Driving sustainability through AI: Success stories and strategies
Image credit: Google DeepMind
In today’s corporate landscape, sustainability has become a fundamental pillar
of business strategy — and artificial
intelligence
(AI) has emerged as the latest
tool
for advancing brand sustainability goals and business performance.
In this Wednesday morning breakout, Annie
Longsworth — Partner, ESG Impact
& Value Creation at Shelton Group — moderated a panel
featuring Nadia James, Sustainability
Marketing Program Manager at Google; Kiki
Huckaby, Chief Impact
Officer at MindSpark Learning; and Matt
Bellio, Data Scientist & Advanced
Analytics Consultant at IBM where they discussed the AI-driven strategies
their brands have deployed to further sustainability and business goals.
Success stories
No matter the industry, AI has a place to make an impact — if used correctly
and
responsibly.
Google, for example, uses AI to track and improve its environmental footprint
and to help advertisers lessen their environmental
impact.
By utilizing AI through programs such as Product
Studio and Ad Net
Zero, Google has been able to help advertisers work
more sustainably and efficiently: “AI helps us test out our assumptions,
especially in sustainability where it tends to be more nuanced,” James said.
Unpacking the potential and challenges of AI
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Understanding that sustainability and AI can be used as tools to upskill future
workers, MindSpark arms educators with tools to give their students the skills
needed to enter the workforce with a deep understanding of these technologies
and their implications. IBM leverages data to drive impactful sustainability
initiatives, such as its work with the Sund & Baelt Bridge
project — demonstrating how
AI-driven solutions enhance operational efficiency and contribute to
environmental impact by reducing carbon footprints.
Insights and future opportunities
As these companies continue to push the boundaries of sustainability and AI
integration, their initiatives foster collaboration, innovation, and ethical
practices while paving the way for a more sustainability-driven workforce and
business models. IBM recognizes the socio-technological challenges associated
with
AI,
emphasizing the importance of trustworthiness and inclusivity in AI development.
By adopting a holistic approach that encompasses diverse teams, transparent
processes and ethical guidelines, Bellio said IBM ensures that AI solutions are
fair, equitable and beneficial to all stakeholders. Huckaby said MindSpark
focuses on ensuring that the user sees it as a tool, rather than a replacement,
and educating the students on the biases that can come from relying on poorly
trained AI. James added that Google understands AI’s role in helping consumers
be more sustainable by understanding what can change their behavior through the
collection of data and consumer insights.
By emphasizing trustworthiness, inclusivity and user benefit, these initiatives
set a precedent for AI-driven solutions that prioritize fairness, equity and
transparency — and could usher in a more sustainable and socially responsible
era in business.
Driving internal alignment through cross-functional collaboration
Image credit: Google DeepMind
Persistent barriers to operationalizing sustainability strategy
In this Wednesday afternoon workshop, Tiana
Ritchell — Principal at Daggerwing
Group — led a conversation highlighting some of
the challenges brands face when trying to operationalize sustainability
strategy. According to a 2023 Harvard Business Review/Daggerwing Group
study,
only 1 in 4 companies among the 564 surveyed had widely operationalized their
sustainability strategies — otherwise known as embedding it into the way they do
business.
“The remaining 74 percent of companies are struggling to bring their
sustainability strategies to life,” Ritchell said.
She went on to share five change levers for operationalizing sustainability —
breaking sustainability out of its silos, avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach,
rebalancing incentives and leader accountability, simplifying complexity, and
articulating clear mindset and behavior shifts.
A change-management approach
For companies with a large portfolio of brands such as General
Mills, collaborating across different teams and
internal organizations can be challenging despite the company’s overarching
commitment to sustainability. Joselynne
Fynboh, the food giant’s
Global Impact Enterprise Integration Lead, shared: “We started with a
stakeholder-mapping process to determine some of the gaps. This helped us
determine which brands or organizations we wanted to prioritize.” She also
shared changes to General Mills’ overall governance structure and how various
parts of the business are collaborating to align on sustainability strategy.
Several panelists shared that navigating the line between reporting and
governance while simultaneously making progress on brand commitments can be
challenging — especially given the latest regulatory changes in the EU and the US.
As Kayleen Alexson, Senior
Director of ESG & Brand Strategy for Caribou Coffee
Company, pointed out “There’s a tension between
the resources allocated to reporting for ESG vs. actually making progress and
investments in regenerative agriculture.”
Caribou Coffee published its second ESG report last year. When asked about the biggest shifts in its sustainability journey over the last couple years, Alexson said, “A few years ago we started engaging people who were passionate about sustainability across the organization. Now we are looking more systematically at certain teams and what needs to get done. We are putting more form and function to how we engage across the entire organization.”
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Mara Slade is a seasoned communications professional having worked both in-house in sustainability roles and at top creative agencies including Edelman and Digital Kitchen. She has led corporate ESG reporting projects for a variety of Fortune 500 clients ranging from tech, retail, sustainable agriculture, consumer packaged goods, financial services, among others. She is a certified GRI reporter with an MBA from Presidio Graduate School in Sustainable Management.
Impact Manager, Purpose + Sustainability
Formerly working in the advertising world in Kansas City, Hannah Zimmerman has now married her past experience with her passion for sustainability. When she isn't chasing her four-year-old daughter or helping companies along on their sustainability journey through consulting, reporting, communications and certifications, she is working on her master's in Sustainability through Harvard.
Published May 10, 2024 9am EDT / 6am PDT / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST