156 TOP 1 0 Women in Sustainability

COMPANY REPORTS

030 CLOUD TRANSFORMATION

Transformation to the Cloud helping airline group soar to its goals

060 SCALA DATA CENTERS

Bringing hyperscale to the LATAM market

098 EXA INFRASTRUCTURE

Enabling + expanding data centre interconnectivity

118 G4S

Driving towards net zero across its UK vehicle fleet

140 ZURICH INSURANCE

Zurich France: driving change in insurance risk resilience

Innovators are paving the way for a more resilient, sustainable and efficient future. The rules have changed. It’s time for DISRUPTION.

Tech LIVE Virtual returns to highlight the innovators changing the industry through expert keynote speakers, interactive fireside and panel discussions. This exclusive 1-day virtual event will bring together the greatest voices in the industry for an essential deep dive into the future of Technology, AI and Cyber.

Brought to you by BizClik, Technology, AI and Cyber Magazines, the event will shine a light on essential topics such as the AI revolution, quantum computing, the virtual workplace, technology’s place in sustainability and much more.

It’s time for DISRUPTION.

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This is your chance to share your innovations with the technology community by making an impact in front of fellow decision-makers and influencers as well as accessing potential partners via an active and engaged audience.

See you on the 8th June 2023.

▶ Watch our showreel from TECH LIVE London 2022

BIG PICTURE

Coastlines, as seen from space

Somewhere off the coast of Argentina

The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in phytoplankton blooms in our oceans – a phenomenon stemming from rising sea temperatures that can cause a loss of oxygen and light reaching the water’s depths. As you can probably imagine, this causes widespread suffocation of marine life.

Mapping these bloom patterns across the planet must be both thorough and extensive if it is to be accurate enough to inform environmental policymaking.

NASA is fully on-board with this plan: between 2003 and 2020, the space agency took 760,000 photographs of these blooms, allowing for a detailed map to be generated.

Image credit: Joshua Stevens, NASA Earth Observatory Taken on November 21, 2022, with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.

THE BRIEF

Robust conversations need to happen at an operational and board level. How far ahead of the curve does the C-suite want to be? What’s your risk appetite?

Steve Varley Global Vice Chair – Sustainability, Ernst & Young

The rice breeding and genetics community are close, and we share a common goal: to help smallholder farmers grow rice in a manner that will alleviate challenges and enhance food security

Dr. Pamela Ronald Professor, Plant Pathologist, Geneticist, Department of Plant Pathology and Genome Center, University of California, Davis

5.5mn 5.5mn

people from 157 countries sign a petition demanding a strong Global Ocean Treaty at the UN.

US AND EU PARTNERSHIP TO USE AI TO IMPROVE CLIMATE FORECASTING

The two major trends in sustainability for 2023? The deployment of AI and government intervention & investment. Both themes overlapped in the recent announcement of a partnership between the US and the EU – the two biggest economic blocks of the Western world – to work together to speed up the use of AI for agriculture, healthcare, and climate forecasting. The administrative arrangement will bring together experts from across the US and Europe to further research AI, computing, and related privacy-protecting technologies, as underscored in the US-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) commitment, which in December outlined a Joint Roadmap on Evaluation and Measurement Tools intended to inform the TTC on the approach to AI risk management and trustworthy AI on both sides of the Atlantic.

BMW hydrogen-powered cars come off the assembly line

With an eye to the future, the new iX5 Hydrogen model is being sent for demonstration around the world. It can refill its two hydrogen tanks in under four minutes and has a range of over 300 miles.

READ MORE

Canada implements measures to grow green workforce

In-keeping with the more muscular stances that governments have taken to sustainability over the last year, Canada has invested considerably in developing its green workforce.

READ MORE

Mondelez International pushes regenerative agriculture

Across the industry, big agra is looking at what it can do to meet the challenges of the day. Mondelez International has committed itself to regenerative agriculture across its European operations.

READ MORE

 CITY OF LONDON SQUARE MILE

A proposal from the City of London Corporation would create a new ‘brightness zone’ to dim the lights of skyscrapers to reduce light pollution and save energy.

If adopted the project could help the area reach the target of hitting carbon net zero in the Square Mile by 2040.

 PLASTICS INDUSTRY

Research from the 5 Gyres Institute is warning plastic clean up in the oceans is ‘futile’ if production is continued at the current rate.

The study evaluated trends in ocean plastic from 1979 to 2019 and is blaming the plastics industry for not putting enough focus on recyclability.

THE HISTORY OF

GLOBAL WARMING

When our grandparents were young, it’s likely they didn’t know what global warming was, so initially imperceptibly did it arrive. How did the trajectory of climate awareness change in the latter half of the 20th century?

1938

1896

THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT IS PROPOSED

The noted Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius predicted that a greenhouse effect could be possible in the event that carbon dioxide levels rise in the atmosphere.

THE TEMPERATURE RISE IS FIRST DISCOVERED

Amateur scientist Guy Callendar went about the process of painstakingly collecting records from 147 weather stations around the world. Upon analysis, he discovered that the average global temperature had risen by 0.3°C over the last 50 years. Callendar correctly surmised that this rise was due to increasing CO² levels in the atmosphere.

1958

CO² LEVELS RISE ON ACCOUNT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

In a seminal study, young postgraduate geochemist Dr. Charles Keeling determined that CO² levels were rising. His further analysis of CO² samples attributed this rise to fossil fuels. His research led to the development of the ‘Keeling Curve’, an upward moving arc that documents CO² changes in the atmosphere over time.

WARMING

IN THE 20 TH CENTURY

1967 CLIMATE CHANGE GETS A COMPUTER MODEL

Researchers Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald create an accurate computer model of the planet’s changing climate. Their model allows them to adjust CO² levels to see how that would affect global temperatures. They estimated that their contemporary CO² levels would raise global temperatures by 2°C.

1985 HOLE IN THE OZONE LAYER IS DISCOVERED

The hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic became perhaps the most potent symbol of a warming world, as climate change rose in the public’s consciousness. The hole was pinned on the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), compounds found in aerosol cans and fridges. Use of these CFCs would be heavily reduced – and then banned – as a result.

1997 THE KYOTO PROTOCOL

It may have taken a few decades, but the global community had awoken to the gravity of the situation at hand. In response, the United Nations began to have annual Conferences of the Parties (COPs), aiming to arrive at a global consensus with regards to climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted at COP3 in 1997 and required signatories to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 6-8% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

Loathsome as it is to deploy trite literary cliches, forgive me this one: it is impossible to overstate the importance of rice for humanity. A cereal grain, it is the staple food for over half of the world’s population (especially in Asia and Africa) and, in providing one-fifth of the cumulative caloric intake for human beings, is indisputably the single most significant food crop we have ever cultivated. Cultures flourish, empires rise and fall, thanks to the stuff.

There is one catch, though: it must grow in water, thus those artfully irrigated fields in which the farmer toils, legs submerged to knee height. And, conversely, this means that the cultivation of rice – that crop upon which so many of us depend – is highly susceptible to being ruined by flooding. Nutritional disaster ensues.

This makes the work and accomplishments of Dr. Pamela Ronald of near unfathomable consequence. She is a Plant Pathologist and Geneticist, currently working as a Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and

Genome Center at the University of California, Davis, and is a member of the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley.

Her great accomplishment – achieved with colleagues David Mackill and Kenong Xu – was the pinpointing and isolation of Sub1A, a submergencetolerant gene in the rice genome that allows the rice plant to withstand flooding while still producing a high-yield crop after flood waters recedes.

Her story is one of those quintessentially American ones: her father was a Holocaust survivor who, after 12 years of being “stateless” and roaming in search of an education, would eventually settle in Northern California. It was in this region of outstanding beauty that Ronald’s mother introduced her to the wonders of nature, instilling in her an appreciation for native ecosystems and the importance of conserving pristine wilderness. It was while exploring this wilderness that she first encountered botanists (who were identifying wildflowers), realising that she could make a profession out of studying plants.

As global warming raises the spectre of food scarcity, we look to the ingenuity of scientists like Dr. Pamela Ronald for hope

“I hoped my world could eventually be applied to help subsistence farmers, many of whom live on less than $3 a day”

Credit: Bret Hartman/TED

“The rice breeding and genetics community are close, and we share a common goal: to help smallholder farmers grow rice in a manner that will alleviate challenges and enhance food security”

Pamela Ronald: The case for engineering our food

Reed College in Portland, Oregon and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California ensued, where she earned a BA and an MA in biology at both institutions, respectively. A Fulbright Scholarship brought her to Sweden, where she obtained a second MA in plant physiology. The educational capstone would be a PhD. – completed in 1990 – in molecular and physiological plant biology from UC Berkeley. It was during this postdoc that she felt the draw of rice, an inclination

stemming from the aforementioned fact that it feeds half of the world’s population: “I hoped my world could eventually be applied to help subsistence farmers, many of whom live on less than $3 a day.”

Work on identifying and mapping key rice genes was a collaborative effort, with the research spanning the globe, from rice farmers in Vietnam to she and her colleagues working in a laboratory at UC Davis. Ronald notes that “the rice breeding and genetics community are close, and we share a common goal: to help smallholder farmers grow rice in a manner that will alleviate challenges and enhance food security”.

She recounts those heady days of the 1990s, when the work that led to the isolation of that flood-resistant Sub1A rice gene was done: “In 1995, my lab isolated the rice immune receptor XA21. My friend and colleague, Dave Mackill, stopped by my office soon after this discovery to tell me about a project he was working on. He explained the devastation wreaked by flooding in rice fields in India and Bangladesh, and asked if I would collaborate on isolating the key gene. I was thrilled to join the project and we quickly got to work (using the platforms that my lab had created to isolate XA21) for the isolation of the Sub1A gene.”

Since then – and with the help of such entities as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – this rice strain has spread around the world. Its potency was demonstrated last year after the devastating floods in Bangladesh and eastern India. Here, more than 6 million farmers were growing the strain, and, indeed, it had a 60% yield advantage when compared to conventional varieties.

GLOBAL HEAD OF BANKING AT SAP

Falk Rieker at software giant SAP helps banks keep a close eye on their ESG data – and this is to the benefit of all

Q. WHAT DOES SAP OFFER THAT CAN HELP REDUCE THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF BANKS?

» Putting it from a software vendor perspective who works with banks, when you are at the prerequisite for an accurate pricing for a loan, it is all about data – you need to have as much data about your customers as possible. Depending on whether you have a large public enterprise or a smaller company that may be private, you have different levels of information available. Therefore, with large enterprises, you can take more factors into account and come up with more competitive pricing, because you have more information, more visibility, and you can gauge your risk much more accurately than you can with smaller organisations.

When it comes to the topic of green loans, it's ultimately the same thing. You need to understand the business the customers are in, as well as their supply chain. The more transparency you have

OUT OF OUR REPORTING, THEY CAN PULL THE DATA STRAIGHT FROM THE CONTROL TOWER AND USE IT FOR ESG REPORTING”

The Intelligent Enterprise for the Banking Industry

on that, the better you can come up with compelling offerings around green loans. So that’s a surprising aspect. Then the next thing is when you give the loan for larger projects, you need to have governance and compliance as well see the monies used in the way it was originally declared. So there has to be constant follow up and transparency. Data, provided by SAP’s products, allows for this.

Q. HOW CAN YOUR SERVICES IMPROVE THE BANKS’ ESG RATINGS SPECIFICALLY?

» We have multiple use cases and we probably don’t have enough time to go through all of them. Let’s talk about the bank itself, how they can improve their ESG rating. First of all, we provide a solution for holistic steering and reporting called the sustainability control

“With ESG being all the hype at the moment, we need to be careful that there is no kind of greenwashing going on. The systems will deliver you the results together as an input, but we need to keep a close eye on the data itself”

tower, which enables you to collect and transform all the data you need for your ESG reporting; that can come from SAP systems as well as non-SAP systems. So that’s the first thing.

The other thing is we obviously have a lot of data for systems around procurement, supplier management, real estate, HR, and even travel and expenses. These contain a lot of information that is relevant for ESG reporting and, in turn, relevant for sustainability. We can take this data and put it into our sustainability control tower reporting tool (or any other reporting tool the bank might use). So if the bank is making use out of our reporting, they can pull the data straight from the control tower and use it for ESG reporting. And what’s great is that the more you use, the more you benefit because you have a bigger dataset available, making it easier for you.

Q. SO THE CUSTOMER WANTING TO INVEST IN ESG PRODUCTS BENEFITS, THE BANKS BENEFIT. ARE THERE ANY DRAWBACKS OR LIMITATIONS IN USING THESE TOOLS OR IN IMPLEMENTING THEM?

» With ESG being all the hype at the moment, we need to be careful that there is no kind of greenwashing going on. The systems will deliver you the results together as an input, but we need to keep a close eye on the data itself, one the quality of it. To take an example: let’s say there’s an oil and gas company that is also the greenest company in the world. If that happens you know that something with the data may not be right. The downside is that everyone stretches the ESG rules to their own advantage at the moment, wanting to get to the highest

ESG standard as possible. It’s good that people think green, but we need to make sure the data stays reasonable.

Q . WITH PRODUCTS SUCH AS THESE THAT SAP OFFERS, WHY ISN’T EVERY BANK JUMPING ON THE BANDWAGON?

» Absolutely. I wish I could say that every bank is jumping on the standard software train, but you know banks –and traditionally larger banks – have strong inhouse development teams that produce a lot of the solutions themselves. But what I see in the next step is that they will replace some of their homegrown solutions with our standard solutions over time. It’s good for the industry to have more of a standardised approach. You see, the real challenge over time will be maintaining all of this sustainability framework. That is where we at SAP can help.

TRANSFORMATION TO THE CLOUD HELPING AIRLINE GROUP SOAR TO ITS GOALS

WRITTEN BY: MARCUS LAW

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

Customers are always the centre of attention at the Lufthansa Group. The aviation company aims at providing its passengers with perfect service and making flying in all its facets a sustainably positive experience. Against this background, the goal is to assess the company’s offers and products along the entire travel chain on a continuous basis with the aim of optimising them.

Customer orientation and a focus on quality are the Lufthansa Group’s strategic cornerstones. Regular surveys and a continuous dialogue with passengers help the group learn as much as possible about customer needs and to include them in the development of innovative offers.

Significant investments in a modern and efficient fleet, more comfort on board, numerous product innovations, and digital offers ensure that flying is becoming more and more attractive and sustainable for the Lufthansa Group’s customers with the ambitious climate target of being carbonneutral by 2050.

LUFTHANSA GROUP’S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IS ENABLING THE GROUP TO PROVIDE A SEAMLESS DIGITAL EXPERIENCE FOR CUSTOMERS AND ACHIEVE ITS SUSTAINABILITY GOALS

Ankur Rastogi, Lufthansa Group

As the world increasingly leverages the power of modern technologies, Ankur Rastogi, Group Head, IT Application Management, Transition and Cloud Migration at Lufthansa Group, explains, the organisation’s aim is to be the most digital and the most innovative aviation group in the world.

