Sustainability - July 2022 by Energy Digital

August 2022 | sustainabilitymag.com

Diversity & Inclusion:

Supply chain D&I: We can all do better

Digital Transformation

Using AI to boost sustainability & profit

GLOBAL

B CORPS CORPS B Smart Cities: Under the microscope: Test beds for smart city technologies

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The Sustainability Team EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

BECCI KNOWLES DEPUTY EDITOR

TOM SWALLOW CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER

SCOTT BIRCH

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ PRODUCTION MANAGERS

PHILLINE VICENTE JANE ARNETA

CREATIVE TEAM

OSCAR HATHAWAY SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL HECTOR PENROSE SAM HUBBARD MIMI GUNN JUSTIN SMITH REBEKAH BIRLESON JORDAN WOOD DANILO CARDOSO CALLUM HOOD VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGERS

KIERAN WAITE

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

MARTA EUGENIO ERNEST DE NEVE THOMAS EASTERFORD DREW HARDMAN MARKETING DIRECTOR

JASON ANDIKA-SMITH MARKETING MANAGER

LAUREN ALICE TYE PROJECT DIRECTORS

BEN WIGGER

MEDIA SALES DIRECTORS

LEWIS HAMMOND MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

EXECUTIVE ASSITANT

JORDAN HUBBARD CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

STACY NORMAN CEO

GLEN WHITE

FOREWORD

SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON,

taking place from 7-8 September in the capital at the Business Design Centre

“This event is not to be missed if environmental, social and organisational change is on your agenda”

SUSTAINABILITY MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY

Hello and welcome to the August issue of Sustainability Magazine, my first as Editor-in-Chief. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to work on a magazine that covers such important issues, and I am particularly looking forward to hearing from all the experts next month! Covering a whole host of topics – from Net Zero, to Circular Economy, Sustainable Supply Chains & Scope 3, and Ethical Investing & Finance to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Accreditations & Certifications, Education, Standards & Governance and more – SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON is not to be missed if environmental, social and organisational change is on your agenda. Needless to say, I’ve learned a great deal in my first few weeks here at Sustainability Magazine. For example, as the main driver behind technologies such as big data, robotics, and the Internet of Things (IOT), I have read with interest about Artificial Intelligence (AI) being the most omnipresent emerging technology of the fourth industrial revolution. I also discovered some interesting examples of enclosed environments being used for Smart City Technologies and had an important discussion about a recent Gartner report that revealed representation of people of colour (PoW) is higher when the company is publicly held. Why is this? I ask.

BECCI KNOWLES

becci.knowless@bizclikmedia.com

sustainabilitymag.com

CONTENTS

Our Regular Upfront Section: 10 Big Picture 12 The Brief 14 Timeline: The evolution of ESG investment 16 Trailblazer: Max Delamain 18 Five Minutes With: Rachael Everard

Digital Transformation Using AI to boost sustainability & profit

Edge Centres

The art of being like water

EvoBits

Turnkey IT Solutions in a powerful boutique model

SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON

Test beds for smart city technologies

Event Preview

Diversity & Inclusion Supply Chain: We can all do better

Smart Cities

Top 10

Global B Corps

Accreditation S H OW YO U R business C A RES A B O U T equality

E D U C A T E

•

M O T I V A T E

•

E L E V A T E

It’s about doing more C L I C K H E RE

BIG PICTURE

Photo credit: McLaren Racing

August 2022

McLaren x NEOM:

Motorsport innovation drives a sustainable future Woking, UK We’re already beginning to see how sustainability is influenced by influential organisations, but a partnership this big could change the future. The announcement of the McLaren Racing and NEOM partnership took place at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, UK on the 27th June. The release of the news marks the racing innovator’s latest foray into sustainability as it will not only support NEOM’s projects through innovative developments, but will also provide opportunity for around 20 members of the Saudi Arabian smart city Oxagon to learn from its automotive triumphs. sustainabilitymag.com

THE BRIEF

BY THE NUMBERS “I have my 10 sites across Australia, but it's time to spread Edge Centres' footprint across the rest of APAC” Jonathan Eaves Founder & CEO, Edge Centres  READ MORE

“Urban environments like university campuses, for example, are incredibly complex ecosystems with many of the same attributes as a city” Dave Hopping

CEO, Solutions and Services, Siemens Smart Infrastructure  READ MORE

“Trust, fostering belonging, and embracing the very thing that makes us human. This is the future” Sheri R Hinish

Global Services + Alliances Lead, IBM  READ MORE

August 2022

Percentage price increase for petrol and diesel in a 12-month period

33.3% 34.3% 36.2% March 2022

April 2022

May 2022

Carlsberg shares developments in sustainable beer brewing VP Group Development Stephan Munch comments on Carlsberg’s sustainability achievements in circular packaging rollout and sustainable barley sourcing. READ MORE

IS THE WORLD MOVING IN ESREVER? As the Russia-Ukraine crisis worsens, countries in Europe are feeling the effects of the energy shortage following cut-offs between the continent and Russia. As a result, coal plants are being reopened to ease the potential of an energy shortage and cap the rise in costs for consumers and businesses as they experience unseen price rises in gas and electricity. It remains unclear as to how long coal facilities will remain open, with the UK proposing to burn fossil fuels over winter, but the damage to the environment is inevitable. While Russian supply only accounts for around 4% of UK gas, it’s fair to say that that energy is one of the most volatile commodities and a small percentage loss can cause havoc with prices across the globe.

 RIVIAN AUTOMOTIVE On 27th June 2022, Rivian announced the beginning of its fastcharging applications in Colorado California, marking a new EV venture for the organisation.  POLESTAR The Swedish pureplay EV manufacturer is owned by Volvo and announced its listing on the NASDAQ with a fullblown celebration as it rings the bell in the US.

W I N N E R S AUG22

 EUROPE Countries across Europe, including Germany, Austria and the UK are forced to reopen coal power stations to prevent an energy shortage—a result of the cut-off from Russia.  TESLA 15 Black employees from its factory in California, former and current, hold Tesla to account as it is subject to another racial discrimination lawsuit.

L O S E R S

sustainabilitymag.com

TIMELINE

THE EVOLU ESG INVE Dating back to the 1960s, investment in ESG has been rapidly inclining for more than 50 years, with fewer organisations than ever without some form of sustainability strategy

TIME 1960s: The dawn of sustainable investment

2005: ESG is born

The 1960s saw the beginning of ‘socially responsible investing’. Organisations began to exclude stocks or entire industries from their portfolio should their operations not be seen as ‘socially responsible’.

First used by ‘The Global Compact’, the term ESG was coined in 2005 in a study titled ‘Who Cares Wins’.

August 2022

2006: PRI initiative launch

In 2006, the New York Stock Exchange launched the ‘Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)’.

2007: SSEI launch

2013: The rise of ESG investment

The following year – 2007 – the ‘Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative (SSEI)’ was launched.

In 2013, the World Health Organisation launched a voluntary global monitoring framework to reduce the use of tobacco 30% by 2025.

UTION OF ESTMENT

LINE 2015: Global initiatives & EVs

2018 GRI standards

2020 Funds & EVs

In 2015, 196 parties signed the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C and strengthen efforts to deal with the impact of climate change. 193 parties also adopted the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015.

Launched in 2000, the GRI standards had been adopted by 80% of the world's largest corporations.

Between 2020 and 2021, ESG funding more than doubled. In addition, the global market share for EVs increased from 1% in 2010 to 54% by 2020.

2025 Assets under management

2030 Asset valuation

It is expected that, by 2025, 33% of assets under management will include an ESG mandate.

By 2030, ESG assets are expected to reach US$3tn in value.

sustainabilitymag.com

TRAILBLAZER

MAX DELAMAIN Director & Co-Founder

Gluon is supporting enterprises in the sustainability space, particularly those influencing EV adoption, renewable energy and the connecting solutions

he climate crisis facilitated a shift in mindset, but business will play a significant role in developing sustainable infrastructure. The era of renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs) is one that has been talked about for some time. In 2022, we are beginning to see more innovation in these areas, making the switch ever more likely. But, this is still new territory for businesses and pure-play organisations have the added task of competing with companies sporting significantly more capital that is almost readily available for renewable development. Companies require knowledge and expertise to navigate the renewable energy market, which is a space in which Gluon Group takes powerful strides to support innovators. Max Delamain, the company’s Co-Founder and Director

August 2022

tells us how the consultancy supports partners, drives opportunities for renewable energy funding, and gives his overall thoughts on the industry. “We help companies through the whole lifecycle, from ideation to exit. We’ve focused on EV charging and hydrogen production and storage in the past few years, however, the core team built and funded over 5GW of solar and wind previously. Gluon is a messenger particle – and we think like that,” says Delamain. In the wider business landscape Gluon Group is a fairly young organisation, having established its name in 2016 and since announced new ventures into mobility and advisory. The firm supports businesses throughout the development lifecycle, from ideation to exit. EV charging projects and hydrogen applications have been

“Gluon is a messenger particle – and we think like that”

TRAILBLAZER

high on the corporate agenda over the past few years, and the team has also worked with renewable firms to build and fund over 5GW of solar and wind capability. As it expands its work and operations, Gluon Group has plans to launch Gluon Mobility Ventures — primarily working on facilitating EV adoption — and Gluon Advisory Partners. Aside from this, the consulting firm is working with partners on some great products that could change mobility in the urban environment. We are really focused on corporates and fleets – we think this is the area that transitions fastest,” says Delamain. “ZevHub signed Europe’s largest Urban Mobility hub recently, and we are having discussions regarding a much larger rollout as we speak. Marine2o is embarking upon its pilot project on the Thames; we are constantly surprised by the scale of the companies who approach us in need of solutions.” Delamain puts Gluon’s people high on the list of factors driving the company forward. “The team has come a long way there and our pipeline is very exciting now, partly because people are realising that the world we knew – of low energy prices and geopolitical frictions – isn’t coming back in the near term.” What does a sustainable future look like? Asked this question, Delamain provides his own insight to what the future of renewable energy may hold.

