Building a Successful, Resilient and Sustainable Business
Issues surrounding climate change and sustainability are increasingly affecting businesses, investors, consumers, and governments around the world. The established link between sustainability practices and financial performance have prompted a growing number of companies to act.
Added to that is the growing risk of climate change on business continuity. CEOs concerned about their company’s impact on the environment are turning to partners like IBM to identify and mitigate the environment’s impact on their companies – and help them ensure a sustainable, profitable future.
During our session at Think Summit 2020, Dr. Murray Simpson, IBM’s Global Lead for Sustainability, Climate Risk & Energy Transition, joined me to shared answers to some of the key issues companies are grappling with regarding climate change and sustainability.
Tune into the Think Summit replay to hear Dr. Simpson address these urgent questions:
- Why should companies focus on sustainability?
- How is sustainability connected to climate risk?
- What sectors are most engaged when it comes to sustainability?
- What are the next steps to pursuing sustainability, or even get started?
- Will these efforts make a difference?
According to Dr. Simpson, most companies recognize the need to incorporate sustainability and the climate agenda into their board rooms and systems going forward. If they do not, they will face financial stress, along with pressure from regulators, shareholders, and society. Not surprisingly, companies in all industries – from financial and industrial to consumer, government and telcos — are looking for proven pathways to enhance and accelerate the journey to Net Zero while remaining financially profitable.
BP is emerging as a market leader in their efforts to move from High Carbon to Net Zero. As part of its collaborative partnership with IBM, the oil giant is using IBM’s climate risk analytics to identify, measure and quantify the extent of climate-related financial risk. IBM’s Research division has created a carbon account model to assist in measuring performance and managing the journey Net Zero.
Together, IBM and The Climate Service, a market leader in climate-risk analytics, have built a powerful software platform called Climanomics and made it available to all clients via Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud. BP is using it to gain powerful insights to enhance decision-making, reduce transition risk, and identify new opportunities, services, products, resources, and energy efficiencies.
Dr. Simpson is extremely optimistic that corporate sustainability goals can be achieved, but says we need to act now. By embracing a collaborative journey that seeks to understand through quantification, taking an iterative approach to the solution, all while addressing regulatory and investor needs, our society – and world – can get there together.
For more information check out IBM Institute for Business Value report The Rise of the Sustainable Enterprise. Contact me @ linkedin.com/in/allykarmali if you wish to discuss your sustainability journey and readiness to do a Climate Risk Assessment to identify what of the business can be addressed for sustainability.
Ally Karmali, Associate Partner, Practice Lead – Risk & Compliance, Climate & Sustainability, IBM Canada
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/allykarmali
Twitter: https://twitter.com/allykarmali