“Digital transformation is embedded in our business strategy,” he comments. “And our cloud strategy forms a key pillar in our digital strategy. The philosophy behind our cloud strategy is cloud-first, but not cloud-only.

“Cloud is not just an infrastructure agenda. It is a platform that should be a key pillar in your digital transformation story”

ANKUR RASTOGI GROUP HEAD – IT APPLICATION MANAGEMENT, TRANSITION & CLOUD MIGRATION; SENIOR DIRECTOR, LUFTHANSA GROUP

“In simple terms, it means that any new solution that we buy or build has to be cloud native. We are not going to invest in products that are designed for legacy environments.”

Central cloud team

As part of his responsibilities, Rastogi heads Lufthansa’s group-wide central cloud team, which is responsible for creating, maintaining, and updating the organisation’s cloud strategy. Lufthansa Group’s cloud transformation was not just about migrating one application from an on-prem data centre to the cloud, he explains.

ANKUR RASTOGI

TITLE: GROUP HEAD – IT APPLICATION MANAGEMENT, TRANSITION & CLOUD MIGRATION; SENIOR DIRECTOR

COMPANY: LUFTHANSA GROUP

EXECUTIVE BIO

Ankur Rastogi completed his Engineering in electronics and communication and MBA with specialisation in Information Management. He comes with 20+ years of strong international and multi-cultural experience in IT and management consulting across different domains and regions (Europe, India, and Africa). He has handled a variety of leadership roles across different disciplines in global organisations like Lufthansa, Oracle, HP Enterprises, and QS Advisory. In his current role at Lufthansa Group, he is the Group-wide process owner for IT Transition and Operations responsible for processes, platforms, partners and practices around IT test and quality management, and application management. As part of Lufthansa’s digital transformation initiatives, he is heading the Central Cloud team, which is responsible for cloud adoption and migration of the entire application portfolio to cloud across the Group.

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The Heart of Progress

Kyndryl’s Senior Partner Walter Huber talks cloud options

Kyndryl’s Walter Huber is the Vice President & Senior Partner for the Lufthansa account, which means, within Kyndryl, he’s Mr Lufthansa 24/7

Walter Huber is the Vice President and Kyndryl’s Senior Partner for the Lufthansa account, which means he is also known as ‘Mr Lufthansa’ within Kyndryl. Founded in 2021, Kyndryl was once a division of the IBM Corporation, called Global Technology Services.

“We design, build, manage and modernise mission critical infrastructures that keeps the world economy going,” Huber explains.

Kyndryl supports Lufthansa as it shifts to the cloud.

As a trusted partner, Kyndryl manages the foundations of Lufthansa Group cloud system. Having successfully transitioned workloads into the cloud for Lufthansa, Kyndryl is doing more than simply migrating workloads and then running it. “Focusing on the

customer, we can advise which cloud environment is best for which workload – and then accompany the transformation journey.”

Keeping the customer at the centre

The Kyndryl story is about growth and creating value for their customers.

“We are working closely with Lufthansa and its business units to understand what is driving them and understand what they must change going forward to be the most digital and innovative airline group. Putting the customer in the centre of all of that is extremely critical for us, and it’s one of the core values of Kyndryl.”

Another value is to maintain customer focus. Kyndryl does this by aligning itself to the way

the customer is organised and how that customer makes its business decisions.

After an almost 10-year partnership with Lufthansa, Kyndryl sees an ongoing evolution for their continued work together.

“We will continue to drive that relationship with our customer,” he says. “We will continue to work with Lufthansa to take advantage of the capabilities we can offer, using the Kyndryl Vital approach that allows us to find new solutions and the Kyndryl Bridge that allows us to plug in new technologies and new systems into a network managed by us.”

RASTOGI GROUP HEAD – IT APPLICATION MANAGEMENT, TRANSITION & CLOUD MIGRATION; SENIOR DIRECTOR,

ANKUR

LUFTHANSA GROUP

“Our cloud strategy is based on the philosophy of cloud-first, but not cloud-only”

“We are migrating thousands of applications residing in multiple data centres,” Rastogi adds. “In a cloud transformation journey, there are multiple stakeholders: application manager, infrastructure team, enterprise architecture team, security team, operations team, licence management and the procurement team.”

“Our central cloud team is bringing all of these stakeholders together towards a common goal, ensuring that they are all working towards the same target objectives and that they're following the same guidelines.”

For managing cloud adoption and transformation at Lufthansa, the central cloud team had to establish a number of guiding principles across aspects related to technical, time and financial considerations.

“The first factor we considered was how we wanted to use the cloud,” Rastogi says. “We would like to use the cloud the way it's designed. It should be possible to use the cloud on a self-service, on-demand and payper-use, or metered, basis.”

“We also want to use the cloud as natively as possible, meaning our implementation preference is Software-as-a-Service, followed by Platform-as-a-Service, and only in the last case, Infrastructureas-a-Service, or lift and shift migration approach. The business continuity and security requirements are directly considered in the design phase.”

As Rastogi explains, there are also guidelines related to time, to fit in with application life cycles and contractual timelines, as well as financial guidelines. “You could spend a lot of effort redesigning or modernising your complete application,” he says, “but at the same time, there has to be a business case behind it. So time versus cost is always a risk-reward that you have to keep in mind.”

Making or breaking the cloud journey

There are many aspects that organisations should keep in mind that could make or break a cloud journey; the first of which is having the right strategy. “There are modern data centres that can meet many of your requirements, but there has to be a good reason why you're migrating to the cloud. Cloud can be a key pillar behind your digital transformation story,” comments Rastogi.

109.5K+

The Lufthansa Group has approximately 109,509 employees (31st Dec 2022)

“The second aspect is setting up the right structure in place,” he adds. “For instance, if there is a need for a central cloud team, generally referred to in the industry as the cloud centre of excellence. Similarly, one needs to decide if the journey is performed on a centralised basis or on a decentralised basis.”

“Third is the governance part, which includes technical, security, and process

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How LTIMindtree are shaping global cloud development

Since beginning its journey with Lufthansa Group in 2017, technology consulting firm LTIMindtree has positioned itself as one of the group’s key partners

A new kind of technology consulting firm, LTIMindtree helps businesses transform – from core to experience – to thrive in the marketplace of the future.

Headquartered in Mumbai, India, LTIMindtree has nearly 90,000 IT professionals and works for about 700 clients worldwide.

Today, LTIMindtree is working with all subsidiaries of the Lufthansa Group. But, as Klaus Seifert, Regional Vice President and Head of Germany, explains, the journey started in 2017 with a highly successful data and analytics project.

“The project was about developing a predictive analytics system to properly forecast the demand and optimise the seat pricing for the airline,” Seifert comments.

From there the relationship between Lufthansa Group and LTIMindtree has evolved, with the consulting firm helping Lufthansa Cargo on its cloud journey and later on taking over cloud operations for the AirPlus and Sky Chefs part of the group.

As with countless businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, LTIMindtree was also able to help Lufthansa Group come up with new solutions to scale the business.

“One part of Lufthansa was running extremely well, the cargo side,” Seifert explains. “But the travel side went down. We helped Lufthansa to downscale on one side and become more agile on the other side, where new solutions were needed to cope with demand. That really brought us together in a partnership.”

“At LTIMindtree, we have a long history in travel, transportation and hospitality,” concludes Seifert. “At the same time, our focus on the client experience, customer experience, data analytics, and the cloud journeys are positioning us well as a future strategic partner to advise Lufthansa for their strategies in the cloud, and also for their development of migration strategies.”

€32.77mn

guidelines, as well as a lot of things related to the set up and running of a cloud community within the organisation.”

However, most importantly, Rastogi says, is the concept of change management in the organisation’s journey to the cloud.

“Many people treat cloud as purely a data centre replacement, and hence they try to incorporate the same processes and controls from the data centre world into the cloud,” he says. “But cloud adoption is a paradigm shift. It's not just the replacement of an infrastructure platform.”

As Rastogi explains, business-oriented solutions can be directly built in the cloud. “The cloud can be used as a self-service platform, meaning people can directly go into the cloud

The Lufthansa Group generated revenue of EUR 32.770m in the financial year 2022

Lufthansa’s cloud journey is helping group soar to its goals

Lufthansa Group’s goal is to become the most digital aviation group

Microsoft supports this transformational journey providing leading Cloud platforms and solutions to Lufthansa empowering their employees and business units to achieve more like the One Data Platform project that enables Lufthansa to assist passengers with personalized services before, during, and after their flight.

portal and provision not just an infrastructure environment but their complete end-to-end solution,” he says. “So many processes that were set, many controls that were in place can get obsolete or need some sort of adaptation. And this is what I call change management. It requires a mindset change.”

The end goals of Lufthansa’s digital journey

As Rastogi lays out, Lufthansa's core mission is to connect people, cultures, and economies in a sustainable way. The organisation has made substantial investments in digital transformation projects, with the end goal to offer the most seamless and the bestconnected travel experiences for customers.

“We start by offering an enhanced user experience, which is personalised,” he comments. “It also means that we can offer a homogeneous experience to passengers, no matter which of our airlines they fly or which of our touchpoints they use to interact with us.”

“We have introduced digital self-service solutions for bookings, rebooking refunds and claim management, handling irregular situations and so on,” he adds. “In the long run, we are trying to create an overall marketplace where personalised solutions can be offered to customers based on their individual needs.”

ANKUR RASTOGI GROUP HEAD – IT APPLICATION MANAGEMENT, TRANSITION & CLOUD MIGRATION; SENIOR DIRECTOR, LUFTHANSA GROUP

“The cloud allows us to use resources more efficiently and in a more optimised manner”

Lufthansa Group’s digital journey is also having a significant contribution to meeting the organisation’s sustainability goals. The group is one of the leading players and is setting the agenda when it comes to sustainability, with the target to be net carbon neutral by 2050.

“We are constantly renewing our fleet with more modern, efficient aircraft, which are also more fuel efficient, and more energy efficient,” Rastogi comments. “We are continuously investing in research and implementation of sustainable aviation fuels. We have established the Cleantech Hub, a platform that is driving more than 80 projects in this space. And to our own customers, we are continuously offering more and more sustainable products on our digital platforms.”

“Digital initiatives contribute a lot to sustainability. If I take the cloud as an example, the cloud allows us to use resources more efficiently and in a more optimised manner.”

As Rastogi explains, Lufthansa Group works hand-in-hand with cloud providers who also have very ambitious goals in regard to sustainability, with more fuel-efficient and more energy-efficient data centres.

“The best part I like about cloud is it offers a lot of transparency in various sustainability dimensions, especially in terms of what kind of services you consume and how it directly translates into carbon footprints,” he comments. “So that generates a lot of interesting and useful information.”

ANKUR RASTOGI GROUP HEAD – IT APPLICATION MANAGEMENT, TRANSITION & CLOUD MIGRATION; SENIOR DIRECTOR, LUFTHANSA GROUP

“Don’t adopt cloud just because everyone is doing so. Like for any transformation programme, there should be a reason and it is important to answer the question ‘why’ seriously”

ANKUR RASTOGI GROUP HEAD – IT APPLICATION MANAGEMENT, TRANSITION & CLOUD MIGRATION; SENIOR DIRECTOR, LUFTHANSA GROUP

This information can further be used to build decision-making algorithms helping Lufthansa Group optimise various parameters within the business domains, from aircraft turnaround time, network scheduling and planning to passenger management. “In my opinion,” Rastogi adds, “every time you make an improvement in efficiency, you're indirectly contributing to sustainability goals.”

Taking a multi-vendor approach to partnerships

Partners are critical for successful outcomes, as Rastogi explains. For every task, a thorough analysis is undertaken to decide if it should be done in-house or should be outsourced. A strategic decision was to employ a multivendor approach.

“In each partner category whether it is cloud, managed service, migration or operations partners — we did a proper due diligence and followed a thorough selection process,” Rastogi says.

For Lufthansa Group, a decision was made to go with a multi-cloud and a hybrid cloud approach. “In our cloud ecosystem, we work quite closely with Microsoft, which is one of our primary landing zones,” Rastogi comments. “Many applications are already in or are in the process of being migrated to Azure. When it comes to managed services, we work with CGI and Kyndryl who are managing the foundations of our cloud ecosystem,” Rastogi adds. “For cloud migration and application operations and management, we work very closely with CGI and Mindtree.”

“Cloud adoption is a paradigm shift. Business-oriented solutions can be directly built in the cloud”

Cloud strategies and risk management

Talk of risk management or security or compliance might initially seem daunting in the cloud, but as Rastogi explains, many aspects that might apply to any IT project also apply to the cloud.

“Cloud providers themselves spend a lot in avoidance of any vulnerabilities,” he comments. “However the overall end-to-end

risk management is a shared responsibility. We need to set up our own organisations and controls over and above the measures provided by the cloud providers.”

As Rastogi explains, measures that would be implemented on a typical IT lifecycle apply to the cloud as well, for instance generating awareness, building the right checks and balances, introducing policies

“Structure the journey to cloud and the organisational setup properly. Hire the right skills and choose the right partners”

ANKUR RASTOGI GROUP HEAD – IT APPLICATION MANAGEMENT, TRANSITION & CLOUD MIGRATION; SENIOR DIRECTOR, LUFTHANSA GROUP

like multifactor authentication, password and encryption policies, configuring and securing infrastructure and networks by implementing the right kind of architecture, firewalls, network security groups and load balancers.

“Another interesting aspect with cloud is the evergreen approach,” he comments. “Cloud does not support legacy technologies or older versions of

operating systems and databases. So the cloud is forcing us to continuously upgrade our applications to the latest versions and constantly patch them.”

Continued heavy investment in digital transformation projects

As Rastogi describes, the future at Lufthansa Group will see continued heavy investment into digital transformation projects, balancing the objectives of innovation transformation and operational stability.

“Through digital transformation projects, we are trying to improve our customer satisfaction, and make their overall travel experience simpler and as individualistic as possible. We are trying to offer a seamless and connected experience.”

“We are building up a marketplace environment with different ancillaries and different products, which are personalised,” Rastogi adds. “These will leverage the data and insights that we capture and offer solutions to our customers that fulfil their needs.”

At the same time, along with customerfacing projects, the group is also investing in a number of projects internally, such as solutions to improve employee collaboration and employee experiences.

“We are constantly modernising our application portfolio and our infrastructure portfolio,” Rastogi concludes. “We have projects that are focused on improving our cyber-defence capabilities. In all of these projects, whether in the digital area, innovation area, or modernisation of our application stack, the cloud continues to be a key pillar.”