August 2022

One particular part of this is the wider implementation of hydrogen. “I think we are at a point where we see certain segments of the market realise that operating at current gas prices is unsustainable and, if they haven’t already, I expect they will also then realise that hydrogen can solve some of these headaches so now is the time to be investing in such alternative energy sources to ensure energy and pricing security. We aren’t in a period of ‘wait and see’ – it’s time to act now, both for the climate and for the economy,” Delamain says. With the extended effort to develop sustainably comes the empowerment of individuals – and Delamain explains what this means to him and the organisation. “It’s a joy seeing people grow and develop, and the team expand. Patrick Wylie joined us two years ago from the University of Edinburgh and he’s starting to become a force in the office. We’ve just taken on a general counsel and a PhD who has focused on hydrogen technology in the past four years, and our customer list is growing. We all have different insights and experiences – people interest me and we learn from them.”

sustainabilitymag.com

FIVE MINUTES WITH...

Rachael Everard HEAD OF SUSTAINABILITY ROLLS-ROYCE Everard is in charge of driving sustainability across Rolls Royce global engineering remit as it develops solutions to meet widespread sustainability challenges Q. TELL US ABOUT YOUR ROLE AT ROLLS-ROYCE

» I've been at Rolls-Royce for about nine years now, working in the sustainability team for about six of those and then in my current role for the last three. Wow! Time flies! My role is Head of Sustainability for the Rolls-Royce Group. I have global remit and responsibility for helping the business to understand what sustainability is and how to respond to increasing pressures – internally and externally – around social, ethical and environmental factors, and really help guide the business and its leadership to make a more sustainable decision. That's in-line with those increasing expectations, whether that's stakeholder demand regulation or just shifting general mood around various topics. 20

August 2022

Q. WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT YOUR JOB?

» It is different every day. Everything is

different. I also feel like I am contributing to something really positive in the world that potentially could have a small impact or even a really big impact, but either way it feels positive.

Q. DO YOU SEE ROLLS-ROYCE’S SUSTAINABILITY TEAM AS EARLY ENTRANTS IN THIS SPACE?

» I think Rolls-Royce has probably been

uniquely placed because we've always been motivated to reduce or improve our environmental performance to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, that's because, for an airline, all of their operating costs are driven by the cost of fuel. If you can reduce the amount of fuel you need to use in an engine, you reduce their operating costs substantially – about 30% of an airlines’ costs are all on the fuel that they consume. So we've always been driven to pursue those technology improvements, which is almost accidental.

Q. WHAT DOES SUSTAINABILITY MEAN TO ROLLS-ROYCE?

» Sustainability is about balancing the

needs of the business with the needs of the system in which we operate. Ultimately, for us, that's about driving to net-zero carbon. We are a business with a relatively large CO2 footprint, just given the nature of the products and services that we've provided that have traditionally been fuelled entirely by fossil fuels. But we're at this really exciting point in that journey where we've made some really bold commitments. We've said we want to be net-zero carbon by 2050, which, for an organisation of our complexity, size and impact, is a

“Rolls-Royce as a company has a huge role to play in supporting the transition” really big deal. We're starting to see the real fruits of that commitment coming through. And there's some really exciting projects that have the potential to scale up and deliver.

Q. TELL US ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIPS YOU BUILD IN ORDER TO OPERATE AS SUSTAINABLY AS POSSIBLE

» I think one of the things we're really

conscious of is that no one can do it alone in this journey. Particularly for the systems that we are operating within transport, energy and the built environment. Each one is intrinsically linked. We’re an engine provider, so that engine goes onto somebody else's platform – for example, a boat. We provide an engine that goes

on someone else's ship, someone else operates that ship, they choose where, which port it starts from, which port it ends up at. You need that whole system to work together because the technology alone doesn't do anything. It can't do anything. It doesn't deliver any benefit to society.

Q. WHAT ARE THE BIG OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOU?

» I think there is a fantastic opportunity

to come from this. I think Rolls-Royce as a company has a huge role to play in supporting the transition, not just in reducing our own carbon footprint, but actually really helping to accelerate the development of technologies for markets that we're not present in today, whether that's, new ways of connecting people in cities, through air mobility or things like net negative emissions technologies. Direct air capture is something that we're looking into at the moment. But, really taking that step back and thinking about that system level transformation is really exciting.

sustainabilitymag.com

DISCOVER & SUBSCRIBE

A BizClik Brand

C TOB E R 202

THE FUTURE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES DISCOVER & SUBSCRIBE

W AT C H T H E I D E N T

August 2022

EDGE CENTRES

THE ART OF BEING LIKE WATER AD FEATURE WRITTEN BY: SAM STEERS

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

sustainabilitymag.com

EDGE CENTRES

Jon Eaves, Founder and CEO of Edge Centres, talks funding rounds, a panAPAC rollout, and writing the unwritten future of ‘Edge’

he edge, it would seem, is full of surprises. “I'm always blown away by how much things have changed and how fast they move,” reflects Jonathan Eaves, Founder and CEO of off-grid edge data centre company Edge Centres. For a company that’s fresh off the back of a AU$12mn funding round, and on track to grow from a single test site in the small Australian town of Grafton – which came online in early 2021 – to 20 data centres spread across seven APAC markets in under two years, “fast” feels like an understatement. It’s all the more impressive when you hear Jon talk about just how much his understanding of – not to mention vision for – “the edge” has changed in that time. A Year at the Cutting Edge “What Edge Centres looks like today is so completely different to what it was when I founded the company,” he explains. Over the last year, Eaves has “radically reevaluated” his understanding of what 'edge' means. He’s pivoted the business in response, from focusing on his home market of Australia, towards “a broader, globalised footprint, rather than a more concentrated, localised edge network.” Of course, if you talk to Jon for any amount of time about his plans for the business, you quickly realise that when

August 2022

Example of an image caption

EDGE CENTRES

Continuing its growth in APAC and the US

“ The Edge is like water; it’s the same shape as the space it fills” JONATHAN EAVES FOUNDER & CEO EDGE CENTRES

he says pivoting, he really means doing both things faster, bigger, and better than everyone else. In Australia, Edge Centres has 10 data centres: four in Queensland, three in New South Wales, and three more in Victoria – which cover the majority of the population in those three states. “I built 10 data centres in Australia, where I have a serious competitor, and it's been going very well. But I realised 28

August 2022

my market was still only 25 million people, and two competitors chasing all the same business in a market that size, in small towns and areas where they've never had a data centre before - it already feels a little too small,” Eaves says. “That's what led me to look beyond Australia, towards a market with 900 million people, greater population density, and therefore a much greater need for edge solutions. I have my 10 sites across Australia, but it's time to spread Edge Centres' footprint across the rest of APAC, which will inevitably go east and west into North America in 2023 and then into Europe.”

JONATHAN EAVES TITLE: FOUNDER & CEO INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY LOCATION: AUSTRALIA

Across APAC In Asia, Eaves is building or buying another 10 sites spread throughout Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong, and Thailand. The first, EC31, is under construction in Kuala Lumpur, replicating Edge Centres’ awardwinning, cutting-edge specifications for small, modular, edge data centre units. The next site has been selected to the south in Johor, which Eaves explains is “an amazing location because it's just across the bridge from Singapore. That means that you can have a site in Johor and, in terms of connection latency for a hyperscaler,

EXECUTIVE BIO

Jonathan Eaves is a veteran data centre builder and tireless evangelist for the future of the edge. He founded Edge Centres – the world’s first off-grid data centre company – in 2021, and is on track to launch 20 sites across Australia and Asia by 2023. Edge Centres’ prototype site in Grafton is designed so efficiently as to have zero dependence on the local power grid, meeting all its power needs exclusively with onsite solar and creating more energy than it consumes. As a result, EC1 Grafton was named the winning Edge Data Centre Project of the year 2021 by Data Center Dynamics.

