Sustainability at a turning point

By Peter Bradd, Garage Lead, GBS, ANZ

IBM has shown commitment to environmental protections since five decades. Environmental leadership cuts virtually across all aspects of IBM’s operations and is foundational to our business. We prioritize needs of the people for whom we design, through our strategic work on sustainability for our clients and the communities working on climate and environmental change. We lead with empathy and with that we develop more human-centred and sustainable businesses – it’s who we are.

With all the changes dealt by this world, empathy becomes more important now than ever. A study conducted by IBM Institute of Business Value in May 2021 found that over 2 in 3 respondents believed environmental issues have significant importance to them personally, and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic has influenced 93% of global consumers’ views on sustainability. Consumers are buying in to it, and capital markets and investors are for it in business transformations.

How are we launching?

IBM’s Sustainability Garage is launching in Australia with a 2-day hack event in Perth. The gathering will focus on accelerating sustainable operations for natural resources companies of Australia. Learn and co-design with business leaders, in an inspiring and driving environment, to deliver a measurable impact for climate action and clean affordable energy within the next 12 months.

How will it work ?

• Qualified organisations will work along with IBM to define climate action problem statements
• These problem statements will then be published internally and externally to our ecosystem, that include universities and start-ups.
• Up to 10 teams will be selected to participate. The team formation could be from single organisation or mix of other team members.
• Over the course of two days, these pre-selected teams will work in a fast-paced style to collect inputs from customers and end users to develop a solution for demo.
• A pitch competition, with judges from sustainability community, will be run as a finale to select the winner.

To learn more or suggest organisations/individuals to participate in the Perth Sustainability Hack event, please contact Peter Bradd @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterbradd/

• IBM Sustainability visit www.ibm.com/impact/sustainability
• IBM Call for Code visit callforcode.org
• Read our Research Paper “Sustainability at a turning point – Consumers are pushing companies to pivot” here