ERNST & ESG

THE STATE OF SUSTAINABILITY:

WRITTEN BY: CAMERON SAUNDERS

As the world enters a more complex era in which sustainability is increasingly a part of government policy, Chief Sustainability Officers must take heed

The world has entered a period of economic uncertainty. Is a global recession in the offing? Can inflation be tamed? And what of geopolitics rearing its ugly head, putting a cap on ‘the end of history’ as we enter an age once more marked by ‘the tragedy of history’. But in all of this uncertainty, progress made on the sustainability front in more stable times must not be negated. Economic growth must remain on this sustainable path, and there must be rightsizing rather than downsizing.

Where does this leave the Chief Sustainability Officer?

One person who has insightful views on this question is Steve Varley, the Global Vice Chair – Sustainability at Ernst & Young. He laid bare for us some of the conversations that CSOs ought to be having with CEOs as we all navigate these economic headwinds. He sees three pressing issues.

First is how businesses should react to the game-changing public policies that have been put in place over the last year to scale clean energy. Varley notes the context: “Change is afoot in the US with huge

subsidies, tax credits, and other incentives for green tech made in the country through the somewhat misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined plans for a European Union (EU) Green Deal Industrial Plan, including the Net-Zero Industry Act to focus investment and deliver new state aid to support green tech.”

Companies are sure to feel the effects of this new, muscular approach from government: “These policies and others in the pipeline will have a huge impact on companies’ competitiveness. Leading CSOs

Steve Varley

TITLE: GLOBAL VICE

CHAIR SUSTAINABILITY

COMPANY: EY

Steve is the EY Global Vice Chair for Sustainability, leading EY’s climate change and sustainability agenda globally in a role that is the first among the Big Four. His primary focus is helping leading companies and governments around the world to create value from sustainability, and accelerate their transition to a lower-carbon future. He also leads EY’s overall environmental sustainability strategy across the US$45b professional services organization which employs over 350,000 people. Steve is leading the organization’s efforts toward net zero and has overseen its ongoing achievement of carbon negative since 2021.

are now incorporating economics, policy, geopolitics, and corporate affairs into their remit, advising CEOs not only on potential impact to business, but also on advantages and benefits that may be gleaned.”

There is even the possibility that a green trade war kicks off, with major trade blocs competing by offering subsidies. This, though, need not be a zero-sum game. Ultimately, the planet stands to benefit if there is more green investment. The CSO will have to be more canny in navigating this climate of heightened tension. Companies should take pains to assess what these

policies could mean for their operations, competitiveness, and supply chain.

Secondly, companies should work harder to show that sustainability policies are in everyone’s interest, especially in terms of the bottom line. Varley notes: “There’s a real risk that current policies and actions will not limit global warming to the 1.5°C target to minimise the most extreme impacts of climate change. In short, we’re not doing enough.”

What if resiliency isn’t about withstanding today but envisioning tomorrow?

Businesses have a strong role they can play here: “RE100 – a global coalition of businesses committed to renewable electricity – has been particularly effective at confirming market demand for renewables to governments. The importance of strong market signals was a key theme of the panel I was on with Volvo Group and Vestas at Davos, where we discussed how this is helping to scale critical technologies. By being transparent, sharing carbon ambitions, and committing to purchasing decisions with suppliers, you can give them the confidence to invest in emerging technologies ahead of the curve.”

In short, businesses must evaluate opportunities for where their organisations could commit to more transparency and purchasing commitments with suppliers.

STEVE VARLEY GLOBAL VICE CHAIR SUSTAINABILITY, EY

“While net-zero plans, converging standards, and more detailed reporting are underway, thirdparty assurance on disclosures (including emissions) is coming”

Finally, CSOs should keep an eye on disclosure, which will soon be a vital force in operations if not already – as noted by Varley: “While net-zero plans, converging standards, and more detailed reporting are underway, third-party assurance on disclosures (including emissions) is coming. The EU is well ahead, with mandatory sustainability reporting and ‘limited’ assurance requirements in the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), adopted in November 2022. The US is expecting stronger climate disclosure requirements, including assurance from the Securities Exchange Commission, but may become embroiled in litigation given the current political climate.” Regulations are on their way.

Companies must adapt to this emerging reality, and there are many tough questions that must be asked: “Robust conversations need to happen at an operational and board level. How far ahead of the curve does the C-suite want to be? What’s your risk appetite? What are the cost implications, the investments needed to improve your impact on the environment, and the value opportunities? Where are you at with quality data, transparency on policies, the right technology, and assurance to verify emissions? When do you want to undertake preparation?”

With all of this on the agenda, companies must take a conciliatory approach and not shy away from the challenges ahead. Collaboration should imbue the day: “Collaboration is critical to get to scale in time. These new policies represent an unprecedented level of collaboration between government and the private sector, which I find energising. Ultimately, we need to fire the muscle of capitalism to get investment and action underway. There are plenty of synergies at play here, and opportunities for governments and companies alike to make this a win for people, profits, and the planet.”

STEVE VARLEY GLOBAL VICE CHAIR SUSTAINABILITY, EY

“Collaboration is critical to get to scale in time. These new policies represent an unprecedented level of collaboration between government and the private sector, which I find energising”

ENABLING LATIN AMERICA INTO THE FUTURE

WRITTEN BY: JOSEPHINE WALBANK

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

Fourth largest campus worldwide

450MW IT 17 buildings

600MW total power +11,000 jobs 100% renewable energy

Campus Tamboré: The data centers in operation and those ones in 3D rendered images that will be built or are under construction

Marcos Peigo at Tamboré Campus works

an exclusive interview with Marcos Peigo,

Scala shifts the paradigm in the Latin American data centre industry by growing at real scale.

The factors that instantly set Scala Data Centers apart from its competitors are the phenomenal pace of its growth, the size of the sites that it is deploying and the extraordinary degree of its customercentric approach. Although this would be an impressive feat in any of the global data centre markets, what’s particularly remarkable is that this is being achieved in one of the most notoriously underserved data centre markets: LATAM.

Scala is scaling at real scale and, in less than three years, has grown from its starting point of 17MW in bookings to 150MW, possessing the 4th largest data centre campus in the world – the largest in Latin America by a considerable margin – and managing a team that has grown from 32 to more than 700 employees in this short period.

In an exclusive interview with Marcos Peigo, Co-Founder and CEO of Scala Data Centers, we find out more about the factors driving this growth and the DC provider’s ambitions for the next decades.

In

Co-Founder and CEO, we get an insight into the phenomenal pace of growth that Scala is achieving

The future is modular. Modular is the future.

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The future becomes increasingly feasible, safe, and near.

Modular is a platform for developing and producing Modular Data Centers and modular components for Data Centers that was born a leader in Latin America, combining a strategic vision of the technology market with a proven entrepreneurial and innovation capacity.

Modular designs and manufactures intelligent structures. It is rigid in complying with the standards’ requirements but flexible to its customers’ needs, aligning its solutions to the challenges of the market. The modules leave the factory tested, commissioned, and TIA-942 Ready certified, reducing the risk of field installation, optimizing deployment time, and ensuring the quality that certification brings.

Our products enable a future of possibilities with Modular support by a quality digital infrastructure fully prepared to support mission-critical environments.

Modular is innovative.

We think, build, and apply state-of -the-art processes and technology in everything we develop.

Modular is solid.

With factories that serve all of Latin America and a complete portfolio for the most varied needs of our customers, we supply indoor or outdoor demands, offering smart prefabricated modular structures, which leave our factories ready and commissioned.

Modular is experienced.

Formed by a group of investors, partners, and executives with decades of experience in the technology, engineering, aerospace, financial, and manufacturing industries, we were founded by the acquisition and incorporation of the engineering, manufacturing, and intellectual property assets of a former market leader in the Brazilian market.

Modular is modern.

We have developed our families of “Fast Forward” and “Good To Go” supporting demands from 2 to 60 racks and 10kW to 600kW per module to meet market needs using innovative and cuttingedge infrastructure technology.

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Cooling Room

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Data Hall

Scaling at real scale

A late market entrance, spurring new growth mindset

Interestingly, Peigo explains that one of the principal reasons behind Scala’s trademark approach to growth is the fact that the provider came to the data centre market relatively late in the game.

“When we arrived, our competitors were already established, with a fragmented capacity distributed among the LATAM countries. So, we decided to invest not in shared facilities, but in single tenant facilities foreseeing an expansion in the demand similar to what has happened in other more developed markets,” Peigo explains.

“Instead of starting by building one data centre and sharing space in that facility for

MARCOS PEIGO CO-FOUNDER & CEO SCALA DATA CENTERS

“ We are a partner of DigitalBridge, but I see the DigitalBridge team much more as an extension of the companies they invest in”

MARCOS PEIGO

TITLE: CO-FOUNDER & CEO

COMPANY: SCALA DATA CENTERS

LOCATION: SÃO PAULO

Marcos Peigo is the Co-Founder and CEO of Scala Data Centers. As a seasoned leader, he provides critical insights into the Latin American data centre and IT markets, leveraging over 25 years of experience working with technology and infrastructure-focused firms in Brazil and Latin America.

Marcos studied Electrical Engineering and Economics at Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. In 2023, Marcos was the only Latin American executive nominated by the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) for the Outstanding C-Level Executive Award and, in 2022, Marcos was awarded the title of Industry Leader by DatacenterDynamics.

customer A, B, C and D until 70-80% of that data centre is already occupied before launching a new one, we started another approach, which was specifically designed to meet the needs of hyperscale customers. We decided to get the same four customers, and create one building for customer A, one building for customer B, one building for customer C, and one building for customer D, with reserved space for them to grow.”

In the LATAM market, besides the advance of digital transformation, key drivers of growth here are the power restrictions that are currently being experienced in North America that used to serve our region, data sovereignty regulations and currency instability concerns. Consequently, catering

SPOAPA01 HyperEdge data center construction is in progress in Porto Alegre, south of Brazil

“When they sign an agreement with us, our customers have secured an avenue to grow for decades, and we assume a strong long-term expansion capacity commitment, while giving them the comfort of growing in the same location, with a trusted partner”

MARCOS PEIGO CO-FOUNDER & CEO SCALA DATA CENTERS

Recently launched, SGRUTB05 is the second biggest vertical data center of LATAM

for this demand then shifts to the Latin American region.

In recent years, this long-standing trend was coupled with the shift brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, during which Scala experienced a dramatic increase in demand, fuelled by the world’s pivot to cloud technologies and companies’ rising reliance on data.

“When the demand spiked, these customers triggered the reserved space and asked for more reservations within the same campuses. So, we placed our bets on building at scale, dedicating spaces for our customers for significant growth – much bigger than that which

they had experienced in Latin America in the previous years – all within large, customised, and dedicated buildings,” Peigo outlines.

“When they sign an agreement with us, our customers have secured an avenue to grow for decades. We assume a strong long-term expansion capacity commitment while giving them the comfort of growing in the same location with a trusted partner obsessed with their success.”

From there, the average size of Scala’s tickets jumped from 2MW to 8MW, then 8MW to 20MW, and so on, as Scala and its customers alike saw returns from their investments in these large deployments.

São João de Meriti Campus, in Rio de Janeiro, that comprises a HyperEdge data center (in the front) and additional HyperCore buildings (in the back)

Your Power, Custom Made.

When you need to rapidly expand but not overprovision, you need to scale with confidence.

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“The combination of these factors – alongside our massive control from design to construction with sustainability practices, all developed by our own team – and this long-term view, which sees us betting on our customers’ growth, has taken us to this position where we are basically doubling the size of the LATAM market in three years.”

Now, Scala plans on opening 12 sites within the next 24 months – a testament to the quality of its engineering and construction teams. This is even more

impressive when you consider that the young company started out (just a few years ago) with two sites. For Peigo, Scala’s unique relationship with its partners has proved absolutely instrumental in achieving this.

“To work with DigitalBridge is really a pleasure. DigitalBridge brings us a unique combination of global experience with Scala’s local knowledge. So, we don't see DigitalBridge as single investors – they are also operators,” Peigo explains.

“I see the DigitalBridge team much more as an extension of the companies they invest in, rather than investors that we meet in board meetings to talk about results and define targets. It's more a dayby-day relationship with strong alignment,” Peigo posits.

At 56 meters high and 12MW of IT capacity, SGRUTB04 is the biggest vertical data center in LATAM

Marcos Peigo at Tamboré Campus works

Similarly, the bespoke partnership that Scala has established with Brazilian company Modular Data Centers has been key to achieving a faster pace of customercentric service that has defined its success.

“Modular had all-in-one prefab outdoor modules. They sell to the market, in general, smaller deployments, at 8, 16 or 30 racks. But, based on the idea of enhancing the amount of components that we could prefab before sending to the site – so that we could achieve higher standardisation and need less time to deploy – Modular took on the challenge to build something bespoke for Scala and together we came up with the FastDeploy design where dedicated blocks of 600kW of capacity can be delivered on record time in strategically located sites that can grow up to 7.2MW of IT capacity.”

Walking the talk on sustainability since day one

Since much of what Scala does in this region is the first of its kind, a key part of its sustainability strategy is working with local people and communities.

“We have to work with municipalities and local governments to educate them about what a data centre is and the benefits that a data centre deployment can bring. In this way, we’re working also to enable tier two markets in Latin America, bringing progress to these countries and locations, and enabling the future in Latin America,” Peigo asserts.

“We really believe that digital infrastructure is the way to pave the future for these countries and to enable growth in a sustainable manner. This isn’t something that happens in one meeting or with one press release; this is a process, and it takes time to consolidate.”

BUILDING GREAT CHALLENGES

RS CONSTRUÇÕES owns highly qualified teams and a renowned structure in the fields of engineering, management, quality, security and environment, which enables us to provide our clients innovative, sustainable and profitable solutions in all projects we partake.

Scala believes that infrastructure and education contribute massively to transforming society and guided by this belief, since 2020, Scala has donated full engineering scholarships to young people in situations of social vulnerability.

“In November 2022, we expanded the programme announcing that from now on, for every MW booked, we will donate a full engineering scholarship in the area where that capacity will be deployed, plus a dedicated mentoring program with a Scala executive plus a job opportunity at the company”, Peigo asserts. “Therefore, millions of opportunities in someone's life will be created, enabling a brighter future for them and their families. In 2023 we will reach 150 full engineering scholarships.”

MARCOS PEIGO CO-FOUNDER & CEO SCALA DATA CENTERS

“We really believe that digital infrastructure and education are the way to pave the future for these countries and to enable the growth in a sustainable manner”

Some of the students from Scala's Full Engineering Scholarship Program at the company's HQ

Engineering company with 40 years’ experience air conditioning systems

Experienced with assembling of air conditioning, ventilation and exhaust systems.

In 2017 our efforts were directed to the data centre field. In 2020 we were privileged to perform the assembling of SCALA SP3 HVAC system. Continually seeking for quality on service provision, we had the first recurrence of HVAC assembling system with SCALA SP4, and recently SCALA SP5

Alongside this, Scala has firmly asserted itself as a market leader in the field of green standards.