EDGE CENTRES

it's no different to being in mainland Singapore”. He adds that “we're also working on something in Panang, which is a huge industrial area with no data centres.” Beyond Malaysia, Eaves has projects and proof-of-concept trials spinning up in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and in Jakarta, Indonesia, in addition to ongoing work throughout Australia and plans to expand the business beyond APAC in 2023. “Last year, I was facing the process of building a business in a single market of 25 million people that was familiar to me,” Jon recalls. “This year, I'm looking at 900 million people spread across six discrete, distinct countries – all with their own individual issues. And, so far, none of those issues seem to correlate with their neighbours'.”

“ We're creating an unknown future and, as many people say, the edge is still undefined” JONATHAN EAVES FOUNDER & CEO EDGE CENTRES

August 2022

Unique Challenges at the Edge This diversity isn’t just a matter of distinct markets, however. As Eaves explains, it’s also the emerging nature of the edge that’s forcing him to think differently about every new project he approaches. “People keep asking me what the edge is, what form it’s going to take, and what its future looks like. Honestly, the edge is like water; it’s the same shape as the space it fills,” Jon explains. “I haven't found one single shape, order, iteration to which the edge constantly conforms. That being said, I've found that the ‘edge’ – which I cannot stress enough is a very loose term – is very good for fixing isolated, niche problems. To me, the edge means creating an application to suit a niche market, and we just happen to have grouped all those applications

EDGE CENTRES

under one big umbrella.” “Just look at what we did in Bright.” Bright, Victoria Bright, a town located three and a half hours north of Melbourne, is home to around 2,400 residents and is serviced by a single cellular tower. The town is officially considered not to be a connectivity blackspot, as its tower provides sufficient cellular coverage for its residents. However, Bright’s status as a popular base for exploring the peaks of Mount Buffalo National Park and Alpine National Park as well as Mount Hotham, a popular ski resort, means that, on weekends and holidays, its population can swell by 15,000 overnight. This places undue strain on the area’s cellular coverage, and leads to frequent outages

THE FUTURE OF THE EDGE The edge is still a technology in its earliest stages and, if we’re going to realise its potential, there are some steps that need to be taken. Edge 1.0: Fix the Internet Edge 2.0: Deliver OTT content through edge sites and networks Edge 3.0: Deliver on the Promise of 5G Edge 4.0: Realise the Potential of the Edge “The idea is that the four stages of edge begin with Edge 1.0, which means fixing the internet. Making connectivity stable, fast, accessible, you name it, and doing that everywhere,” says Eaves. Then, Edge 2.0 is about realising the potential of the OTT providers, migrating that content, those telematics, and everything to the edge. Edge 3.0 is integrating 5G as the universal connectivity standard. And then Edge 4.0 is using the fact that all those other problems have been fixed to build some real applications that fully utilise the power of what Edge can do.” According to Eaves, “There's not a country in the world that's not struggling with Edge 1.0 right now. I was in Monaco recently. One of the richest places in the world and I struggled to even get a steady 3G connection. So, step one pretty much everywhere is to fix the internet.”

sustainabilitymag.com

EDGE CENTRES

and subpar service. “There was a recent emergency where a cyclist was badly hurt and, because the town’s cell network was overloaded, no one could call for an ambulance,” says Eaves. Visitors, locals, and local businesses regularly find themselves without access to the internet – typically during peak business hours, when small businesses need access the most to run payment terminals. “We partnered with a local telco and the council to bring free, stable, fast internet to the whole town using our network of edge data centres,” Eaves explains. “Bright was a one-off for us, but that model has now been picked up by the local council who want to find a way to replicate it in other towns facing the same problems. Edge Centres won't be the company to do that; that's not our business model. But we've created that use case at the edge: this is how you fix your small rural town's internet.” Around the world, the digital divide remains a huge issue – one that disproportionately affects rural, minority, and lower income demographics – that needs to be addressed. By leveraging small and self-sufficient, but highly connected edge data centres in remote, rural, and underserved areas, the edge could be a big part of the solution to a problem that’s only growing more severe as the physical world becomes more and more entwined with the digital one. Jakarta, Indonesia Of course, Eaves stresses: “The edge in Asia is fundamentally different to the edge in regional Australia.” Edge Centres recently started working on a proof-of-concept trial with an Indonesian client whose needs raise a 32

August 2022

“ The Edge means creating an application to suit a niche market, and we just happen to have grouped all those applications under one big umbrella” JONATHAN EAVES FOUNDER & CEO EDGE CENTRES

EDGE CENTRES

very interesting challenge that is likely to be a defining element of urban edge deployments over the decade to come: where do you put it? “The edge has become more than just figuring out a solution for edge computing; it's also become an exercise in figuring out how to build this new layer of critical infrastructure into densely populated areas with next to no available land and have it still be secure,” says Eaves. “We've had a customer contact us in Indonesia that needs multiple points of presence for their app to work. Our proof of concept involves these mini edge modules, which are even smaller versions of our standard sites using units built by DataQube – which are protected by inconspicuous, but highly effective, armour plating. Because we can't fence them off from the general population, we need to camouflage them in such a way that they can be put all over the place and not invite any attention at all. The goal is to basically make them invisible.” The test unit is a gunmetal grey box, which has been pre-defaced with graffiti and old movie posters and placed right in the middle of a busy neighbourhood in Jakarta. Eaves explains that “when you see it you'd actually think you were just looking at an HV transformer - a small substation which cities in Indonesia are full of. It looks like it's been sitting there for years.” As the number of edge devices on the planet spikes exponentially year on year – and a tidal wave of data subsequently threatens to overwhelm our networks – migrating processing power to the edge is going to be a vital part of handling the traffic from billions of devices, IoT sensors, autonomous vehicles, and other trappings of the digital age. However, finding a way to integrate this new sustainabilitymag.com

EDGE CENTRES

layer of critical infrastructure into urban environments where land is scarce and expensive means taking a very different approach to safeguarding edge data centres from unwanted attention than the “wall it off behind barbed wire and seven layers of manned and autonomous biometric security” approach favoured in colocation and hyperscale sites. Taking a leaf right out of the 4G and 5G cell-tower camouflage playbook (the same one that used to line New Mexico’s highways with giant fibreglass cacti full of telecommunications equipment and wants to turn every lamppost, electricity pole, and traffic light into a mmWave 5G antenna) Eaves is discovering that anonymity presents a whole new kind of security. “It's about making the silhouette, the shape, as much a part of the landscape as possible. We made it look like a pad transformer because, in Vietnam and Indonesia, there are pad transformers everywhere. We're making them appear familiar and thereby making them totally anonymous,” he says. “We set up cameras across the street and it's really cool to watch hundreds of thousands of people walking and driving past this box that's secretly full of servers and not give it a second look.” Exploring the Edge Edge Centres’s projects in Bright and Jakarta are just two of the ways that Eaves and his growing team are working to understand – and in many ways create – the next phase of the edge’s development. A collaboration with a leading university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is not only giving Edge Centres true agnostic access to the country’s telco providers, but the presence of their facility is providing an 34

August 2022

opportunity for the university to give trainee data centre technicians (not to mention engineers looking to study networking, battery technology, solar power, etc.) a place to get hands on experience. In Kuala Lumpur, Edge Centres is working in partnership with its Series A funding round investor, Cloud Link Solutions (CLS) – a rapidly growing cable landing station operator. “We're gaining access to land in Malaysia, and they're in turn getting access to our technology which is going into the design and

“I have my 10 sites across Australia, but it's time to spread Edge Centres' footprint across the rest of APAC” JONATHAN EAVES FOUNDER & CEO, EDGE CENTRES

construction of their new cable landing stations,” says Eaves. “This is very much a partnership.” Home to a booming ecosystem of game developers, special effects artists, and digital content creators, Chiang Mai is poised to become the heart of digitally-driven creativity in Southeast Asia. However, video rendering and effects design are highly computeintensive activities. Because Chiang Mai is located a full nine hours away – and virtually all of Thailand outside of Bangkok

is underserved in terms of data centres and digital connectivity infrastructure – developers in Chiang Mai often need to maintain a permanent point of presence in Bangkok. This is inefficient, expensive, and is holding the growth of the Chiang Mai ecosystem back. By installing one of its Edge Pod sites in Chiang Mai – with direct fibre routes to cloud onramps in Bangkok – Edge Centres is bringing the power of the edge to the underserved north of Thailand. Visual effects creators, game developers, and sustainabilitymag.com

