Accenture

Accenture “Companies can and must do more to solve the major sustainability problems of our times”

Sustainability is at the top of every company agenda in big, bold letters. Not because it looks good, but because it matters. But what does the new, sustainable business model look like? And what steps do organizations have to take to make it work? We asked Wytse Kaastra, senior managing director of Sustainability Europe at Accenture. “Companies can and must do more to solve the major sustainability problems of our times”, Kaastra says. “We’ve got the technologies and now it’s a matter of affordably and reliably accelerating the process.”

Exponential thinking We all know there’s a critical sustainability deadline looming in 2030. Under the Paris Climate Agreement, to which the Netherlands also has committed, we have to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (worst case: 2 degrees). That means reducing CO2 emissions by 49 per cent relative to 1990. From 228 million tonnes to 116 million tonnes. “The problems are at such a scale that companies need to take a fundamentally different approach”, Kaastra argues. “A tweak here and a tweak there won’t cut it. Over the next decades, we have to reinvent our whole economic system. That’s a threat, of course, but it’s also an opportunity to redo things in a sustainable way. With clean energy, circular supply chains and paying a lot more attention to biodiversity and nature. We are at the tipping point of restructuring things in a way that can sustain us for centuries to come. Despite the challenges, I am optimistic. So, rather than thinking linearly, we

While more than one-third (34%) of the world’s largest companies are now committed to Net Zero, nearly all (93%) will fail to achieve their goals if they don’t at least double the pace of emissions reduction by 2030, according to a new report 'Accelerating Global Companies toward Net Zero by 2050' from Accenture

“Over the next decades, we have to reinvent our whole economic system”

Wytse Kaastra, senior managing director of Sustainability Europe at Accenture

need to think exponentially. That tends to be slow going at first, but once you get past the tipping point, the acceleration kicks in. That’s the point where sustainable gets to be better, faster and cheaper. We saw it with wind and solar, which these days are cheaper than fossil energy. The same thing is happening with electric vehicles, where growth has even outpaced what most forecasts predicted.”

What to do The urgency is obvious, and so is the willingness to act. In a 2021 survey Accenture conducted with the United Nations Global Compact, 85 per cent of CEOs said that sustainability is becoming an increasing priority at their companies. However, only 45 per cent felt they were taking all necessary measures to actually make their own operations sustainable. Kaastra: “The big question on boardroom agendas is: How are we going to do this? As consultants, the request we always get is, tell me what to do and who has already done it. The first examples are gradually emerging now. It’s a bit like trying to rebuild a ship at sea. It’s tough to work out where to invest first without it adversely affecting your operating result. How do you make that transition when you’re still at a point where your company doesn’t have all the facts? And, moreover, a lone company is just one small part of the solution, of that whole value chain. Fortunately, we are seeing more and more partnerships, often between different actors. They’ll approach a sustainability problem together on the rationale that you can’t solve it alone, that you can actually help and strengthen each other.” In each of the solutions Kaastra mentions, technology plays a major role. Digitization is key to this transition. But it is also true that companies still have a lot of pioneering to do. Although these technologies already exist, they have not been fully implemented.. For example, the increasing demand for renewable energy solutions has led to an emergence of wind farms in the UK. To counteract the possible negative impact of wind farms on the ecosystem, we were called in. We deployed a dedicated monitoring system and AI to detect, count and monitor puffins. The data allowed us to determine impact of the wind farms on the development of the puffin population.”

Accenture has pledged to do its part to keep global warming below 1.5° and is working to reduce its absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 11 per cent and has set a goal to achieve net-zero emissions by the end of 2025. The company is taking various steps to achieve this. It is investing in nature-based carbon removal solutions. It is committed to achieving 100% renewable electricity in its offices globally by the end of 2023. It has also committed to reuse or recycle 100% of its e-waste, such as computers and servers, as well as all of its office furniture, by the end of 2025.

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