“What makes us really proud is that, since the beginning, sustainability has been a must. This means huge investments to drive lower PUEs, only renewable sourcing since our first day of operation, and being the first Latin American data centre to reach a carbon neutrality status, plus the first to operate with 100% renewable sources in the region.”

“The average PUE for data centres in Latin America is 1.74. Our average PUE in loaded sites today is under 1.35 and, in our most recent designs, we are already reaching below 1.30. We’re very proud to be leading the industry in our region in this way being the benchmark to be followed.”

Creating LATAM’s hyperscale market

Currently, Scala’s key availability zones in Brazil can be seen as a triangle of its vast Tamboré, Jundiaí and Campinas campuses. Then, running in parallel to these expansions, it is also rapidly developing its presence in other cities in Brazil – Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre – and also in other LATAM countries, including Colombia, Mexico and Chile.

What makes Scala so successful in this emerging market is the strategic positioning of its data centres, in order to create opportunistic availability zones, which are precisely designed to best serve customers.

Scala’s ascent to the top of the LATAM DC market began in Brazil, upon the acquisition of two premium data centres from the UOL Group.

MARCOS PEIGO CO-FOUNDER & CEO SCALA DATA CENTERS

“We quickly decided to grow, with the idea of big campuses in LATAM mirroring the US markets. Seeing this growth combined with the maturity of the applications, the constraints of power and growth in North America, plus the demand for lower latency deployments in Latin America, we drive for bigger deployments,” Peigo explains.

“Before 2020, the average deployments in Latin America (for a hyperscale site) were 2-3MW. Now, we’re talking about 20-30MW buildings dedicated to single hyperscale customers, not only in Brazil but also in other countries.”

In fact, Scala is currently deploying its Lampa campus which is already the biggest campus ever permitted in Chile, with 120MW of total capacity and 90MW of IT capacity when fully deployed.

“And to give you a sense of how big we plan for some locations to be, for our Tamboré campus alone, we have secured 600MW of power, which makes Tamboré the fourth largest campus in the world, and by far the biggest one in the entire LATAM market,” Peigo says.

“The average PUE for data centres in Latin America is 1.74. Our average PUE today is 1.35 and, in our new designs, we are reaching below 1.30”

Scala has grown from to more than 700 employees in less than three years

32 than employees than years

Scalers at the company’s HQ, in São Paulo

“We already have 100MW in production, and we are now adding a second substation with another 100MW and the third substation will be 400MW. It's a massive amount of capacity. To give some perspective on this, the consumption in Tamboré alone will be the same size as the consumption required for the entirety of Brasília.”

The pace of Scala’s growth – particularly in 2022 and 2023 – is massive. But why? Beyond simply a case of profit for profit’s sake, why has the speed of growth been set as such a paramount priority for the provider?

“Firstly, we understood from the beginning that this hyperscale market didn't exist in LATAM. We had hyperscale customers with capacity deployed in LATAM, but all of their capacity or all of their loads were relatively small, with one megawatt here, two megawatts there, and so on.”

Launched in 2021, SGRUTB03 was the first single tenant data center built by Scala

SGRUTB04 went into service in 2022, dedicated to a single hyperscale client, with a commitment to full capacity for more than a decade

from which we control everything from the design up to construction management.”

The Center of Excellence gives Scala a far greater degree of control in the design, construction management, planning and performance evaluation of its data centres. Rather than using general contractors, the centre gives the company centralised control, helping it to implement a streamlined, uniform approach across its entire Latin American portfolio.

“Instead of having branches of Scala, we have uniform sites. So, if you’re working for Scala in a data centre – whether it’s in Colombia or Rio – it's the same local structure, supported by our centralised command centre. We basically change the address.”

This approach is not only fostering efficiencies across the entire portfolio, but this approach is a cornerstone of Scala’s company culture.

“Add to this equation that the majority of the existing DC’s in the region were smaller in average size than a single data hall of a real hyperscale facility. Of course, they were built in an era where the capacity and the visibility for the future was very small, but that does not change the fact those structures were not ready for the current demand. Plus, they were designed without the sustainable requirements that we have today.”

Peigo explains that, very early on, Scala realised the hyperscale expertise on engineering, design and sustainability for data centres were practically non-existent in LATAM. Then, they instead decided to invest in creating this expertise from the ground up.

“So, we hired a lot of people and built our Center of Excellence in Engineering (CoE),

“We are not creating the sense that Brazil is the biggest country and the centre of our portfolio – Scala is a Latin American platform.

“With the non-Brazilian employees that we have hired, we bring them to the headquarters, and they stay with us for three to six months, working and getting trained in the common centre. Then, when they get back to their countries, they’ve left a piece of their country here and they take a piece of Scala there. This forges our culture and strengthens the bonds among our people, it doesn’t matter where they live or work.

“This is the way we are growing as a unique company: a single entity, operating all of these campuses in a sustainable way throughout Latin America.”

GREEN ENERGY AND DEMOCRATIC DESIGN ACROSS THE INGKA GROUP

WRITTEN BY: JOSEPHINE WALBANK

he first IKEA company was founded in 1943, in southern Sweden. From its remarkably humble beginnings, fast forward eight decades later, and this furniture giant is relied upon by countless homeowners, across the globe.

It exists as a franchisee system, with the Ingka Group forming the largest franchisee within the IKEA system, and IKEA Retail as its core business.

In the IKEA Retail arm, the company mangages almost 400 IKEA stores, spanning 32 markets, with 657 million store visitors to these stores, and over 4.3 billion visits to IKEA.comfigures which are all growing rapidly.

In an exclusive interview with Karen Pflug, the Chief Sustainability Officer of the Ingka Group, we found out how this pace of growth is being balanced with the demand for sustainability. She outlined how this household name is deploying democratic design and pioneering sustainable solutions across its entire, global value chain.

Karen Pflug Chief Sustainability Officer, Ingka Group

Ingka and IKEA - a full value chain approach to sustainability

Alongside representing 90% of the sales within the IKEA system, the Ingka Group also includes Ingka Shopping Centres, and an investment arm called Ingka Investments, which forms a core component of its sustainability agenda.

Pflug outlines how, in order to attain and evolve its sustainability targets, IKEA and the Ingka Group collaborate extremely closely.

“Although Ingka IKEA Systems, which is the franchisor, develops and designs the

range and works directly with our suppliers, we absolutely have to work together, and our efforts go hand in hand,” Pflug explains.

“This is a full value chain approach to sustainability - they're our biggest supplier as well as being our franchisor, so of course we need to work together, whether that's on the whole creation of the range, or the services that we offer for our customers, and so we have established a really holistic value chain approach.”

To this aim, the two companies plan their sustainability policy almost entirely in tandem.

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“We both have what we call the IKEA People & Planet Positive strategy as our guiding star. And then, what we've done is take that strategy - which was developed several years ago by Ingka IKEA - and said, ‘What's the Ingka take on that, which will then help us to deliver both on our strategic sustainability ambitions, and contribute to the IKEA sustainability ambitions?’. So our approach is definitely aligned,” Pflug asserts.

“The way we structure it is the same as well. Our focus is upon the climate and circular, healthy and sustainable living. This is how we help our customers to make better, more sustainable choices, and the fair and equal agenda around human rights and social impact that we have established.”

KAREN PFLUG CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER, INGKA GROUP

“We are seeing that the Ingka Group is being recognised as a leader, particularly in the climate space”

CISL Impact story - Karen Pflug

Tackling climate impact with transparency

Largely thanks to its extensive investments in green energy and waste reduction initiatives, the Ingka Group is widely regarded as one of the industry’s sustainability pioneers.

“We are seeing that the Ingka Group is being recognised as a leader, particularly in the climate space,” Pflug states.

“We have implemented quite a lot of initiatives across, again, the full value chain. In terms of renewable energy, we are very much focused on - and we've committed to - €6.5bn to be invested in renewable energy, up to 2030. And, so far, we've invested €3bn on renewable energy projects, both wind and solar.”

The group has already set up 575 wind turbines in 17 countries; 20 solar parks with over 900,000 solar panels on the roofs of IKEA stores and warehouses - effectively utilising

KAREN PFLUG CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER, INGKA GROUP

“We have democratic design in IKEA, which is about building to the magic formula of form, function, price, sustainability and quality together”

Phasing out plastics with recyclable packaging

its prime real estate - and is working to implement zero-emission deliveries by 2025 for all home deliveries.

“Beyond that, switching energy to being clean is one thing, but it's also about being much smarter and saving energy, too,” Pflug explains.

“So, we've got action plans on an annual

followed by an invitation to apply for vacancies.

“It could be on the customer fulfilment side, or it could be in the stores working on the interior design, or it could be serving customers - it spans a wide range of areas. And then afterwards, they either get a fulltime, permanent job with us, or we also work together with other retailers and other businesses, to partner. We're actually looking to extend that and partner more with other businesses as well,” Pflug explains.

“The advocacy part of all of our work is something we take very seriously. And this has been a fantastic initiative. We have been closely working and partnering with UNHCR and we have a separate arm - the IKEA Foundationthat works very closely with refugees as well.”

“What we wanted to do within the Ingka Group is really take the approach of helping displaced people get their dignity back, and the right to work is key here, in terms of helping people feel dignity again, through a sense

Balancing sustainability and maintaining growth pace - the value of democratic design

So, as the company looks to a continued period of rapid growth, Pflug asserts that it has firmly future-proofed its operations, by successfully balancing this with its ambitious sustainability targets.

“We have managed to decouple growth and our climate footprint, and we're really pleased to be able to do that.”

“Obviously, we need to stay vigilant all the time, to make sure we stay on track with that, but it's been great that we've consistently done that over the years.”

The concept of a circular economy is proving critical here, and has formed the bedrock of the group’s thinking. Across all of its products, the aim is for customers to either acquire, care for, or pass them on - thereby extending the products’ lives - as much as possible.

“We obviously want them to keep their products in circulation for as long as possible,” Pflug states.

IKEA store solar panal installation

“Approaching this from one angle, we have democratic design in IKEA, which is about building to the magic formula of form, function, price, sustainability and quality together. We want good design to be available for everybody, hence it's called democratic design. When you hit the sweet spot and you get all of that right, it means that great design and sustainable design is truly affordable for the many,” Pflug explains.

The company is designing for circularity, too. It is selectively using raw materials that can be regenerated and recycled afterwards.

“On a customer level, we also give out spare parts to people around the world to help them repair their products, so they don't have to dispose of them if a part breaks. We had 1.6 million customers use the repair and extend life services last year, so that's a fantastic movement,” Pflug outlines.

“And then, Ingka Investments are also investing in innovative companies that enable us to achieve our circular agenda and help us to reduce waste. For example, with regards to food waste, we invested in Winnow AI technologywhich is now in all of our stores - to help us reduce our food waste by over 50% since 2017.”

“We've also invested in RetourMatras, to take over a million mattresses in the Netherlands for recycling back to their constituent parts and materials. So while there is still a lot more to do, we feel we're on a really good path towards driving the circular agenda, to be able to keep products in use for longer. And then, once they do need to be disposed of, recycling them. That's our aim - to be fully circular by 2030.”

AD FEATURE

WRITTEN BY: JOSEPHINE WALBANK

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

ENABLING EXPANDING DATA CENTRE INTERCONNECTIVITY

EXA INFRASTRUCTURE OUTLINES THE VALUE OF DATA CENTRE INTERCONNECTIVITY AND HOW ITS SERVICES ARE DRIVING SCALABLE, SUSTAINABLE GROWTH ACROSS GLOBAL MARKETS

EXA Infrastructure (EXA) owns and operates the most extensive dedicated infrastructure footprint connecting Europe and North America. Since launch in September 2021, EXA has worked tirelessly to expand its global presence in pursuit of its clear aimto become the undisputed pan-European and transatlantic data centre to data centre connectivity provider.

The digital infrastructure provider focusses on data centre to data centre interconnectivity, enabling core to edge data distribution and core to core connectivity across all major European data centre markets. Not only has EXA established a critical position in the key FLAP market, but it is also relied upon by data centres players throughout Europe’s emerging Tier II & Tier III markets, including the Iberian Peninsula, the Nordics, and Central, Southern and Eastern Europe.

So, to find out more about the role EXA plays in data centre interconnectivity, and its predictions for the future of these critical markets, we spoke to two experts in the team driving the company’s inter data centre initiatives: Pravdomir Dobrev, Senior Product Manager, and Georgi Lesov, Network Investment Manager.

A leading pan-European, transatlantic connectivity provider One of EXA’s key market differentiators is the sheer size of its established and growing network.

“Our network is an impressive panEuropean digital platform with over 500 Points-of-Presence (PoPs) globally. We own and operate three transatlantic cables, including the fastest and lowest latency link between London and New York. EXA has considerable presence on the east coast of the United States and in Canada too.” Lesov explains.

“Customers can rely on us to continue to expand into new hubs and geographies as they emerge. We always strive to be our customers’ growth enabler”

GEORGI LESOV, NETWORK INVESTMENT MANAGER, EXA INFRASTRUCTURE

The focus of Lesov’s team is on strategic network investments, with Lesov looking after the CEE and Nordic regions. Lesov is also responsible for overseeing data centre interconnectivity with a global lens.

Dobrev’s role is the management of the colocation product line and supporting EXA’s growth strategy in the colocation market space. Since launch, EXA has connected – or is in the process of connecting –tens of new strategic data centres across Europe and North America, with the former spanning considerably beyond the region’s traditional markets.

GEORGI LESOV

TITLE: NETWORK INVESTMENT MANAGER

COMPANY: EXA INFRASTRUCTURE

Georgi Lesov is currently a Network Investment Manager within EXA Infrastructure, and is focused on CEE as a region, but also DC-to-DC connectivity globally.

EXECUTIVE BIO

Georgi has been with the company long before it became EXA. He joined, back in 2016, what was then Interoute. Over the past 7 years, he has spent time in Operations, Access, Product and most recently, Strategic Investments – the latter he describes as the most exciting position yet. Prior to that, he was a Project Manager for a local software company and before that was backpacking his way through South-East Asia. Interesting fact – Georgi also graduated from South Bank University in London with a BA in International Politics. He did his MA in European Public Policy at King’s College London.

“The dedicated data centre interconnectivity programme – which we launched a few months after the launch of EXA and is still ongoing today – enables us to take a more proactive approach to capital deployment, building into key strategic data centres ahead of customer orders, rather a game of “pin the cost on an anchor customer,” Lesov explains.

“We look at each data centre individually, by focusing on size (in terms of MW and floor space), power density, PUE, age of the facility, future scalability, and many other

factors, which are all part of our due diligence process. Then, once a candidate site has made it to the shortlist, we execute within a few months, and bring the site online.”