Edge Centres Locations

August 2022

EDGE CENTRES

digital artists now have access to ultra-low latency, high-capacity compute power at the edge, where they need it. Bringing the Edge to Chiang Mai is a key element of the future of the city’s local game development and visual effects industries. Wherever Edge Centres looks to grow and expand, there are new partnerships to be formed, new use cases to explore, and new challenges to be overcome. “It's exhausting, it's amazing, and I wouldn't change it for the world,” Jon laughs. It’s one big exercise in adaptability and, as Eaves keeps telling me, the future is yet to be written and he couldn’t be more excited. 2021 was the year Edge Centres established a dense network of regional edge locations across regional Australia. This year, Edge Centres has broken new ground in six new markets, with more on the horizon throughout a rapidly digitalising region that’s home to almost a billion people. In 2023, Eaves confirms that Edge Centres is “exploring multiple locations across the US,” where he plans to employ a series of strategic acquisitions to further expand Edge Centres’ platform. “The edge is a global phenomenon, and so are we,” says Eaves. “We're creating an unknown future and, as many people say, the edge is still undefined. It's like having a whole bunch of different shaped cups, and the edge is the water that fills them. It's a case of understanding the needs of each new market and figuring out how to work within it to find the kinds of use cases they need,” he enthuses. “I get to be an explorer finding out what that future will look like. I get to find out what applications and use cases are out there. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.”

sustainabilitymag.com

USING TO BOOST

SUSTAINABILITY

& PROFIT In a conversation with two experts, we find out how, used in the right way, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has multiple benefits WRITTEN BY: BECCI KNOWLES

August 2022

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

s the main driver of technologies such as big data, robotics, and the Internet of Things (IOT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most omnipresent emerging technology of the fourth industrial revolution. But what exactly is it, and what does it do? Simply put, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is computer systems that can sense their environment, think, learn, and act in response to what they sense and their programmed objectives. The technology operates on vast amounts of data and learns from such insights, to the extent that it can carry out or assist with everyday human activities. Industries that use AI the most include healthcare, education, marketing, retail and ecommerce, financial markets and services. AI today is helping: medical professionals diagnose diseases and develop clinical pathways; teachers adapt lesson plans for students with different learning needs; and recruiters match individuals’ skill sets and aptitudes with job openings. It is also being used in online shopping and advertising, web searches, language translation software, voice recognition, chatbots and digital personal assistants — the list is endless. In fact, the pervasive (and continually growing) nature of AI across industries means that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates the global economic growth AI will provide by 2030 has the potential to amount to a staggering $15.7tn. AI opportunities If used in the right way, AI can help transform traditional sectors and systems to address climate change, deliver food and water security, protect biodiversity and bolster human wellbeing. Indeed, a recent sustainabilitymag.com

Innovate for Good Fostering a Circular Economy

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dupont.com/mobility-materials/sustainability Visit us at the K Show – Hall 6, Stand C43 – to learn more.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Inderpal Bhandari Global CDO, IBM Inderpal Bhandari iis IBM's Global Chief Data Officer, a role in which he has leveraged his extensive experience to lead IBM’s data strategy to ensure it remains the number one global hybrid cloud and AI, and business service provider. Under his leadership, the Cognitive Enterprise Blueprint was created – a roadmap for IBM clients on their own transformation journeys. Bhandari brings to IBM more than 20 years of experience in leadership roles at such prestigious companies as Cambia Health Solutions and Express Scripts/ Medco Health Solutions.

“ AS AI ADOPTION GROWS, IT'S IMPORTANT THAT IT'S BEING USED IN A POSITIVE, PRODUCTIVE WAY” INDERPAL BHANDARI

GLOBAL CHIEF DATA OFFICER, IBM

World Economic Forum study found that leveraging data and AI digital solutions could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions 4% by 2030. Dr. Anand Rao, Global AI Lead, PwC, explains that, when thinking about AI and how it can be used for good, “the first issue is how you define sustainability. He says “One way is to look at how the UN has defined the sustainable development goals (SDG’S) and the way in which AI can be used to solve those. At the same time, there is more tracking of companies and how companies should be sustainable, so the emphasis is on being Net Zero. So, getting the carbon footprint down is one aspect of sustainability, but if you look at the UN’s SDGs, it’s a much broader set of goals that looks at people followed by species and the sustainability of the other species, and then also the sustainability of the planet.” In a talk to the UK government in May 2022 – entitled 'AI & Climate Change' – Rao explained: “AI for sustainability has primarily received attention for its application in helping achieve sustainability across all 17 SDGs created by the UN, exhibited through efforts such as the 'AI for Good' initiative, with a study finding that AI can enable 79% of targets across the goals.”

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

“ SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES CAN BE INCORPORATED INTO THE AI PROCESS TO HELP REACH SUSTAINABLE AI GOALS, WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY BENEFITTING BUSINESS GOALS” DR. ANAND RAO GLOBAL AI LEAD, PWC

AI risks If left unguided, AI also has the capability to damage the environment or be used unethically, creating bias and inequality. Some countries, for example, simply don’t have access to this kind of technology and are therefore not being afforded the same personal, social, and environmental opportunities. In that sense, the roll out of AI, for all its good, is also giving rise to further inequality. AI and governance AI needs greater governance, says Rao – after all, “who decides, who decides” how and where it is used? Rao believes firmly that harnessing the opportunities for AI, while mitigating the risks “will require proactive collaboration between policymakers, scientists, civil society, technology companies and investors.” Inderpal Bhandari, Global Chief Data Officer at IBM, agrees. “As AI adoption grows, it's important that it's being used in a positive, productive way. For us, that means it's critical that AI is human-centred and transparent, explainable, and free of harmful and inappropriate bias. AI that is rooted in quality data already has a positive 42

August 2022

impact on emerging business challenges like sustainability, supply chain resiliency and customer care.” Crucially, it must safeguard consumer’s privacy and data. There have been several groups and projects emerging in recent years that help provide technology companies with resources explaining how they can use AI positively and ethically, such as the Data and Trust Alliance and the Responsible AI Institute. Since 2015, IBM has made efforts towards advancing AI responsibly to ensure that there are well-defined ethical principles at the core of its technology. “Many data scientists and engineers may think that ethical AI is not their primary concern, but everyone has a role to play, and these organisations help to provide the tools and frameworks to build more trustworthy AI at scale,” says Bhandari. AI challenges As enterprises move toward a hybrid multi cloud environment, data architectures are becoming increasingly complex with added sources, applications, and requirements. “This makes data governance and the ability to meet the evolving regulatory and compliance requirements across

Dr Anand Rao Global AI Lead, PwC Rao serves as PwC’s Global AI leader as well leading the AI and Emtech development team. He has over 33 years of industry and consulting experience, helping senior executives structure, solve and manage critical issues facing their organisations. His consulting work has included: natural language processing, machine learning, deep learning, AI ethics, fairness and bias, behavioural economics, simulation modelling (digital twins) and reinforcement learning, global growth strategies, digital strategies, customer experience, multi-channel integration, risk management, and large-scale programme mobilisation.

sustainabilitymag.com

Enhancing ROI from AI: Challenges and Best Practices | Anand Rao, PwC

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

geographies a major challenge, as well as making it hard to create business value from data silos,” says Bhandari. “Adopting a data fabric as the basis of your data strategy and architecture can make a big difference. A data fabric can help businesses ensure governance, accessibility, security, privacy, and relevancy at scale. With this type of data architecture, a Chief Data Officer can enforce policy, manage compliance, promote audit readiness – all of which go to maintaining consumer trust. This holistic approach helps to address the huge barriers that companies face when initially adopting AI and automation tools, and it helps them get the right data in the right hands at the right time.” AI opportunities Rao says that “sustainable practices can be incorporated into each step of the AI process to help reach sustainable AI goals, while simultaneously benefiting business goals”. Bhandri agrees: “With enterprises doubling down on their digital transformation goals, the ability to use AI to unlock real-time value from their data, wherever the data resides, will become critical in helping to determine their competitiveness.”

“ MANY MAY THINK THAT ETHICAL AI IS NOT THEIR PRIMARY CONCERN, BUT EVERYONE HAS A ROLE TO PLAY” INDERPAL BHANDARI

GLOBAL CHIEF DATA OFFICER, IBM sustainabilitymag.com

August 2022

EVOBITS

Turnkey IT Solutions in a powerful boutique model WRITTEN BY: ILKHAN OZSEVIM

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

sustainabilitymag.com

EVOBITS

Silviu Balaci, CTO, and Dragos Radulescu, GM of EvoBits, a boutique-minded yet highly capable IT Solutions firm, talks tech, turnkey and timely evolution

n the business world, just as in the world at large, there is a kind of operational ‘survival of the fittest’ principle, where the most highly adaptable to change will survive. There are other related principles at work, too. ‘Environment’, ‘niche’, ‘competition’ and a form of ‘selection’ are involved, and these principles are more than mere metaphors. EvoBits IT is a company that exhibits such principles, and its adaptability is striking. EvoBits IT began as a software development company in 2014, which was their primary focus for the first few years. “But, after that, we started branching out into hosting, due to the emerging demand from our existing clients,” says Silviu Catalin Balaci, Chief Technology Officer (CTO). “That's when we built the first data centre, and we then very quickly built the second.” Exhibiting further acumen for the exploitation of the environment, he says: “Initially, they were purposely built for a particular project, but since then we started trying to attack the hosting services aspect. We already had an established infrastructure and then developed into a hosting provider – mainly B2B, which is our target audience. But we also have the software department, and, instead of merely working for other clients, we are now trying to shift focus and develop different types of software-as-a-service (SaaS) to offer those as a product.”

