Global warming has reached a tipping point. According to the United Nations, the world is on course to breach the 1.5°C warming threshold by 2035 (link resides outside ibm.com) and climb at least another 1°C higher by 2100. 

To avert the worst impacts of climate change and adapt to the new environmental imperatives, it’s crucial for enterprises to act now to implement effective sustainability strategies. Roughly 50% of CEOs and their executive teams now tie compensation to sustainability goals. However, a survey of 5,000 C-suite executives across 22 industries and 22 countries by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) has revealed that 6 out of 10 executives feel they have to make tradeoffs between commercial and sustainability outcomes.  

There’s no reason for these two objectives to be mutually exclusive. In fact, environmental, social and governance (ESG) data and capability leaders are 43% more likely to outperform on profitability. Many IBM customers have worked with the IBM Business Partner® community to harness AI and data-driven intelligence to bring greater sustainability and cost-efficiency to their asset lifecycle management operations. 

Embedding sustainability into the business 

To realize the true commercial potential of their sustainability strategies, organizations must integrate them deeply into their business operations, transforming sustainability from a cost center into a value driver. In fact, the IBV study shows how organizations that implement sustainability also experience greater business benefits, including improved efficiency, faster innovation and deeper customer loyalty. 

One example of this effect in action is at Spendrups Brewery (link resides outside ibm.com), the largest brewery and beverage group in Sweden. Although it operates in an energy-intensive sector, Spendrups is deeply committed to achieving carbon neutrality. As an important step on that journey, the company wanted to help its maintenance team better allocate resources and maximize the reliability of production assets. is deeply committed to achieving carbon neutrality. As an important step on that journey, the company wanted to help its maintenance team better allocate resources and maximize the reliability of production assets. 

By working with IBM Platinum Business Partner Enfo to implement IBM Maximo® Manage, Mobile and Scheduler solutions, Spendrups optimized its maintenance processes, reducing both power consumption and environmental impact. Data-driven maintenance (supported by monitoring data from its production equipment) allows Spendrups to prioritize urgent tasks and improve operational reliability and sustainability at the same time. The company also plans to deploy Maximo Monitor, which offers AI-powered remote asset monitoring to identify, highlight and analyze operational anomalies at scale. 

Reaching beyond organizational boundaries 

Spendrups isn’t the only company that is harnessing data to achieve sustainability success. Quant (link resides outside ibm.com), a leader in industrial maintenance also headquartered in Sweden, is working with IBM Business Partner AFRY to leverage IBM® Maximo® Application Suite to manage over 105,000 assets on behalf of clients all over the world. For Quant, sustainability isn’t an afterthought; it’s a core part of the company’s operating model. it’s a core part of the company’s operating model. 

Building on insights from IBM Maximo Application Suite, a cloud-based platform that uses AI, the Internet of Things and analytics to help optimize performance, the company is now exploring opportunities to fold environmental intelligence and ESG reporting into its service portfolio. In this way, Quant is looking to extend its sustainability capabilities to a wider ecosystem of customers and partners, which promises to unlock powerful network effects. 

Transforming raw data into actionable insight 

For Quant, Spendrups and many other organizations, unlocking efficiency and sustainability improvements for enterprise asset lifecycle management hinges on one crucial element: data. For almost every enterprise, the sustainability shift starts with sourcing accurate data and converting it into actionable insight. 

Falcone Borsellino Airport in Palermo (link resides outside ibm.com) exemplifies this pattern. In the past, the airport’s management company relied on paper-based processes to manage asset data. By digitizing and migrating this information to IBM Maximo, with expert support from IBM Business Partner ELMI, the management company replaced inefficient processes with a centralized digital solution. Crucially, this transition gave the organization access to a rich source of data for sustainability reporting, demonstrating how usable data is vital to drive better environmental outcomes. 

For Falcone Borsellino Airport’s management company, the aim is to manage all airport operations using IBM Maximo. And each efficiency gain that the company unlocks through smarter maintenance and asset lifecycle management will contribute to greater infrastructure performance and boost total sustainability. 

Empowering teams for sustainability success 

While data and AI should be at the heart of sustainability decision-making, human beings are still a crucial part of the equation. Research by the IBV highlights the importance of people, skills and decision-making to the success of the overall sustainability strategy. 

To accelerate transformation, organizations must build robust governance frameworks and organizational structures to help ensure that all levels of the business can make decisions that promote both sustainability and business outcomes. The best approaches will involve ongoing investment in training and education to empower teams at all levels to contribute to sustainability goals. 

For example, Spendrups Brewery’s success with IBM Maximo was bolstered by comprehensive training and standardized working practices across its maintenance team. This approach helped ensure that all team members were equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to drive sustainability. 

IBM’s solution for BanFast Förvaltning (link resides outside ibm.com), an innovative real estate company based in Stockholm, Sweden, also emphasizes the importance of empowering teams. By working with IBM Business Partner Edsvärd Hållbarhet to deploy and configure IBM Envizi™, BanFast can communicate its sustainability strategy to employees in a compelling, effective way.  

Moreover, analyzing sustainability with IBM Envizi now plays a key role in the company’s decision-making process. This allows BanFast to minimize energy consumption and reduce costs during its building renovation projects. 

Creating business value by prioritizing sustainability 

Over half of the organizations surveyed by the IBV that have already deeply embedded sustainability into their operations reported that business benefits were essential for justifying their sustainability investments. 

Business benefits and sustainability can go hand in hand. By focusing on data usability, business integration and empowering teams, organizations can drive significant business value while leaving a positive legacy for future generations.