EXA also proactively surveys its customers, to understand where they need their sites to be – not only today, but in one, three- and five-years’ time. EXA aims to be amongst the first movers in these locations. Operating in such a strategic way not only enables EXA to grow with its customers but it means EXA is also driving industry developments.

“It’s a positive mutualism,” Lesov says.

EXA also offers a set of professional services for customers and partners needing help, for instance with designing and building Cable Landing Stations (CLSs) and other key network nodes. EXA has experience in building, operating, maintaining, and the service assurance for those sites, with years of expertise. Those services and sites, as Lesov describes, are the glue that joins the pieces of the puzzle together, thus allowing EXA to be a onestop-shop for its customers and align its operations to their growth plans.

PRAVDOMIR DOBREV

TITLE: SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER

COMPANY: EXA INFRASTRUCTURE

500+ Points of Presence

Pravdomir (Prav) Dobrev has joined EXA Infrastructure as a Senior Colocation Product Manager and has over 8 years of experience in the data centre industry. His former role includes Senior Global Product Manager, Colocation at Digital Realty where he oversaw the core product lifecycle and in the last few years, their product integration with Interxion. Prior to this, he worked as a Senior Engineer at Romonet where he consulted hyper-scale and large enterprise DC operators on energy management and sustainability. He holds an MSc in Data Science from Birkbeck College London, and BEng

3 Transatlantic cables

(Hons) in Building Services Engineering from London South Bank University. He is a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET).

34 Countries

13 Tier 3 equivalent datacentres

A partner ecosystem, driving data centre interconnectivity

As can be seen from the recent flurry of AI chatbot launches, advancing interconnectivity between data centres is a rapidly growing need, which is proving critical to fostering the successful growth of the industry at large.

“This year in particular, one of the top trends that we’re seeing is enterprises looking into more distributed types of workloads” Dobrev explains.

“Essentially, it’s no longer the case that all enterprise applications are only positioned in the cloud. So, to be able to serve increasing distributed workloads, core colocation sites and edge sites, connectivity providers need a reliable and low latency network infrastructure. That’s why EXA and its services are playing a key role”.

build directly, or in geographies that we don’t see it as commercially viable, and our partners do the same with us. This means we help each other but also challenge each other and push each other to do better.”

The role of data centre interconnectivity in the next evolution of key industry markets

300+ Cities Connected

As discussed, the growth of data centre interconnect services is linked to the increasing demand for higher bandwidth associated with technologies’ advances, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning etc. This has triggered the need for linking data centres in a reliable and cost-effective way.

<59 ms

“We are a B2B-focused business, so we work very closely with all the major telecom operators and carriers as well as small, medium and large tech companies needing to connect to them. We leverage existing partner networks where we can’t

If we take Europe as an example, the European data centre market set to grow by 6.7% from 20182028, and a projected 2.86% CAGR predicted for the FLAP market from 2021-2027. And this trend shows no sign of slowing down.

Being able to respond quickly to this demand is what EXA strives to achieve by investing where its existing or future customers need PoPs.

“In the traditional markets, particularly FLAP, there is still a large amount of growth (these cities dominate in terms of population and GDP) but this is also, obviously, where there is the greatest amount of legacy investment to capitalise, and hence competition”. Lesov states.

“This is a growing trend, and we expect to see more capacity coming online throughout 2023. However, it’s important to note that other European markets are also growing considerably, with plenty of edge nodes to improve end-user experience as well as new interconnection points coming online – between continents. This will be a game

“This year in particular, one of the top trends that we’re seeing is enterprises looking into more distributed types of workloads”

PRAVDOMIR DOBREV, SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER, EXA INFRASTRUCTURE

New York to London

changer for the industry over the next few years, in colocation and in connectivity” Dobrev explains.

EXA’s works hard to make sure that that growth at the edge comes with the resilience the industry needs – something it does through it’s drive for constant route diversification.

“There are parts of Europe that are data centre and networkdense and where supply often exceeds the demand, challenging returns. The solution for us at EXA Infrastructure lies in creating extra diversity when it comes to routes, introducing the latest network technologies, and building greater resilience overall” Lesov states.

In the case of more emerging markets – such as Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean – though, the situation is dramatically different. “It’s more about who takes the risk and aspires to be the first mover, taking ownership in building routing diversity. It sounds like a cliché, but at EXA, we don’t just think about the future – we invest and work to create it” Lesov adds.

Dobrev provides another example of the diversification taking place in the industry: “let’s think about the success story of Marseille that over the years has become the world’s ninth largest internet hub, with links to 15 international subsea cables.”

“Enterprises across the continent continue to leverage Marseille as a low latency gateway to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. But recently they started looking to diversify away from Marseille and invest in places like Barcelona, Athens and other location points along the coast of the Mediterranean, such as Southern Italy. Diversification increases security and creates more competition in attracting the future big projects.”

“Simply put, if data centres exist on their own – if they’re not connected to the rest of the world – then they don’t have much value.” Dobrev says. “That’s why they need backbone architecture enablers, like EXA, to connect them to other customers and hubs. The greater the number of locations that we establish a presence in, the higher EXA’s value is as a partner to our customers and the industry as a whole.”

Quite a few of these projects and diversified routes are still in the planning or building stage, but when they will be ready for service, they will attract considerably more sub-sea cables and require solid and redundant connectivity solutions. This is what makes EXA’s growth and investment in its network so important and forward looking.

EXA is uniquely positioned to capture emerging connectivity demand waves due to its network presence in both the mature, growing and early-stage markets. This is a key strategic strength in the data centre interconnectivity play.

EXA is proud to be the industry challenger, a flexible and solid organisation willing to meet its customers’ bespoke connectivity requirements.

Lesov adds: “Customers can rely on us to continue to expand into new hubs and geographies as they emerge.”

“We always strive to be our customers’ growth enabler. It can be either technically or commercially, but we help our customers win in the market.”

114,000 Route kilometres fibre network

270+ Edge and network colocation sites

A SUSTAINABLE

FUTURE FOR FUELS?

WRITTEN BY: CAMERON SAUNDERS

The energy transition won’t happen overnight. What is the fate of fossil fuels in the face of a climate emergency?

FOR FOSSIL FUELS

o the environmentally minded, are there any two more evil words in the English language than ‘fossil fuels’? They bear the brunt of the blame when we think about global warming. Still, the fact remains that they remain and they are not going anywhere. As one manager of a fossil fuel company put it: “We need to be realistic. The energy transition is not going to happen overnight; it is an evolution, not a revolution.”

The fallout from the war in Ukraine – Russia cutting off Europe’s gas supply, the rise of heating and electricity bills across the land, and America’s realignment and appeasement of Saudi Arabia as a result – has reminded us all of the persistence of fossil fuels as a vital energy source for the continued functioning of society and the economy. The question, then, becomes: how do we keep living with fossil fuels in as sustainable a manner as possible? Welcome to the new era of energy realism.

Thankfully for us, energy companies that deal in fossil fuels are largely rising to the challenges inherent in this new reality. ABB, a Swiss-Swedish multinational, is a major energy provider and one of the largest companies in the world. Marie-Hélène Westholm-Knebel is the Sustainability Manager at ABB Process Automation. She offered some colour to the context: “We are seeing a lot more companies trialling and enjoying success with a widening range of technologies and solutions that are helping them become more sustainable, minimise costs, and, ultimately, cut their carbon footprint.”

WESTHOLM-KNEBEL SUSTAINABILITY MANAGER, ABB

MARIE-HÉLÈNE

“We are seeing a lot more companies trialling and enjoying success with a widening range of technologies and solutions that are helping them become more sustainable, minimise costs, and, ultimately, cut their carbon footprint”

But what does this look like in practice? There are a number of burgeoning fields of technologies that offer a path. A digital approach enabling the innovative use of data analytics is one that is being readily embraced.

Westholm-Knebel notes the growing use of this approach among players in the field: “In ABB’s recent Billions of Better Decisions research study, 96% of decision makers across 12 industries agreed that digitalisation was essential to achieve sustainability goals. In a recent survey of 400 executives from various industries and regions conducted by Bain & Company and the World Economic Forum (2022), 40% of respondents said they believe digital technologies are already having a positive impact on their sustainability goals.”

Machine learning (ML) and AI – the buzzwords of the year – are helping speed this process along: “Move towards autonomous, taking automation to autonomous allows operations to simply run better and more efficiently. ML and AI help to identify and mitigate production interruptions, meaning workers will spend less time troubleshooting in physical environments and more time addressing issues remotely, which delivers tangible sustainability benefits.”

The results have been tangible for ABB, which has “reduced its own CO2 emissions by 65% since 2019 as part of its Sustainability Strategy 2030”, and it now seeks to be carbon neutral by the end of the decade.

“Our strategy details how we will support our global customers in reducing their annual CO2 emissions by at least 100Mt by 2030 – the equivalent of removing 30 million combustion cars from the roads. We also work with our most impactful suppliers to achieve a 50% reduction in their emissions by 2030 and ensure that responsible sourcing is a core part of our processes and purchasing activities.”

Technology is instrumental to achieving next-level capabilities across industries. But organizations that want to operate sustainably must choose technology that lets them adhere to strong environmental, social, and governance principles.

Appian Corporation, a process automation leader, is a critical piece of the digital transformation and sustainability puzzle. The enterprise-grade Appian Low-Code Platform is built to simplify today’s complex business processes, with process mining, workflow, and automation capabilities.

“By quickly building apps that streamline and automate workflows, organizations are using Appian to make their processes for monitoring and reporting on ESG initiatives faster, simpler, and more effective,” says Meryl Gibbs, Emerging Industries Leader at Appian.

Companies that don’t adapt in the successful manner that ABB has are doomed to fall by the wayside and become the victims of a competitive market place and increasingly strict regulatory environment that demands higher standards of sustainability.

Digital transformation in ESG.

As an AWS leader enabling sustainability solutions built on the cloud, Mary Wilson, Global Sustainability Lead at AWS, talks about the partnership with Appian.

“Our objective is to help our customers achieve sustainability goals across their business operations,” says Wilson. “[This means] looking at data availability, meaning access to more data, and enabling actionable insights. “Lowcode, cloud-enabled, technologies will allow organizations to build fast, learn fast, iterate, and continue to improve these insights to drive their sustainability outcomes.”

to this new reality. He notes that companies failing to bend to these changing standards “risk seeing funding dry up”.

“Both AWS and Appcino are amazing partners of ours,” says Michael Heffner, VP Solutions and Industry Go To Market at Appian. “We have an extremely long legacy engagement with AWS as our trusted, go-to-market partner and Appcino builds “meaningful, business-focused applications on the Appian platform and is amazing in all things ESG.”

Publicis Sapient is a digital transformation consultancy group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Vice President of Energy and Commodities there, Alberto Bruno, speaks

Tarun Khatri, Co-Founder & Executive Director of Appcino (product part of Xebia), explains just how critical ESG is in the face of digital transformation. “The investment community now considers ESG reporting as a major factor for measuring performance,” says Khatri The collaboration will continually uncover new insights and provides customers the opportunity to accelerate their ESG goals with speed and security.

“Banks and other financiers are under pressure by their own investors to pull funding for ‘dirty’ investments and of investors pulling out. Regulations (which are still largely embryonic) are also progressively making life harder for banks, and they are watching their profits shrink due to unavoidable carbon taxation.”

ALBERTO BRUNO VICE PRESIDENT, ENERGY & COMMODITIES PUBLICIS SAPIENT

“Banks and other financiers are under pressure from their own investors to pull funding for ‘dirty’ investments and of investors pulling out”

Executives from Appian, AWS, and Xebia share their collaborative efforts and excitement about their partnership in low-code, cloud, and sustainability.

captions as often as possible

ALBERTO BRUNO VICE PRESIDENT, ENERGY & COMMODITIES PUBLICIS SAPIENT

These profits should be seen as an opportunity to fund the transformation of their business, their digital capabilities, and their culture – which many companies are already doing, especially in Europe – as opposed to being used for share buybacks”

As well, the crisis in Ukraine has created a sense of false security of which fossil fuel companies should be wary. Despite record profits, they should not lose sight of the challenges ahead.

Bruno goes on: “These profits should be seen as an opportunity to fund the transformation of their business, their digital capabilities, and their culture – which many companies are already doing, especially in Europe – as opposed to being used for share buybacks.”

Ultimately, fossil fuel companies must adapt to survive. And they must also work in tandem with the renewable side of the energy industry. In his concluding words, Bruno offers

a glimpse of the future, one that will bring together the dinosaur stalwart of fossil fuels and the fledgling energy sources of the future: “The energy transition needs to accelerate, and this can only happen if all sources of energy work together, while technological advancements such as carbon capture help make fossil fuels cleaner and more sustainable and electrification takes hold.

“For now, there is no silver bullet; hydrogen is decades away from being able to replace fossil fuels at scale. This is a fantastic opportunity for fossil fuel companies to transform; they are key to the transition, and they have the means to transform while having a net-positive impact.”

DRIVING TOWARDS NET ZERO ACROSS ITS UK VEHICLE FLEET

WRITTEN BY: SEAN ASHCROFT PRODUCED BY: CRAIG KILLINGBACK

Delivering a nationwide sustainable-fleet programme is a huge undertaking at the best of times, but doing so in the teeth of seemingly neverending automotive supply chain issues makes the challenge even more daunting.

To stay on course with sustainability targets, despite such difficulties, would be beyond some businesses, but this is exactly what the multinational security company G4S has achieved.

G4S is part of Allied Universal and is a security and facility services company providing integrated security solutions that allow clients to focus on their core business.

Globally, G4S spends over a billion dollars a year with suppliers and subcontractors, and overseeing all of this is Chief Procurement Officer Jon Willescroft, who manages 150 procurement people across the globe

A key area for Willescroft and his team right now is sustainability.

“Sustainability is a broad subject,” he says, “and you have to prioritise. I have top-down support from the executive committee, who align the procurement sustainability objectives with the corporate ones.”

In this way, the areas Willescroft agrees upon with the executive committee “become our absolute focus”.

G4S is taking big strides in its global 2050 net-zero commitment, and procurement is at the heart of the eco-driving programme.

Jon Willescroft, Chief Procurement Officer, G4S

G4S is one of the world’s largest security companies, and its Chief Procurement Officer, Jon Willescroft, is tasked with achieving net zero with its huge vehicle fleet

At present, in the United Kingdom and Ireland (UK&I), an important focus of sustainability efforts centre around the decarbonisation of the company’s vehicle fleet. Willescroft says: “We’ve made great progress in the last year with our fleet decarbonisation. More than three-quarters of our new vehicle orders have been lowemission vehicles.”

G4S’ renewal programme around its vehicle fleet is ambitious. To help it decarbonise its car and light-commercial vehicle fleet, it turned in 2021 to global fleet leasing company LeasePlan, which is helping G4S UK&I decarbonise its fleet, while also working with it on using technology to drive cost savings.