August 2022

Example of an image caption sustainabilitymag.com

Turnkey IT Solutions in a powerful boutique model

“ You have to think about such equipment as you would think about a race car: it can only operate at high performance when it’s within its parameters, and so you have to try to keep it within those parameters” DRAGOS RADULESCU GENERAL MANAGER EVOBITS

August 2022

Balaci says that, being a small company, “the positions here are generally like an octopus with many tentacles, and we have several simultaneous functions so our titles alone don't really capture what we actually do”. Although officially ‘CTO’, Balaci’s role is mainly on the broad technical side involving management of the IT infrastructure, which includes everything that doesn't fall under the data centre operations. “This includes servers and the handling of the networking part, the operating system and the software – including our own software development department. And then on the business side, I'm more

EVOBITS

SILVIU BALACI TITLE: CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY LOCATION: ROMANIA I am a technology enthusiast with an entrepreneurial spirit and an eye for solving IT-related challenges. Looking at the future, I am certain of only one thing: no matter what happens, it will be interesting.

DRAGOS RADULESCU TITLE: GENERAL MANAGER INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY LOCATION: ROMANIA

EXECUTIVE BIOS

or less overseeing the marketing strategy and consulting on the general business development strategy, where Dragos and I strategise on which direction we should evolve or what market we should attack.” Dragos Cristian Radulescu is General Manager (GM) and his role similarly entails multiple facets. “On the one hand, there is still a technical aspect concerning the operation of the Data Centres,” he says. “It's related to engineering and to the equipment that we're using, and since I joined EvoBits IT, it has also developed into an operational role, leading internal ops and the general administration of the business – which means dealing

With extensive engineering background in the automotive sector and exposure to the German and Japanese school of thought, my aim is not only to ensure goals are reached but that the process is thorough, complete and well documented.

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EVOBITS

with customer and supplier contracts, and includes personnel responsibilities.” Located in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, EvoBits IT is currently looking to finalise a solid recipe for the business, creating a solid model for their hosting business and, later, one for SaaS, that Radulescu says “can then be easily reproduced and expanded into potentially different locations”. “The kind of business that we are currently running and the markets for these products and services (the data centre and hosting business) are dependent on location. Expansion, generally speaking, requires relocation towards the customers, so that would be a ‘horizontal expansion’. Then, within our current business model, we are looking at our customers and seeing what needs they have that may not currently be met by the market” EvoBits IT prides itself on being a company with a boutique mentality. One of their goals in their expansion and development is to maintain this ethos, and where they are focusing only on B2B, they will work to maintain a close working relationship with their customers, discussing all their needs and adapting their hardware – as well as their software – infrastructure in line with customer needs, and developing their products in a particular direction accordingly. “We will never ever become a corporate type of company with a highstreet mentality,” says Balaci. EvoBits IT’s Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning EvoBits IT’s biggest customers are currently in the AI business. “We've identified a kind of niche where we see a great potential because the products offered by large companies are off-the-shelf, fixed and immobile,” says Balaci. “All the large 54

August 2022

EVOBITS

“ We will never ever become a corporate type of company with a high-street mentality” SILVIU BALACI

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, EVOBITS

cloud companies have a 'take it or leave it' approach, but this area is complex and some customers require a different type of computational power. Others may need a different balance, such as more CPU power or a specific type of GPU, and either very fast, low latency storage or incredibly high amounts of storage. So we've discerned that there's a large volume of customer needs that are not being met in this department, and that speaks directly to our image as being customer-focused and creating solutions that are best for their particular business, so we are presently tackling this as a service.” EvoBits IT also has a model that includes renting out equipment and hardware for AI processing, and engaging in consulting for larger customers that want to create their own infrastructure. For example, they presently have a client that has built his own private cloud just for AI processing and are both providing the hardware and creating the design for this private cloud – even the control panel. They are essentially a turnkey solution, with full vertical integration (FVI). FVI means that EvoBits IT controls every aspect of the package that they provide and deliver to the customer. They have their own hardware and infrastructure that they built with their partners, and have full control of the software that's running on the sustainabilitymag.com

EVOBITS

cloud – fundamentally in control of every aspect on the chain. This gives them a lot of flexibility, as well as the power to adapt to the customer's needs and to react quickly in case any changes are required. Balaci adds: “This full vertical integration eliminates a lot of restrictions. For example we are not limited to the power in a rack. As we actually own the data centre, we can quite easily go in and assign more power to a particular zone or more cooling to a particular area. We're even able to modify the local data centre infrastructure, if that's something that needs to happen.” Software as a Service Then there is the SaaS model within EvoBits IT.

August 2022

The idea is that a big part of the company is still focused on software development, making use of the skills of many great software developers who have been with the organisationfor a number of years. But, at the same time, EvoBits IT has shifted their approach into that of a service provider, focusing heavily on the hosting aspect of the business. One of the first examples would be the complete API builder. Balaci says: “You have a lot of mobile apps developers that are quite good at creating mobile apps, but all that data in the backend needs to be stored somewhere. Usually, what they do is contract other companies to build that for them. What we want is to have something similar to a website builder, but one that targets

EVOBITS

building the APIs behind mobile apps or other websites that work with that type of structure. This product will also be ready very soon.” DC’s, Tech and technical know-how When Radulescu first joined EvoBits IT, he was in charge of a more technical aspect of the business, related specifically to the equipment used in the infrastructure of the data centres. “We had two great partners that we worked with to construct the DCs,” he says. “Before I joined the company, we

purchased very efficient evaporative cooling equipment from Vertiv – which is a big name in the business – and we've used our local partner Innova to integrate and set up this equipment for the data centre.” At the time, however, there was a certain lack of internal know-how within the company. Radulescu’s purpose was to understand how the pieces of equipment worked to get the most out of them and heighten their performance. “You have to think about such equipment as you would think about a race car: it can only operate at high performance when it's within its parameters, and so you have to try to keep it within those parameters. “One of the data centres that we constructed was a custom job built for max-load (3 MW of power), which means

“ One of the approaches is how to start our own marketing campaign to highlight the brand, highlight what makes us special, what specific aspects of our service set us apart from our competitors and why customers should come to us in spite of our very low prices” DRAGOS RADULESCU GENERAL MANAGER EVOBITSE

sustainabilitymag.com

EVOBITS

that everything was strung up very tightly. The cooling equipment, especially, was working very close to its rated capacity, and we had to find solutions to understand how to optimise and distribute airflow to ensure that we didn’t have any hotspots. Initially, this took a while, but we can say that we've gone from something that was very tightly strung – where any issues would've led to major concerns during operation – to where we are now, which is an N+1 situation where we can literally shut down some equipment and still continue to be operational without a hitch.” As things progressed and Radulescu’s role evolved into one more involved with operations, they found that they needed to define numerous procedures to ensure that they have systems in place to record and document activities, and track all tasks – both internal and external – to optimise their workflow. IT service expansions: challenges and opportunities IT expansions do, of course, come with their own sets of challenges. Asked about their own particular kind, Balaci says that they found them to fall into three categories – the first of these being global supply issues. “If we take just network cards as an example, if we were to source them through the direct channels, we would have to wait up to a year in some cases. So we had to adapt by trying to find other suppliers for those particular parts, but even so, nothing really comes quicker than three months – and, in a company where we are trying to be as agile as possible, that means trying to think ahead by buying and keeping things in stock so that, when a customer has a particular requirement, we are able to offer them a solution on 58

August 2022

the spot. This has been one of our biggest strengths, because we took that risk to buy ahead. We were, many times, the only ones in the local market who could provide, let's say a specialised custom server within one week. Instead of waiting three months, most of the time we had everything we needed ready.”

EVOBITS

The second challenge for EvoBits IT has been the software aspect. “We just launched our OpenStack cloud,” says Balaci. “We wanted to go for a solution that caters to high performance computing, which means extremely fast servers and, most importantly, an extremely fast storage solution – completely based on NVMe SSD

technology – which is the best of the best with low latency. We have to thank our partners at StorPool for that, who provided the software solution for the storage part and that solution has been great. However, the challenge has been in integrating it with our control panel, because we built one from the ground up. If you go onto Amazon sustainabilitymag.com

EVOBITS

cloud and try to buy some components in one package, you will spend hours reading through the documentation as to where you need to go and what you need to do to gain access to these components. That led us to take the decision to build our own management and control panel, where we can simplify things enough that almost anyone can go there and, in just a few clicks – I would say in under a minute – easily customise whatever they want according to their needs.”

“ You have to think about such equipment as you would think about a race car: it can only operate at high performance when it’s within its parameters” DRAGOS RADULESCU GENERAL MANAGER EVOBITSE

August 2022

The last challenge was a particularly interesting one. “It relates,” says Balaci, “to the business strategy that we discussed with Dragos. “We have all this hardware and we're going to build this high performance cloud, so we thought, 'let's take the strategy of not overcharging our customers, because fundamentally, we don't care about profit'. Right now, our concern is getting our name known and expanding our brand. But, oddly enough, a lot of people are wondering, 'what

EVOBITS

corners are you cutting if you are able to offer these prices? Why is it so cheap?'. They think that we can’t offer this performance for under a half or a third of what other suppliers in the market offer. We built everything properly, with the latest high-performance equipment, with top-of-the-line software components, and we’re simply trying to not overcharge anyone. Even our biggest customer – who we're building the AI cluster for – came to us directly and said, 'your prices are so low that people are really

thinking that something is off here'. “We need, therefore, to convince our customers that we are not cutting corners and are not underpricing our services, but that other providers are overcharging them.” EvoBits IT’s upcoming 3rd DC EvoBits IT are also focused on a third DC. Finding the right location has been a challenge as, for DCs, location is key. Specifically, power is a big problem, because data centres require large volumes of it to function effectively, and EvoBits IT is in a city where a number of areas have been built up and a lot of power resources have been used up. The next stages are about obtaining approvals for the new location and for the new building, which is also a lengthy process. There's a lot of bureaucracy involved. Balaci says: “We hope that we'll be able to overcome all the challenges on the way which will be basically the implementation of all lessons learned. We aim for it to be as efficient as our most efficient, as reliable as our most reliable, and as flexible as our most flexible DC. We expect the building permits and zone development permits to come sometime next year.” The critical importance of the partner ecosystem EvoBits IT’s partner ecosystem is also key to its successes. Hearkening back to evolutionary analogies, this ecosystem functions in a way that’s somewhat akin to symbiosis. One of these partners is Supermicro, who has been very reliable. Most of EvoBits IT’s servers have been from Supermicro, and they have proven themselves to be – despite the fact that they’re a big company – extremely adaptable, and, as EvoBits IT offer sustainabilitymag.com

EVOBITS

customised solutions, they require flexibility. Supermicro constantly adapts solutions for EvoBits IT and the two work together within the supply chain. They were also quick to point out delays caused by the sourcing of parts, offering solutions to go in a different direction to solve EvoBits IT’s delivery issues. Another one of EvoBits IT’s partners is AMD, who they’ve been with since 2019, where EvoBits IT were a launch partner for Epyc Rome CPUs. Balaci says: “They are always fast to supply; their CPUs are great, as is the support that we receive from them and, if we contact them concerning more niche software, they will help with custom settings or tweaks.” 62

August 2022

On the partner ecosystem, Radulescu continues: “We have our partners on the infrastructure and equipment side for the data centres, and the most important name here is Innova. They have been our partners since the construction of the data centres, and they have basically been holding our hands throughout the process of our operations. They've been our partner for maintenance and have been supporting us for any changes that we've carried out and have been there to help with any problems that we have, and have been open to suggestions and requests. They even helped us to learn about specific equipment, such

EVOBITS

“ We need, therefore, to convince our customers that we are not cutting corners and are not underpricing our services, but that other providers are overcharging them. SILVIU BALACI

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, EVOBITS

as the Vertiv cutting edge evaporative cooling systems.” Most importantly, Innova have been able to hand EvoBits IT knowledge down from Vertiv as an intermediary – “and they were very open in doing so,” says Radulescu. “We are very pleased to have them as a partner and have found many opportunities to collaborate with them. “Obviously, I can't go on without mentioning Vertiv themselves, who have delivered the product and have been very diligent in supporting it wherever it was necessary - and even when it was out of warranty. It must be said that our use-

case isn't the most usual case for this type of equipment. We've been pushing those units in that project close to max load continuously, which has also been a very interesting experience for Vertiv themselves, to see how the equipment handles that sort of situation.” StorPool is another one of EvoBits IT’s partners. They offer a really fast, low latency storage solution for cloud systems and for high performance computing, “and those guys are just awesome,” enthuses Balaci. “We begin with the fact that their solution is great and works really well, but the level of support that they offer is what really sets them apart.” EvoBits IT’s focus is about trying to develop the business and to make a name for themselves in the market. “One of the approaches is how to start our own marketing campaign to highlight the brand, highlight what makes us special, what specific aspects of our service set us apart from our competitors and why customers should come to us in spite of our very low prices,” says Radulescu. “And, on the other hand, we want to push forward on the development of our data centre, which is very important to us in terms of the next few years, which will be pivotal for the development of our company as a whole.” Balaci says: “My area of focus will heavily be on our cloud solution. The one that we just launched is something that is also extremely critical for the software-as-aservice aspect of the business, since it provides the backbone for that area. We'll focus heavily on evolving, adding new features, expanding the offering and trying to educate our customers.”

sustainabilitymag.com

THE COUNTDOWN IS ON! Shaping the future of sustainability and ESG, SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON 2022 returns to the Business Design Centre on 7 - 8 September WRITTEN BY: BECCI KNOWLES

August 2022

EVENT PREVIEW

eaturing 90+ speakers, 1000+ visitors and 4500+ digital attendees, February’s inaugural SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON provided fresh insight and raised new questions about what industry can do to provide a more sustainable future for us all. “I have to say, it was fabulous! To see so many people (in the real world!) and hear so many inspiring contributions was really uplifting. The turnout was epic and the organisation so spot on. And a great venue, too! I loved the hybrid of virtual and live – that’s so hard to do well and you nailed it. Congratulations!” said Rob Cheesewright, Chief Sustainability Officer at Pinwheel. Encapsulating everything SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON is about, James Robey, Global Head of Sustainability at Capgemini, said: “Events like these are important for sharing and shaping ideas: it’s only by collaborating across industries that we’ll create the new global systems needed for a sustainable future.” SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON back bigger and better next month Following the success of the inaugural SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON in February 2022, BizClik Media Group, together with its event Sponsors and Partners, is looking forward to welcoming its in-person delegates and virtual attendees to an even bigger and better event on 7-8 September.

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August 2022

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EVENT PREVIEW

DID YOU KNOW? Celebrating more than ten years as a carbon-neutral venue, the Business Design Centre is aligned with SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON’s content and mission. All the energy it uses comes from 100% renewable resources, while 0% of the waste produced by the venue goes to landfill sites. The BDC is also involved in several sustainability initiatives at local and national level.

certification, education, standards and governance; women in sustainability; and many, many more. Hear “How Coutts became the 1st UK HQ’d private bank to be B-Corp Certified"; get tips on “Sustainable Actionable practices in SMEs”; find out why “Consumers want your meaning first”; and so much more, via a range of keynote sessions, panel discussions and fireside chats across the two live stages and the virtual stage. Register for SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON NOW! The last edition of SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON saw hundreds of sustainability leaders and advocates from some of the world’s most influential companies benefit from direct, face-to-face networking opportunities. Companies like PwC, WaterAid, Ministry of Defence, RollsRoyce, Red Bull, CGI UK, Huawei, EY, SAP, JP Morgan, Schneider Electric, AstraZeneca, Fujitsu, Salesforce, Three, BP, HSBC, Capgemini, DHL and IBM. Be part of the conversation, cement existing relationships, and make meaningful new business connections by registering to attend SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON. Those who are unable to make it to the event in-person are invited to register for a free virtual pass and enjoy full access to the SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON virtual networking platform. Alongside the opportunity to meet fellow virtual attendees, you can submit your questions to the speakers on-stage, and access all sessions on demand.

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sustainabilitymag.com

Under the microscope:

TEST BEDS FOR

SMART CIT Y

TECHNOLOGIES

August 2022

SMART CITIES

Data driven, a smart city uses networks, sensors and analytics to make itself more efficient, productive and habitable. WRITTEN BY: BECCI KNOWLES

EOM is a new, smart city-state being built in Saudi Arabia. Named from a combination of the Greek word for “new” and the Arabic term for “future”, it positions itself as a "blueprint for tomorrow in which humanity progresses without compromise to the health of the planet". The initiative emerged from Saudi Vision 2030, a plan that seeks to reduce Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil, diversify its economy, and develop public service sectors. NEOM will include hyperconnected, smart or what it calls “cognitive” towns and cities, ports and enterprise zones, research centres, sports and entertainment venues and tourist destinations. The project is planned to be totally powered by renewable energy sources. NEOM describes itself as “a hub for innovation”, where entrepreneurs, business leaders and companies will come to research, incubate and commercialise new technologies and enterprises in a groundbreaking way”. It adds that residents will embody an “international ethos and embrace a culture of exploration, risk-taking and diversity - all supported by a progressive law compatible with international norms and conducive to economic growth.” The project has won both criticism and praise, but as a sustainabilitymag.com

Get reliable network coverage and security protection, fast. A modern network must be able to respond easily, quickly and flexibly to the growing needs of today’s digital business. Must provide visibility & control of applications, users and devices on and off the network and Intelligently direct traffic across the WAN. Be scalable and automate the process to provide new innovative services. Support IoT devices and utilize state-of-the-art technologies such as real-time analytics, ML and AI. And all these must be provided with maximum security and minimum cost. This is the power that brings the integration of two cloud managed platforms, Cisco Meraki and Cisco Umbrella. This integration is binding together the best of breed in cloud-managed networking and Security.