Globally, G4S has about 15,000 vehicles. These include motorcycles and passenger cars, commercial vehicles and heavyarmoured vehicles for the cash business. It has around 2,500 in the UK and Ireland, of which roughly 1,600 are cars and commercial vehicles, and it is these vehicles LeasePlan and G4S are initially prioritising to make carbon neutral.

Under targets set out in its Road to Zero strategy, G4S aims to have all its passenger cars zero carbon by 2030, followed by light commercial vehicles

in 2035 and its entire fleet by 2040. It is also making use of telematics and fleet management tools to optimise operations and improve safety.

But in the face of ongoing supply chain issues in the automotive industry – caused by the global shortage of microchips – progress has been far from straightforward; G4S has been unable to freely move employees into more carbonfriendly vehicles as quickly as it would like, because the supply has not been there.

Most of the company’s operational fleet is low- to mid-range vehicles but, on the company car side, it also uses mid-range to premium vehicles.

“By 2025, we want at least 40% of our passenger cars to be zero carbon, and all of them by 2030”

JON WILLESCROFT CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, G4S

“I don't think there's been a single car manufacturer that has escaped supply chain issues and labour shortages,” says Willescroft. “We're regularly facing a 12-month lead time on new vehicles.”

“With crisis after crisis hitting the automotive industry, we could easily have been blown off course in terms of timelines. If we had allowed chip shortages and supply chain disruption to impact us fully then this would have put us back by a year or two. It's a change programme. You're trying to push people and create momentum, and momentum is stopped in its tracks if you are waiting 12 to 15 months for a vehicle. But we've managed to keep on track with our targets.”

JON WILLESCROFT

TITLE: CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER

INDUSTRY: SECURITY

LOCATION: LONDON UK

Jon Willescroft is an ambitious, energetic and commercial CPO, specialising in reshaping procurement in large, complex organisations. Jon currently leads procurement at G4S, part of the world’s largest security company, encompassing 150 people across 90 countries, and over $1bn spend. His focus at G4S is driving sustainable, commercial transformation across this complex global business and its supply chains. Prior to G4S, Jon held a number of procurement leadership positions in financial services and pharmaceuticals, as well as procurement advisory roles.

LeasePlan driving success on G4S sustainable fleet plans

Global fleet leasing company LeasePlan has overcome automotive supply problems to help security giant G4S decarbonise its UK fleet.

The sustainability programme G4S UK has wrapped around its huge vehicle fleet is ambitious, and to help it meet its targets it turned to global fleet leasing company, LeasePlan.

LeasePlan operates in 29 countries and runs a fleet of around 1.9 million vehicles globally. It is also a founding partner of the EV100, the global sustainability initiative run by the Climate Group – an international non-profit – to make progress on electrifying fleets worldwide.

In 2021 LeasePlan won the G4S tender to help decarbonise its UK and Ireland 1,600 car and light-commercial vehicle fleet.

But it’s not just about decarbonisation. LeasePlan UK is looking at all four pillars of the G4S organisation – all of which touch fleet: safety and compliance, data measured fleet performance, cost and service improvements as well as reducing environmental impact.

G4S’ Road to Zero strategy targets are ambitious. It aims to have all its passenger cars carbon neutral by 2030, followed by light commercial vehicles in 2035 and its entire fleet by 2040.

It is also making use of telematics and fleet management tools to optimise operations and improve safety.

Overseeing LeasePlan’s work with G4S is Head of Strategic Account Partnerships, Leannda Cheetham, whose team provides end-to-end contract management, service delivery and strategic direction for some of the UK’s largest fleets.

“To help G4S with their sustainability targets, we’re working hard to move their people into vehicles that will help with its net zero goals.”

But in the face of challenges in the automotive industry – rocked by supply chain crisis after crisis – this has been far from straightforward.

“The supply simply has not been there,” reveals Cheetham. Yet LeasePlan UK has succeeded in helping G4S move forward on fleet sustainability by finding creative ways to skirt supply chain challenges.

Its strategy to buy available hybrid and allelectric vehicle stock, under its established LeasePlan Flexible proposition meant that they could keep momentum for electric transition by leasing the vehicles on short-term contracts of anything between 3-24 months without the need for a long-term contract.

“We quickly scaled up our LeasePlan Flexible fleet to predominantly hybrid and all-electric rentals,” says Cheetham. “This means drivers were able use these vehicles whilst waiting for their new company vehicle to be delivered. This has helped transition as many G4S drivers, as quickly as possible into hybrid or all-electric vehicles.”

So what’s next for LeasePlan and G4S?

“We’re continuing to help roll-out G4S’ decarbonisation project through delivery of lowemission vehicles in any way that we can,” says Cheetham. She adds that the company is also “looking to find new and creative ways of adding value”.

“Mission critical fleets are in our DNA, and we’ve worked with some of the world’s largest organisations as they adopt new technologies.”

Cheetham continues: “We’re looking at things like how emerging technologies might be able to help G4S find cost savings, so we can add even more value through the relationship we’re building together.”

We believe that every day is an opportunity to do better

We’re committed to helping our clients and their drivers to reduce their carbon footprint by promoting alternative-fuelled vehicles, particularly 100% electric cars and vans.

JON WILLESCROFT CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, G4S

That it is still on track is thanks in no small part to LeasePlan, which has worked with G4S on creative ways to skirt supply challenges. Chief among them is LeasePlan’s strategy of buying available hybrid and allelectric vehicle stock, leasing them to G4S on short-term contracts of between three and nine months.

“More than three-quarters of the new cars we ordered last year were low-

emission vehicles,” says Willescroft. “This is around 450 vehicles and is a really big step up from where we were before. This alone removes over 1,000 tonnes of carbon from the environment.”

Willescroft himself moved to a leased electric vehicle while he was waiting for his Tesla company car. “By 2025, we want 40% of our passenger cars to have zero carbon emissions, and all of them by 2030.”

By 2040, G4S wants its entire UK fleet to be zero carbon – this target could prove to be the most technically challenging, because the remainder of the fleet will be its heavy armoured vehicles, which are used for cash protection.

“Cars are becoming easier with regards to the net-zero journey,” says Willescroft, “but heavy vehicles are harder to electrify because the technology just isn’t there at the moment to give you the battery range.

“There's an awful lot of factors that make fleet decarbonisation complicated, and there’s no doubt the easier markets right now are UK&I and Europe”

“The expectation is that, over the next five-to-ten years, we'll see continuing advancements around battery range, which will allow us to invest more in the electrification of our heavier vehicles. But we’re absolutely fixed on achieving these targets.”

On that note, he adds that G4S UK&I has a number of trials ongoing with some of its smaller cash vehicles – mostly Transit vans that have been fully electrified. “We're kind of testing and learning as we go on that,” he says.

As with any change, taking people along with you is vitally important, and Willescroft says LeasePlan has helped here, too, ensuring that G4S people transitioning to EV and hybrid cars have all the support they need.

“That’s been really important, both in terms of the speed of migrating to low-emission vehicles, but also people getting excited by it and being able to create a narrative around successes. We want to create passion around the change, because passion is what makes for change ambassadors, who can help with making the transition process as quick and painless as possible.”

In terms of collaborating with an ecosystem of businesses to meet its sustainability targets, Willescroft says: “You need partners who are flexible and understand your business, trying to problemsolve and help you achieve your outcomes, as opposed to a one-size-fixes-all offering.”

G4S is making greater headway on fleet decarbonisation in the UK&I than it is in any other territory, although similar programmes are underway in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Belgium. But he also says that, in the UK&I, there is “greater customer expectation around sustainability than in many other markets”.

“We’ve made great progress this year with our fleet decarbonisation. More than threequarters of our new vehicle orders have been low-emission

CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER,

Other factors that are currently limiting progress on EVs in some territories are a lack of charging infrastructure alongside the many governments not yet incentivising businesses to embrace sustainability in the same way as in the UK&I, where there are tax breaks around EV initiatives. Plus, according to Willescroft, in some countries such as South Africa, coal is still being burned to create the electricity needed for EVs.

“In which case, you're not really achieving much by electrifying your fleet,” he points out. “There's an awful lot of factors that make fleet decarbonisation complicated, and there’s no doubt the easier markets right now are the UK&I and Europe.”

“We've got a really clear fleet strategy in UK&I,” he says. “It's been approved across the region and it's also something our customers really care about. It's the right thing to do as a business; it's the responsible thing, and customers want us to do it.”

He adds that legislation around sustainability is also getting stronger all the time. “You won't be able to buy a new diesel or petrol vehicle after 2030 in the UK, so it's a perfect storm of reasons to do it anyway.”

Yet, despite this, Willescroft admits that rampant fuel inflation across all markets and a year-on-year increase in the cost of vehicles “have produced a tension between cost and the speed at which we can roll out our net-zero strategy in the UK”.

As well as government tax incentives, the company is striving to get as close to cost-neutral as possible. “We buy a lot of vehicles, so we leverage this with OEMs and manufacturers,” says Willescroft. “We also make sure we’re looking at the total cost of ownership of vehicles, rather than just the lease price.

“This helps us be more creative in terms of what we can provide but, ultimately, however you cut it, there'll be a net increase in fleet costs. You can't really escape that.”

Driving towards a sustainable UK fleet

WATCH NOW

Although squarely focused right now on the UK&I, Willescroft and his team are acutely mindful of G4S’s global net-zero targets, which is why it has relationships with companies similar to LeasePlan across its territories.

“We've got partners in each market that we'll look to lean on in the same way when the time comes,” he explains. “We'll look to leverage our experience in the UK, so we're not recreating it each time we're using the playbook.”

On the broader question of sustainability Willescroft says he has “strong, top-down sponsorship from the board, whether it be net-zero, diversity, or human-rights risks - sustainabilityustainability is about far more than net-zero.”

With sustainability and ESG initiatives, Willescroft says embedding is key. “How do we do that? By making sure that, at a functional level, ESG and sustainability

are a core part of how we are measured and how our objectives are measured. This way, everything flows all the way down to individual objectives.”

“Over the coming year, everyone has targeted individual measures that are not only around commercial delivery, but are also really clear on ESG and sustainability objectives. This means sustainability topics are standing-agenda items every time we engage with the business. Every time we sit down and review performance with the business units or talk about sourcing, deals, or supply management performance, then sustainability is a core part of that.”

Only by constantly talking about sustainability and ESG does Willescroft believe you can fully embed them into a business.

BEGINNIN G W

WITH AN GNIDNE

The harrowing news about the environment over the last few decades have taught the human race a dangerous lesson about the finiteness of resources. Since the Industrial Revolution kicked off in the 18th century, there has been a rather linear approach to resources: ‘take-make-waste’. Not only does this lead to the depletion of resources, it also leads to the pollution of the planet.

Now, we see that this approach is not sustainable and that we need to rethink our approach. Into this fray, then, comes the notion of circular economy, following an alternative pattern: ‘make-use-reuseremake-recycle’. This is a system that values the preservation of value in energy, labour, and material. Naturally, such a radically different approach will alter the design of products. The notion of reusing an object may seem intuitive when it comes to objects, but what about the primary source materials? And what of chemicals? What of plastics?

Chemicals are, for starters, a tricky one. In 2022, the International Energy Agency announced that the chemical industry was the third-largest industry subsector in terms of contributing direct CO2 emissions. One must remember, too, chemicals are an essential ancillary part of nearly every other industry. The need to become sustainable is ever-pressing, for if chemicals become more sustainable, so too does every industry that uses them.

To get some answers, Sustainability Magazine spoke to Anahita Khanlari, PhD, the Industry Marketing Director for Chemicals at AspenTech, which

“AspenTech delivers a wide range of digital solutions to help accelerate circular economy adoption”

NAHITA KHANLARI, PH.D. INDUSTRY MARKETING DIRECTOR – CHEMICALS, ASPENTECH

is a consultative outfit seeking to provide digital solutions for sustainability issues.

Khanlari was forthright about the benefits inherent in bringing circular economy notions to the plastics industry: “There are a raft of benefits that organisations across the chemical industry can attain from adopting circular industry best practices. We are already seeing some of these benefits play out. In general terms, through new innovative designs or readjusting existing assets, waste is reduced and emissions are lowered throughout the entire process. Virgin

materials’ use is lowered, so fewer natural resources are consumed overall.”

This approach to chemicals is not without its challenges, of course – we are, after all, talking about chemicals here.

“Many organisations find that much of the material they consume is neither accessible for recovery nor recycling since the chemicals are either dispersed in the environment or unable to be separated from the final product.”

AspenTech enables the possibility of a circular economy in the chemical industry through its digital solutions – an approach

Climate change caused by a linear take-make-waste approach to resources

that helps the bottom line, too. Said Khanlari: “AspenTech delivers a wide range of digital solutions to help accelerate circular economy adoption. Our digital twins, for example, can be leveraged to model new processes for waste recovery and optimise energy use.

“Predictive and prescriptive maintenance tools help drive up asset utilisation and minimise waste by predicting asset failure, which leads to lost revenue and generates interim waste.

“Our machine-learning-enhanced engineering models (i.e. hybrid models)

processes with unknown operational variables (e.g. kinetic constants) to reduce by-products’ generation or optimise heat recovery.

“Our industrial data foundations can be used to contextualise real-time data to draw meaningful trends from historical operations, minimising waste. They can, for example, help to attain better visibility

NAHITA KHANLARI, PH.D. INDUSTRY MARKETING DIRECTOR – CHEMICALS, ASPENTECH

“Our industrial data foundations can be used to contextualise realtime data to draw meaningful trends from historical operations, minimising waste”

of supply chains to achieve autonomous inventory/production management while lowering waste and the operation’s carbon footprint.”

Plastics are a slightly different proposition compared to chemicals. Already, plastics have an established reputation as the bête noir of all things sustainable, with 460mn tonnes produced worldwide, yet just 10% of this is recycled. Furthermore, 99% of plastics are fossil sourced and their use in the context of economic growth is expected to triple by 2060. Indeed, plastics are one substance whose economy must become circular.

Carbios is a French company that’s making this happen. It is a green biotech company specialising in making enzymatic solutions for recycling plastics and textile polymers. It has already worked, or established partnerships, with some of the most recognisable brands in the world, among these being L’Oreal, Nestle Waters, PepsiCo, Patagonia,

“Our innovative, biological, PETrecycling technology has the potential to be a game changer in the fight against plastic pollution”

EMMANUEL LADENT CEO, CARBIOS

and Puma. Emmanuel Ladent – CEO since 2021 – told us what Carbios can do to encourage a circular economy of plastics.

“At Carbios, we have created two disruptive technologies reaching industrial and commercial scale: the biorecycling of PET (the second most widely used plastic found in packaging, bottles, and textiles) and the biodegradation of PLA (a biosourced plastic). Both technologies rely on enzymes to degrade plastic, an example of which is Carbios’ biological recycling of PET, relying on enzymes that breakdown PET into its molecular components.”