cisco.com

cisco

CiscoSecure

SMART CITIES

“ More than half of the issues identified also improved energy efficiency, and these outcomes would have great potential at a city-wide level” DAVE HOPPING

CEO, SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES, SIEMENS SMART INFRASTRUCTURE

test bed for future smart city technologies, nobody can deny that it’s one to watch. Another is Woven City, a 175 acre smart city site being built by Toyota at the base of Mount Fuji in which electricity generated by hydrogen powered fuel cells will be the main energy supply and trials of new ideas for systems and services that expand mobility will be tested. Plans for this new city were announced in January 2020 and construction started early 2021. In its mission statement, Toyota

calls the new city a “Test Course for Mobility” while the strapline “Woven City - Toyota’s Living Laboratory” appears throughout its communications, indicating that research and development is its primary reason for being. In June this year, Toyota and subsidiary Woven Planet Holdings announced a working prototype of their portable hydrogen cartridge - designed to facilitate the everyday transport and supply of hydrogen energy to power a broad range of daily life applications in and outside of the home. Proof of Concept (PoC) trials are to be conducted in various places, including, you guessed it - Woven City, “a human-centred smart city of the future.” Whether the reality will live up to the rhetoric remains to be seen, but again this is a good example of a working laboratory. Smart city technologies being tested now On a smaller, but no less impressive scale, smart city technologies are being trialled in enclosed (and open) environments that already exist, all over the world. I spoke to Dave Hopping, CEO, Solutions and Services, Siemens Smart Infrastructure to find out more…. BK: Do you have any examples of enclosed environments like university campuses, or military bases being used as test-beds for smart city technologies? DH: In theory, any smart campus or urban environment could be considered a test bed for smart city technology; it’s really a question of whether that technology can then be scaled to solve a city-wide problem, or create a specific outcome. A great example of where we’ve worked with a university campus to implement digital services is at Tampere University in Finland. Working with the university, we built a data-driven maintenance model which, sustainabilitymag.com

SMART CITIES

through effective capture and analysis of data, enables the operators to monitor, maintain and optimise building management systems, and predict issues before they arise. This has enabled the university to replace 70% of visual inspections with analytics, and see a 50% reduction in user complaints. More than half of the issues identified also improved energy efficiency, and these outcomes would have great potential at a city-wide level. Our recent work with Morgan State University in the US and the University of Birmingham in the UK and UAE are also great examples of the value being placed on developing smarter urban communities within established cities. BK: Can projects like this be effective in driving smart city developments? DH: Absolutely. Urban environments 76

August 2022

like university campuses, for example, are incredibly complex ecosystems with many of the same attributes as a city: hundreds of buildings of varying ages, with multiple uses and populated by people who are increasingly demanding better environments in which to live and work. The data set is representative of a city, meaning that innovation and technology which optimises buildings and energy systems can be tested at scale, with a view to city-wide application. It's also perhaps helpful to consider that cities are not single entities; they are made up of multiple urban communities, each with their own uses, assets and infrastructure. So while a university campus or an industrial complex, for example, may have some unique needs, once digitalised and connected together these communities

become our future smart cities. So it’s important that we don’t think about these communities in isolation; they’re a catalyst for smart city development, and innovation within them has great potential beyond their boundaries.

also home to 90 Signals Unit – the largest communications unit in the RAF. The fact that the base is also a closed environment (“behind the wire”) also means it is ideal for testing technology in a closed, controlled environment.

RAF driving digital transformation The UK’s RAF meanwhile is driving digital transformation with RAFX and Astra – the campaign to build the Next Generation Royal Air Force. RAF eXperimental – or RAFX – is the innovation hub of the RAF. It’s an ongoing and evolving mission largely taking shape in North Yorkshire at RAF Leeming – the perfect testbed for new technology and processes and unique in that it has representation from every group in the service. RAF Leeming is

“ It’s important that we don’t think about these communities in isolation; they’re a catalyst for smart city development” DAVE HOPPING

CEO, SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES, SIEMENS SMART INFRASTRUCTURE sustainabilitymag.com

“Woven “Woven City City -Toyota's Living Living Laboratory” Laboratory” TOYOTA UK

August 2022

SMART CITIES

THE TOP 5 SMART CITIES • Shanghai • Seoul • Barcelona • Beijing • New York

One of the areas RAFX is focused on is the digitalisation of processes and practices right across the station. At Leeming, these can be experimented with before scaling across the rest of the service. Group Captain Blythe Crawford OBE is Station Commander at RAF Leeming. He is also the driving force behind RAFX and Astra. “People talk about digital bases, they talk about smart cities, but to do that you need a digital backbone and what we've tried to do here is to make ourselves a lot more connected,” he says. “We have business internet across the entire station. We've also recently installed our own private 5G network to create an Internet of Things platform and backbone that covers the entirety of the station, which allows me to connect anything to anything else right across the site.” Crawford also explains how the digital backbone can help RAF Leeming meet its ambitious carbon net-zero by 2025 target by creating a digital twin of the base, brimming with smart sensors on energy management systems and waste systems to create a single dashboard. sustainabilitymag.com

SUPPLY CHAIN D&I

Y L P P U S CHAIN

: I & D

L L A N A C WE R E T T E B DO

A recent Gartner Survey has found that supply chain organisations at publicly held companies are leading the way with representation of people of colour over their private peers WRITTEN BY: BECCI KNOWLES

epresentation of people of colour (PoC) in supply chain organisations is much higher at every level when the company is publicly held, according to the findings of a survey by Gartner and the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM). The Supply Chain Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Survey of 384 supply chain professionals, conducted in December 2021 mostly in the UK, Canada and Europe, found that people of colour make up 35% of the overall supply chain workforce in publicly held companies and 13% of vice presidents. For supply chain organisations in privately held companies, that figure drops to 30% and 7%, respectively. What’s more, the pay gap is narrower between different racial and ethnic groups for publicly held organisations. Supply chain’s focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is growing however, as 75% of supply chain organisations consider ethnicity/race in their DEI strategies and objectives. That said, only 40% of those organisations are working on specific supply chain DEI initiatives, so there is still much work to be done. sustainabilitymag.com

SUPPLY CHAIN D&I

Diversity & inclusion supply chain challenges Assent is a privately held company which offers supply chain management solutions for complex manufacturers. It was recently awarded B Corp certification and Advanced Status with United Nations Global Compact, reflecting its deep commitment to embed sustainability not only across its own organisation, but as part of how it drives positive impacts for the communities and the customers it serves. “When we look at supply chain D&I, a major challenge is access to data. Supply chains are increasingly complex, with multifaceted networks of suppliers across the world, and it makes it incredibly difficult to understand where your supply chain stands with diversity. As ESG programmes continue to gain traction, suppliers are inundated with redundant data requests. If you have hundreds of suppliers, it is incredibly difficult to understand the diversity impacts across your supply chain,” says Travis Miller, General Counsel at Assent. D&I disclosure matters Publicly held, IBM ranks among the world's largest information technology companies,

OK O L E W N E “ WH HAIN C Y L P P U S AT OR D&I, A MAJ S EI CHALLENG ATA” D ACCESS TO LER TRAVIS MIL UNSEL,

GENERAL C ASSENT

providing a wide range of hardware, software and services. Commenting on Gartner’s findings, Sheri R. Hinish, Global Services + Alliances Lead, says: “Public companies face pressure and scrutiny to disclose on ESG, particularly social and governance performance to adhere to growing regulatory compliance. Private companies are not subject to the same level of reporting as public companies, so in some cases internal business operations can remain confidential. “Aside from a current or previous employee sharing personal experiences on social media, it can be challenging to know just how much – or how little – diversity exists within a company. Social media and open access to information on platforms like Glassdoor and Fishbowl create an sustainabilitymag.com

SUPPLY CHAIN D&I

opportunity to learn more about a company beyond Linkedin banners and mission statements.” For Hinish, the biggest challenges today “exist in the boardroom and moving past the broken rung in leadership for women and underrepresented groups”. She continues: “Also, access and conduits into the workplace remain an opportunity. If you’re looking for a recipe, diversity is the first step, but you must create equitable spaces to get the employee experience right. Trust, fostering belonging, and embracing the very thing that makes us human – our differences and emotional connection – through purpose and values. This is the future of work across global supply chains. “Making diversity, equity, and inclusion real in organisations is challenging because there’s no shortage of programmes and initiatives, but it hasn’t equaled more progress. Why? Equity and equality are terms that are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. In a diverse workplace where differences exist, people need support in different ways. Equity requires an organisation to acknowledge that everyone has different needs, experiences, and opportunities, and respond accordingly. “Talent is everywhere, but access is not. Diverse hiring and building ‘new collar’ alliances with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), including building a pipeline for ‘new collar jobs’ – highly technical roles that don't necessarily require a traditional degree in that field – take intentional action. As careers continue to evolve and new roles emerge, such as supply chain, hiring for skills will be critical for capturing the best talent. At IBM, our partnerships with HBCUs give the company an advantage for sourcing highly skilled talent in emerging industries like quantum computing.”

“ TALENT IS RE, E EVERYWH S S E C C A T BU IS NOT” ISH SHERI R HINVICES

GLOBAL SER LEAD, S & ALLIANCE IBM

Supply chain diversity and inclusion: the opportunities According to Hinish, HBCUs generate $14.8bn in economic impact annually and graduate 50,000 students per year. “I started my academic journey at an HBCU, and, when you talk about the talent shortage in STEM and supply chain, undeniably, the nation’s HBCUs help to address this need,” she says. 25% of Black Americans who graduate with STEM degrees come from HBCUs (UNCF, 2015). “HBCUs are the institution of origin among almost 30% of Black graduates of science and engineering doctorate programmes, yet they continue to be under-funded and, frankly, underengaged juxtaposed with predominantly white institutions when it comes to building pathways in strategic recruiting for STEM and supply chain,” says Hinish. Hinish believes that IBM has a critical role and responsibility in meeting this challenge, and in shaping the Black experience in STEM from high school to ascendance in corporate America. “Through new collar programmes such as P-Tech, Open P-Tech, 21st-century apprenticeships, and our Emb(race) initiative, sustainabilitymag.com

SUPPLY CHAIN D&I

we provide access to STEM education, earn-as-you-learn career experience, and earning an Associate’s degree at no cost – these are programmes happening right now that create a pathway for hiring into IBM. “The America of tomorrow will look fundamentally different from today. The economic viability of our world will depend on the choices businesses make about whether all people are able to meaningfully contribute to and participate fully in our economy. Without oversimplifying a very complex transformation of corporate America, leaders should embrace the opportunity that comes from putting racial equity at the centre of business innovation and growth by doubling down on HBCU pathways for ‘new collar skills’ in STEM and supply chain.”

“ IT CAN BE NG TO I G N E L L A CH HOW T S U J W O KN HOW R – O H C MU ITY S R E V I – D LITTLE IN A H T I W S T S EXI NY” A P M O C E PRIVAT ISH SHERI R HINOBAL SERVICES

L JOB TITLEG LEAD, S E C & ALLIAN IBM

August 2022

ABOUT GARTNER Working with businesses in more than 100 countries, Gartner delivers actionable, objective insight to executives and their teams. Gartner says its approach is simple: attract the best talent, empower associates to reach their full potential and create an environment where everyone has equitable access to opportunity. The results? A diverse, inclusive, supportive workplace where associates can thrive.

The most important reasons public companies are more successful are things that any organisation can emulate: they set goals, plus their supply chain leadership leads DEI and is accountable for those goals. “In Gartner’s studies, small and privately held companies that do these things also report progress and have healthier pipelines,” says Dana Stiffler, Vice President Analyst with the Gartner Supply Chain practice. Underlining the need for us all to do better, Stiffler says: “The biggest DE&I challenge in the current environment, with its continued disruptions and talent pressures, is to keep at it rather than de-emphasise it. The biggest opportunity is to make DE&I – specifically inclusion – something that everyone just does in their day-to-day work and in collaboration with colleagues, partners, and the community. It’s not just for senior leadership and HR to do in performance management and succession planning forums.” sustainabilitymag.com

TOP TOPTEN 10

GLO

B C B CO 88

August 2022

TOP TOP TEN 10

We profile the Top 10 B Corps with more than 250 employees, according to scores provided by B Corporation

OBAL

CORPS ORPS WRITTEN BY: SCOTT BIRCH

ertified B Corporations are leading the sustainable business charge. Being a B Corp means you meet the highest standards of performance, accountability and transparency when it comes to employee benefits, suppliers, and the local community. While many B Corps can achieve this due to their small scale, there are companies with more than 250 employees who also strive to meet these standards. Here are those Top 10 B Corps.

TOP 10

10 10

Fratelli Carli SpA Italy

This historic olive oil company dates back to 1911 and the name Fratelli Carli has become synonymous with quality and sustainability. Operations have expanded to include retail, wine and cosmetics in recent years, but a commitment to a short production chain has guaranteed quality while respecting nature and the delicate balance of the ecosystem. The vision? "We want to be a point of reference in spreading the gastronomic tradition and Mediterranean culture, without compromising on ethics and quality, respecting the environment and people.”

August 2022

09 09 Rubicon

United States Kentucky-based Rubicon is using tech to solve the world’s waste and recycling challenges – as far as outer space. Rubicon focuses on developing software solutions that bring transparency to the waste and recycling industry, encouraging customers to make data-driven decisions for more sustainable outcomes. Ironically perhaps for a company in the waste business, the stated mission is to end waste – by helping partners find value in their waste streams. Rubbish never looked so good.

TOP 10

08 08

Blue Design Paraguay

The first of two denim companies on this list, Paraguay's Blue Design believes the fashion industry has to change its processes to make production more sustainable. Certified by B Corporation in January 2021, Blue Design stood out for its product development service with its clients, respecting natural resources and the health and wellbeing of its workers. As the only denim boutique factory in South America, it produces and designs products for leading brands around the world.

07 07

Patagonia Works United States

One of the higher-profile B Corps on this list, clothing brand Patagonia does business the right way. Not content with making itself a more sustainable business, it is also bringing on the next generation of responsible startups. This is nothing new. Every year for 30 years, Patagonia has donated 1% of sales to environmental organisations. In 2012, it became one of California’s first B Corps. Now, there is its US$20 Million and Change fund to help like-minded start-ups deliver positive benefits to the environment. Check out its series of fascinating documentaries. sustainabilitymag.com

Enabling educators. Empowering students. Explore how we accelerate student discovery, learning and innovation with our Digital Education 3D Experience. EXPLORE THE 3D EXPERIENCE

TOP 10

06 06

New Belgium Brewing Co, Inc United States

As well as creating memorable marketing campaigns and cheeky craft beers, New Belgium Brewing is also seen as one of the best places to work and best small businesses in the US. Why? The company gives employees a bike after a year of service, started a sustainability department back in 2003, became 100% employee owned in 2012, and after almost 30 years in the brewing business, Fat Tire became America’s first certified carbon neutral beer in 2020. Cheers!

05 05

AustroCel Hallein GmbH Austria

Ah paper, remember that? AustroCel Hallein certainly does, having been in the business for 130 years, but today very much a forward-thinking sustainable operation. The company produces around 150,000 tons of pulp for the textile industry and around 20,000 homes benefit from the bioenergy it creates in that process. From cellulose production, the company supplies electricity and district heating to the local power grid. Check out its impressive Roots for the Future sustainability programme. sustainabilitymag.com

TOP 10

04 04 Alpro

Belgium You probably recognise the Alpro name from plant-based alternatives to dairy products like milk and yoghurt on supermarket shelves. The sustainability pioneer – it has been selling plant-based products for 40 years – promotes the vegan diet, and brings innovative food and drink products to millions of consumers. This vision aligns with that of the parent company Danone, which is guided by ‘one planet, one health’. We will drink (oat milk) to that.

August 2022

03 03 Davines Italy

Most well known as a shampoo brand, Davines has rewritten how it does business. Its stated aim was to look at business ‘as a positive force capable of generating profit and at the same time creating a virtuous impact on people and the environment’. Having achieved B Corp status in 2016, Davines has aligned its objectives with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. In 2018 Davines became a Carbon Neutral Company, and is committed to spreading the B Corp culture among its partners and stakeholders.

02 TOP 10

Novamont Italy

In at number 2 is the Italian chemicals company Novamont, a recognised leader in bioplastics. Novamont’s circular approach to bioeconomy is based on sustainable integrated value chains and the revitalisation of legacy production and research sites. The company, founded in 1990, develops and makes products that originate from vegetables, are biodegradable and compostable. Novamont achieves its aims by working closely with local stakeholders and across sectors – from agriculture to waste management. It has and R&D and training centre, which has helped deliver some 1,800 patents and pending aoplications. With a portfolio of around 1,800 patents and patent applications, it is also a R&D centre and a training centre for young and experienced researchers. With 650 employees, the group has a turnover of approximately 414 million euros, and has offices in Germany, France, Spain and the United States.

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TOP 10

August 2022

TOP 10

Saitex International Vietnam

With a B Lab score of 57.2, Vietnam-based denim manufacturer Saitex International tops the list by some margin. As the video here shows, its semiautomated factory in Los Angeles is highly impressive, while also being environmentally friendly – not a moniker often mentioned when it comes to the fashion industry. By using processes that are kinder to the planet and its people, the company

is reducing its environmental impact while also benefiting local communities. That means jeans (and other garments) made with clean, alternative energy, paying a living wage, and providing ethical working conditions. Special mention goes to Rekut – the social entrepreneurship project that champions diversity and inclusion. Committed to achieving a circular economy, Saitex is leading the world of B Corps – in style. sustainabilitymag.com

THE FUTURE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES DISCOVER & SUBSCRIBE

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Sustainability - July 2022

Articles inside

Trailblazer Max Delamain

Timeline The evolution of ESG investment

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