Expanding upon this, Ladent noted how the technology could be used to enable the recycling of plastics with an end to making it a product of the circular economy: “Our innovative, biological, PET-recycling technology has the potential to be a game changer in the fight against plastic pollution. Brands in the packaging and fashion industries are looking for new technologies to reduce their products’ environmental footprint and source sustainable raw material. Carbios’ technology enables them to reduce their dependence on fossil-sourced PET and instead use recycled PET (r-PET) made from plastic and textile waste. Carbios’ biotechnology paves the way for true circularity of PET, as plastic or textile waste can be recycled to once again become virgin-like, quality PET – for example, a t-shirt can become a t-shirt again.”

The challenges in implementing might be there, but the rewards are vast. Though there are indeed many players in the value chain, with such technology properly implemented, plastic pollution may very well be considerably ameliorated, allowing for a sustainable circular economy as we move forward.

ZURICH FRANCE: driving change in insurance risk resilience

WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND

PRODUCED BY: JACK MITCHELL

Transforming legacy systems is an ongoing journey for Zurich France, as it tackles new risk and resilience solutions

In 2022, Zurich Insurance Group announced a business operating profit of US$6.5bn, a target above the expectations of previous years. The success has been evenly distributed across the group, but the P&C line – which is the main line for Zurich France – has performed particularly well, with a 94.3% combined ratio alongside a rise in business operating profit, too.

Growth in customers and P&C lines for Zurich France

But the growth hasn’t just been about the numbers and profit. Rather, Zurich France has enjoyed a fruitful 12 months in terms of new customer onboarding, and the development of fresh products and solutions.

One particular unit that has grown the most over recent years is Zurich Resilience Solutions, or ZRS, created to address the rapidly changing risk landscape with a holistic approach to supporting risk management and helping build resilience.

It is this area of risk and resilience that has preoccupied the strategies taken by Zurich France over the past few years.

Describing the journey, Denis Stasinski, Chief Underwriting Officer, explains that there are two clearly defined periods that mark eras of change within Zurich France: “As a starting point, we have the world before and after COVID-19. The global economy has experienced an accelerating transformation

– and this is true across geopolitical, societal, economic, and digital spheres.

“Additionally, we are starting to see the impact of climate change in both the frequency and intensity (or severity) of

CAT events. To date, global warming is obviously a concern that we have to address collectively. As an insurance company, we need to analyse and adapt our approach considering those evolutions, which impact the risk landscape we have to deal with.”

Denis Stasinski says that by focusing on digital transformation and the latest technologies, Zurich – which is a global company serving 210 countries and territories – is having greater success in delivering its solutions as well as monitoring risk and resilience.

Forging solid partnerships has been a fundamental part of Zurich’s success in its transformation journey. Currently partnered

“By focusing on digital transformation and the latest technologies, we are having greater success in delivering its solutions as well as monitoring risk and resilience”

DENIS STASINSKI CUO, ZURICH FRANCE

DENIS STASINSKI

TITLE: CUO

COMPANY: ZURICH FRANCE

An engineer by training, Denis holds a DEA in Materials Science from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie et de Physique de Bordeaux, as well as a master’s degree in Risk Management from the Institut de Management des Risques. He began his career in 1993 at AXA-XL as a prevention engineer and then as a senior property underwriter. He continued his career in the Civil Liability department as a senior underwriter before being promoted to Claims Manager.

In 2009, he joined RSA and took responsibility for all "1st party" underwriting lines.

with Roboyo, a collaboration of primary importance, Mathieu Pauwels, COO of Zurich France, says that Roboyo’s position as an industry leader has played a critical role.

“Roboyo is the leading pure player in the Intelligent Automation industry. It has been growing very fast over the last three to four years. Roboyo has helped Zurich Group to build and scale the Robotic practice in 2018 and 2019. Since then, Roboyo has been one of the preferred partners for all the topics around automation.”

He explains: “They are now helping Zurich France to bring automation to our business. Their key value for us is to be a real pure player in intelligent automation (across

EXECUTIVE BIO

In December 2017, he joined Zurich France as Director of Underwriting for Property, Construction & Technical Risks Underwriting. In September 2019, he was promoted to Head of Underwriting for Zurich France.

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industries and technology-agnostic) to offer a very flexible approach (tailored to our size and our business), with deep expertise and the aim to coach, train, and support our business in the automation journey.”

Building a digital future

The insurance industry in general has been slow to adopt the latest innovations and technologies. But Pauwels explains that the pandemic forced a situation that has driven change across the board.

“Within the last few years, the COVID19 crisis has impacted ways of working and has had an impact on everyone. During and following the crisis, technology adoption has increased at a faster pace. And that’s why I call it ‘digital acceleration’ rather than ‘digital transformation’. Digital has always

been there, it is just a matter of accelerating its utilisation and adoption. Now, employees expect a different way of working, in terms of tools and interactions with different people.”

Pauwels points out that hybrid working practices and staff working virtually has driven forward connectivity innovations – not just internally, but also externally with Zurich Insurance, its MyZurich platform having anticipated these needs from customers.

“They expect different types of services, and they expect to have them remotely. We’re offering different services, such as the MyZurich platform, which is a platform for our brokers and customers. That platform also offers a risk advisor tool, for example.

“We are commercial insurance so it’s never the same as retail insurance in terms of digitalisation. Nevertheless, we do have

digital solutions that we need to offer (especially for basic activities like insurance certificates) as there is a need for that on the market.”

One of the challenges in implementing these digital solutions comes from issues surrounding data. In hyper digitalisation, where everything goes into the cloud, concerns regarding regulations and governance are often raised, Pauwels says.

“Questions you have to address about data include: how do you govern the data? How do you make sure that you control what is on the cloud? Where is the data going? Is there any leakage? How do you protect your

MATHIEU PAUWELS

TITLE: COO

COMPANY: ZURICH FRANCE

Mathieu Pauwels is Chief Operating Officer. He has 17 years of professional experience in global IT transformation programmes and in managing multidisciplinary and international teams.

Mathieu Pauwels holds a master’s degree in Finance & Business from the ICHEC Business Management School and a specialisation in Business Engineering. He also holds an Executive MBA from IMD Business School.

customer? How do you protect the data of your employee? Ultimately, it revolves around governance.”

Other issues are raised as well, according to Pauwels – especially from a sustainability standpoint. “Digital transformation has a financial cost. But it also has a sustainability cost, because you consume more servers. It’s a different cost to paper, and you’re not cutting down trees, but there’s still that energy usage question.”

Zurich Group and Zurich France are putting in place regulations to control and monitor this, as well as strong governance to make sure they have control over the data. “You have control regarding what you put on the cloud, but the growth has been exponential for the last few years. It’s certainly an area to monitor closely.”

Digital transformation and company culture

The nature of hybrid working patterns has also changed the way teams operate and communicate with each other. Company culture has been disrupted, and taking this into consideration while transforming digitally, is a critical part of the transitional process.

Garnier, Head of UW Casualty and Motor for Zurich in France, says creating a sense of belonging and a cohesive team requires strategy. “Challenges post-COVID raised questions about how we needed to keep our employee engagement high.

“Zurich France wasn’t the only company facing this, but the way that we decided to tackle it was by putting in place a key initiative called People Engagement. We thought about ways to maintain the relationship between employees, between each other. Another aspect of that was how we maintained relationships with our clients and brokers.” Garnier says that even transitioning colleague relationships from

virtual to face-to-face meetings has been considered, with the aim to re-engage people. “Keeping the engagement high is also dealing with the way of working, how we deal with the office space, and the technology that is used. The way we work now is mainly hybrid. It’s a great balance between working from home or always working from the office. So this is really a critical way of keeping the engagement high from our perspective.”

Zurich 2023 Global Risk Report

While climate events have played a part in insurers globally adjusting their risk assessments, the latest Zurich Global Risk Report has pinpointed a panoramic view of the problems facing society at this current time. Despite rapid innovations in

EXECUTIVE BIO

CELINE GARNIER

TITLE: HEAD OF UNDERWRITING FOR LIABILITY AND MOTOR FLEETS

COMPANY: ZURICH FRANCE

Céline began her career in 1995 at Sorema (Groupama), first as a technical manager for all lines of business and then as deputy manager of the facultative large risk management department. In 2001, she joined Groupama as a general and professional liability underwriter for the Groupama and Gan networks. She joined AIG in 2007 as a liability underwriter in the middle market, and was promoted to team manager in 2012. In 2016, she joined Chubb as a liability underwriting manager. In 2018, she joined Zurich France as Head of Underwriting for Liability and Motor Fleet.

Zurich France: driving change in insurance risk resilience

technology, there are more traditional risks of inflation, cost of living, social unrest, and geopolitical confrontations that must be considered.

Vinicio Cellerini, Head of CI Customer & Distribution of Zurich Insurance Group, also assuming the interim operational management of Zurich France, says the findings of the Global Risk Report show that companies and entities must work together to overcome these problems.

“In 2023, we’ve faced risks that are at the same time both new and familiar. We’re experiencing a return of older risk, such as inflation, the cost of living crisis, and widespread social unrest and geopolitical confrontation. But also, at the same time, there is the threat of nuclear warfare. The most critical long-term risk, though, is climate change, according to the report this year.

“To understand risk, we look at current trends and how they have developed over time. We analyse data, and we partner with prominent experts”

VINICIO CELLERINI HEAD OF CI CUSTOMER & DISTRIBUTION, ZURICH FRANCE

“If we want to dig a bit deeper into the report, then you will see that the cost-ofliving crisis is clearly ranked as the most severe global risk over the next two years, though it’s also seen as the short-term threat.”

Cooperation and partnerships to combat biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse is, espouses Cellerini, essential, because it’s viewed as one of the fastest accelerating global risks over the next decade.

“Clearly, failure of climate mitigation and climate adaptation are the largest long-term concerns. Regarding geopolitical rivalries and new world looking stances, we can expect that they will heighten economic constraints and further exacerbate both short and longterm risks. The Global Risks Report urges countries to work together to avoid resource rivalries. This is what was really important to us regarding global risk this year.”

VINICIO CELLERINI

TITLE: GLOBAL HEAD OF CUSTOMER AND DISTRIBUTION MANAGEMENT

COMPANY: ZURICH FRANCE

EXECUTIVE BIO

Vinicio Cellerini was appointed Global Head of Customer and Distribution Management for Zurich Commercial Insurance in December 2018. Vinicio joined the Zurich Insurance Group in 1986 as a Property Underwriter and since then, has held various roles within the organisation. In January 2005, he was promoted to CEO, Global Corporate Italy before being appointed CEO, Global Corporate Switzerland in 2010. In August 2012 he moved to the UK as CEO of Global Corporate UK (which later became Head of Commercial Insurance UK).

MARTIN DE LAUBADERE

TITLE: HEAD OF UNDERWRITING FOR SPECIALTY LINES

COMPANY: ZURICH FRANCE

Martin de Laubadère is Head of Underwriting for Specialty Lines.

He joined Coface in 2006 in the Finance Department, after a postgraduate degree in Risk Management from the University of Paris IX Dauphine. He joined AIG in 2010 as Financial Lines Underwriter before joining the management team of Zurich France in 2018.

Market recommendations to encourage change

Zurich’s goal to contribute to a global movement that is centred around sustainability has led the group to partner with a range of marketplace players. Stasinski says: “Our main clients remain large international companies. But we have developed capability and expertise, in terms of risk assessment, and are ready to propose solutions for the middle market.

“In France, for example, we started to develop an MGA proposition four years ago with a partner named Etik and Tetris, dedicated to the construction sector. To

date, it has been a successful development and, obviously, it is a global initiative. We analyse this type of opportunity on a caseby-case basis.”

As part of this initiative to drive change and better sustainable practices on a global scale, Zurich Insurance has also partnered with the World Economic Forum to increase the scope of its holistic strategy. “Risk is clearly our business at Zurich,” says Cellerini. “To understand it, we look at current trends and how they have developed over time. We analyse data, and we partner with prominent experts, drawing on the experience of more than 800 risk engineers across the world.

He continues: “Zurich champions a holistic approach to risk management by helping businesses understand the triggers and the trends to look out for alongside how to prepare for possible consequences. By helping people understand how global risk interrelates, we give customers and communities the opportunity to plan ahead with confidence and work towards a brighter future. We do this because that’s who we are, and that’s why we strategically decided to partner with the World Economic Forum.”

Technology and innovation driving change

Martin de Laubadère, Head of Underwriting for Specialty Lines at Zurich France, says technology has been key in facilitating a more sustainable approach to products and services, as well as the way the group operates.

“The integration of new technology is key for us within the client experience as we see it; it’s true for Zurich France, it’s true for the group. The main objective behind this is to propose simple solutions, for us to be more intuitive for our clients and the corporations. Individuals working for these corporations will benefit from these services.”

He says the importance of new technology has clearly grown over recent years, with it seen as a competitive advantage that Zurich Group is happy to heavily invest in. The use of data is critical, but so is the company’s approach to it and the digital platforms that process said data.

“At Zurich, we don’t limit our relationship with our clients to their difficult times, when a claim or a need for reimbursement happens; it goes way beyond that, as we see the relations with clients as broader and consequently being alongside our clients to accompany them much more in advance and manage not only the prevention of risks, but also the identification of impacting, meaningful trends.”

The core goal is to be as transparent as possible so that facts and data on risk and resilience can be shared as part of the holistic strategy. “In France, this aspect of

“Integration of new technology is key for us within the client experience. The main objective behind this is to propose simple solutions, for us to be more intuitive for our clients and the corporations”

MARTIN DE LAUBADÈRE HEAD OF UNDERWRITING FOR SPECIALTY LINES, ZURICH FRANCE

digitalisation is one of the three big pillars of our strategy for 2023-2025. The objective we want to achieve is to have a direct impact on our clients, bringing more services.

“Our A&H line of business provides the capacity to propose online certificates for clients for direct access. I also want to emphasise the importance of international programmes for our clients: we invest a lot in these aspects to ensure programmes can be delivered very efficiently and smoothly for the client.”

Future trends in the insurance market

The next few months for the global insurance industry will see a number of shifts and trends – one of which is an overall increase in the number of claims being made.

Céline Garnier says Zurich France has had dialogue with reinsurers regarding autoliability trends from a claims’ perspective: “What we’ve seen is that amount doubled year-on-year from 2019 to 2021 to reach more than €200mn indemnity for one loss. Risk management is absolutely critical in managing this trend, but discussions about the ways contracts are structured and how the insured are made aware of the exposition and tools that we have in the insurance industry are also essential.”

She continues, underlining that the Global Risks Report outlines the environmental risks that are seen in the short-term and longterm as one of the most important issues by leaders in general. “This obviously has an impact in terms of responsibility, and from a political responsibility, we see a clear switch in corporate responsibility, and behind that that’s obviously the directors and officers.”

Martin de Laubadère adds that, from a D&O risk perspective, the evolution of the regulation will have a big influence on the

global insurance industry in 2023. “We at Zurich clearly have a lot of D&O expertise and leadership. The intention of the group, globally – but our intention, also, in France – is to maintain our presence to accompany our clients, bring our expertise, and share that with them, working together to face this risk and be more resilient as the future unfolds.”

“Other challenges will be the CAT evolution due to climate change and the necessity to adapt our insurance proposition with this evolution,” adds Denis Stasinski. “Risk assessment is and will remain key to properly understanding the impacts to help our customers adapt their business model.”

“Digital transformation has a financial cost. But it also has a sustainability cost, because you consume more servers. It’s a different cost to paper, and you’re not cutting down trees, but there’s still that energy usage question”

MATHIEU PAUWELS COO, ZURICH FRANCE

WOMEN

Earlier this month Sustainability Magazine released its list of TOP 100 Women – here we look back at who made the prestigious TOP 10

WRITTEN BY: LAUREN TYE

Judith Wiese

Chief People and Sustainability Officer

Siemens

https://www.linkedin.com/ in/judith-wiese-542b4436/

Judith's goal in her role as Siemens' Chief People and Sustainability Officer is to promote an inclusive, empowering culture that opens the door for ongoing transformation, with the aim of creating a helpful, welcoming, and educationally favourable environment where individuals can flourish. She is also passionate about sustainability and thinks that what is good for business, what is suitable for people, and what is good for the environment go hand in hand.

She also serves as a member of the Management Board of Siemens AG, where her primary duties include global business services, people and organisation, and sustainability.

Judith worked for MARS as their SVP of People & Organization Corporate before joining Siemens, where she was based in the company's headquarters and collaborated closely with the functional heads on

the Executive Committee and their global leaders, managing teams around the world. She serves as the CHRO's global leadership team's ‘Chief of Staff’ in the capacities of functional strategy, effectiveness, and communication. This involves participating in significant strategic initiatives for Mars, Inc., as outlined in the five-year strategic plan, such as the introduction of a new operating model for the company.

Global Business Services, Latin America, the Nordics, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Netherlands are all under Judith Wiese's supervision. She serves in a number of leadership positions outside of her employment with Siemens, including those with the Siemens Foundation, the German Employers' Association, the Latin America Committee of German Business, and the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, Germany.

9 Sophia Leonora Mendelsohn

Chief Sustainability Officer and Global Head of ESG

Cognizant

https://www.linkedin.com/ in/sophia-leonora-mendelsohn-83b6613/

Sophia is Cognizant's Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of ESG. Cognizant is a Fortune 200 provider of technology and digital solutions. ESG solutions are being incorporated into technology and systemic thinking by Sophia and her Cognizant coworkers, while also balancing immediate financial goals with sustainability and ESG governance for long-term business viability. Ultimately, she delivers business models for a new, low-carbon, circular economy.

She was the first Chief Sustainability Officer at JetBlue Airways, where she influenced the aviation sector and JetBlue by launching answers to climate concerns. She led discussions about ESG with owners and investors, taking notes on their queries to further safeguard intangible brand and conventional financial worth. Prior to JetBlue, she worked for Haworth, a large manufacturer in the corporate real-estate sector, as the head of sustainability for emerging markets.

She was selected Climate Leader of the Year by Ethical Corporation in 2016 and received the US Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Leadership Award the same year. She was listed by Bloomberg as one of the top 30 figures driving the climate movement in 2020. Furthermore, Sophia has received recognition for her leadership and dedication to corporate citizenship throughout her career.

A business advisor to firms focused on sustainability from pre-IPO to stealth mode, Sophia also created the first ESG and instructed its students at Harvard Extension School. She graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Science in Sustainable Management. Sophia, who participates on advisory councils and boards, is raising her children in a primarily Mandarin environment and speaks Mandarin Chinese.

8 Bea Perez

SVP and Chief Communications, Sustainability and Strategic Partnerships Officer

The Coca-Cola Company

linkedin.com/in/bea-perez-8225919https://www. /

Beatriz ‘Bea’ Perez is SVP and Chief Communications, Sustainability & Strategic Partnerships Officer for The Coca-Cola Company. She leads an integrated team across public affairs and communications, sustainability, and partnerships to support the company's new growth model and path to becoming a total beverage company in her role as Chief Public Affairs, Communications, and Sustainability Officer, as well as being a member of the Executive Committee.

As The Coca-Cola Company's first Chief Sustainability Officer since 2011, the SVP has focused on water stewardship, sustainable packaging, the environment, and women's economic empowerment while developing and directing progress towards broad global sustainability goals. The Company's World Without Waste programme, Water Security Plan, and other ESG-related efforts are all driven by her team.

In 1994, Perez started working for the organisation. She later held senior-level positions in branding, marketing, operations, and public policy, where she applied her depth of knowledge, business savvy, and passion for sustainability to forge partnerships and programmes that have improved lives and communities all over the world.

She has received recognition from many organisations for her dedication and achievements, including:

‘Conservation Trailblazer’ status from The Trust for Public Land; inclusion in the Association of Latino Professionals for America's ‘50 Most Powerful Latinas’ ranking in 2017, 2018, and 2019; inclusion on Hispanic Executive magazine's list of top 10 leaders; and coverage as one of the ‘25 Most Powerful Latinas’ on CNN and People en Espanol.

Velislava Ivanova Chief Sustainability Officer

EY

linkedin.com/in/velislava-ivanova-8486b215https://www. /

Velislava, the America’s Chief Sustainability Officer at EY, is a sustainability expert with more than 25 years of extensive international experience in creating and executing sustainability strategies and programmes for major multinational corporations from a range of industries, including energy, manufacturing, retail, consumer goods, and pharmaceuticals. She has provided guidance to a wide range of client businesses on how to integrate sustainability into their value chains and goods.

Velislava has a track record of working successfully with senior leaders in large, complex enterprises to set a sustainability vision and goals to enhance business performance. She's had the chance to manage intricate environmental initiatives for private, IFI, and governmental clients thanks to her work. As well as successfully changing the long-term value strategies of companies headquartered in the US, Canada,

Bulgaria, the UK, Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, and Belgium as a leader, Velislava has worked in multiple top-tier international consulting firms, where she has effectively led professional practices and teams.

She is dedicated to being a leader who is inclusive, supports the transition to a low-carbon, circular economy, and fosters a collaborative environment to develop diverse talent.

Veli has written extensively in addition to giving presentations on EHS and sustainability issues to a variety of audiences. She graduated from the University of Manchester with a master’s in pollution and environmental control and a PhD in environmental biology.

Top 100 Women in Sustainability."

"I am proud to be recognised among the Sustainability Magazine

6 Virginie Helias

Chief Sustainability Officer Procter & Gamble

https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginiehelias/

Virginie has worked in brand management and innovation at Procter & Gamble for more than three decades. She is an expert in managing brands both locally and globally. Virginie has worked for various P&G brands that generate billions of dollars in sales, including Pantene, Ariel/Tide, and Pampers. Over her career, she has also lived in France, the UK, Switzerland, and the US, giving her a wealth of international expertise.

Since 2011, Virginie has placed a global emphasis on sustainability and corporate citizenship, spanning all brands and business units worldwide. Her goal was to embed sustainability into P&G's innovation, brandbuilding, and routine business procedures. As a result of the work she has done to make sustainability a key business strategy, a driver of innovation, and a catalyst for a more resilient organisation, she was elevated to Vice President of Global Sustainability in 2016.

Prior to taking on her current role, Virginie served as the Western Europe Franchise Leader for Ariel, one of P&G's largest brands, where she launched the highly successful Cool Clean/Turn to 30 campaign and the most environmentallyfriendly laundry product to make Ariel the leader in sustainability (Excel Gel). Her leadership, change management, and visionary skills are well known.

Alongside Virginie's experience with brands and innovation, she has a coaching certification and is renowned for her abilities in vision, change management, and leadership development. She is currently living in Geneva, Switzerland, with her husband and 3 children.

5

Paulette Frank Chief Sustainability Officer Johnson

& Johnson

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulette-frank-1a74691a/

Paulette Frank, Chief Sustainability Officer at Johnson & Johnson, is in charge of creating and implementing worldwide environmental sustainability and human rights strategies to improve the company and advance it towards a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable future.

She established J&J's strategic course to hasten and amplify positive environmental impact as well as to find and promote solutions that balance human and environmental health.

This involves taking the lead in achieving the company's challenging 2025 and 2030 climate objectives, integrating sustainability across business segments, giving employees the freedom to take the initiative, and collaborating with international organisations to achieve environmental health justice.

Frank has held a variety of positions in the sustainability, environment, health, and safety sectors over the

years that have brought her from the pitch to the boardroom. Prior to becoming a member of the J&J team in 1997, Frank held the position of VP of Global Environmental Health, Safety & Sustainability. Currently, the Enterprise Governance Council and the Supply Chain Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Council are co-chaired by the CSO, while Frank is also a member of the Yale Centre for Business and Environment advisory board.

Frank graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Duke University and a Master of Environmental Studies from the School of the Environment at Yale University. She was also chosen for Entrepreneur Magazine's 100 Women of Influence, and, in 2022, was named by Sustainability Magazine as one of the Top 100 Women in Sustainability 2022.

4 Kathryn Alsegaf

Global Chief Sustainability Officer Deloitte

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathy-alsegaf

Kathryn has over 10 years of experience in the field of sustainability. It all began when she suggested Deloitte – a leading global provider of audit and assurance, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax, and related services –examine carbon emissions' reporting in a submission to an innovation competition.

In 2004, Kathryn began working for Deloitte as a Senior Manager. She was a founding member of the firm's Sustainability Integrated Market Offering and a member of the Capital Projects Consulting Group, where she provided litigation support on construction claims for projects that were located both in the United States and overseas.

Kathryn quickly advanced to Associate Director, Sustainability, where she championed sustainable performance reporting and transparency

while enhancing sustainability performance by utilising science, innovation, and passion.

Now as Deloitte's Global Chief Sustainability Officer, she is responsible for leading the company's WorldClimate strategy and overall environmental goals. Additionally, she is in charge of Deloitte's greenhouse gas inventory, the creation and monitoring of carbon-reduction objectives, and external sustainability reporting. (CDP, TCFD, GRI)/ Before joining Deloitte, she worked at Duke Energy Company, where she was involved in the development of power plants, environmental permitting, and corporate strategic planning.

Kathryn earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Queen's University, a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Master of Business Administration at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Rebecca Marmot Chief Sustainability Officer Unilever

Rebecca, Unilever's Chief Sustainability Officer, is in charge of fostering transformational change in Unilever's priority areas of: water, sanitation, and hygiene; climate change and ending deforestation; opportunities for women; plastics and the circular economy; impact finance; and health and wellbeing through advocacy and partnerships.

Marmot also oversees the next phase of Unilever's sustainability journey outside of the USLP in her capacity as Chief Sustainability Officer, a position she has held since 2019.

Prior to this role, Marmot was Global Vice President of Sustainability at Unilever where she was in charge of the team responsible for global advocacy, policy, and partnerships.

Global Partnerships & Advocacy at Unilever is overseen by Marmot. She is in charge of overseeing a team that advises the company strategically on

Unilever aired the first-ever TV advert in the UK in 1955

important advocacy issues and is also involved in the creation of strategic relationships that have both scale and impact on the company's growth.

This entails collaborating with commercial organisations as well as influential groups that shape public opinions, like governments, NGOs, and the UN.

Under her direction, Unilever contributed to significant sustainability landmarks like the 2015 Paris Accord and the formulation of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the Global Goals, placing Unilever at the forefront of sustainable business.

The CSO worked as the Global External Affairs Director at L'Oréal and in External Affairs at the UK Department for Trade and Industry before joining Unilever. She was in charge of managing stakeholders for UK government initiatives here.

Musidora Jorgensen Chief

Sustainability Officer Microsoft

Musidora Jorgensen, Microsoft's Chief Sustainability Officer, oversees sustainability initiatives for the business in the UK.

The leader firmly believes that business can be a force for good in the world and that maximising the potential of others is the key to its success as a group.

Before joining Microsoft, Jorgensen served as VP of sales for Salesforce, where she oversaw the Energy and Utilities business, and for Oracle, where she led sales into the Telco, Media, and Utilities industries for human capital management. Jorgensen further held sales leadership positions in Oracle's consulting branch, where she oversaw the UK Public and Commercials sectors.

She served on Salesforce's internal working group focusing on more inclusive recruiting as a member of the UK leadership team, and as a speaker and ally for the Salesforce Women's Network.

As a keynote speaker for the Women in Sales Conference, the PwC Women's Network, and the Gamechangers Women's Network at the House of Commons, Jorgensen has also discussed gender diversity, going on to devote her free time to mentoring the University of Greenwich final-year STEM students.

Jorgensen was named one of the 50 Leading Lights for UK Kindness & Leadership 2020 and was named one of the top 100 female future leaders in the 2020 Yahoo Finance HERoes list. She also had the honour of winning the Best Sales Mentor award at the European Women In Sales Awards in 2018.

Throughout her career, she has held leadership positions at some of the biggest tech and telecom companies in the world, including Oracle, Salesforce, and HP, along with 20 years of experience selling and managing teams in the IT industry.

"I’m a Leader who believes that business can be a force for good in the world"

1

Kate Brandt

Chief Sustainability Officer

Google

Being in charge of sustainability for all of Google's global operations, products, and supply chains is Kate Brandt's role as Chief Sustainability Officer. Kate collaborates with Google's data centres, real-estate, supply chain, and product teams in this capacity to make sure the company takes advantage of chances to strategically improve sustainability.

Prior to this, Kate was the first Federal Chief Sustainability Officer in the country. She was in charge of promoting sustainability throughout all Federal Government operations, which included 360,000 buildings, 650,000 vehicles, and $445bn in annual purchases of products and services.

Kate held a number of high-level positions in the US Federal Government prior to working for the White House, including Senior Advisor at the Department of Energy, Director for Energy and Environment in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel,

and Energy Advisor to the Secretary of the Navy.

For her efforts in assisting the Navy go green, Kate has been given the Outstanding Public Service Award, the highest honour the US Navy can bestow upon a civilian. In 2021, Kate was included in Fortune Magazine's list of the 40 Under 40, and in celebration of Outside Magazine's 40th anniversary, she was selected as one of the 40 women who have had the greatest influence on the globe. Kate is also a member of the EVgo, BSR, Restor, and Corporate Eco Forum boards.

As a Gates Cambridge Scholar, Kate earned a master's degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge, then earned an an honours degree from Brown University.

"Kate is an inclusive leader, comprehensive organiser, and thoughtful innovator"

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