Is Technology the Answer to the Climate Crisis?

Expectations are high – and the pressure is on tech companies to deliver quickly. Technology titans such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have invested $1 billion in initiatives like Breakthrough Energy, which is designed to address the climate crisis through investment in clean-energy development across industries including agriculture, construction, energy, manufacturing and transportation. Companies that are developing climate change-related tech solutions have experienced skyrocketing investment in recent months: The mutual fund tracker Morningstar said inflows into environmental, social and governmental investments – of which climate-change solutions are a part – have climbed 53 percent in the past year alone.

But while technology has great potential to help us tackle climate challenges, it may also create different problems.
“The push to fast-track technological innovation generates risks that must be monitored and managed,” said Mark Lawrence, Underwriting Development Manager for Technology at Travelers Europe. “At a time when businesses are expected to be socially responsible and transparent, they need to be aware of how the tech solutions they develop may challenge those expectations.”

Strategies for smart innovation

The World Economic Forum published a report that outlines 12 ways in which existing technology can cut climate emissions in half by 2030. The suggestions may help tech businesses develop climate-change solutions that pave the way for positive change and anticipate potential pitfalls along the way. Key takeaways include:

Don’t send mixed messages
If you are promoting your company’s dedication to addressing climate change, be a true guardian of the climate – or prepare to face scrutiny. Environmental initiatives from the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft have drawn criticism in light of billion-dollar deals the companies have made to provide artificial intelligence, automation and cloud services to major fossil fuel companies, for instance.

Dissect your design
Are your products – along with their components, packaging and promotion – designed with the environment in mind? Or do they generate more waste and encourage users to do the same? Consider efforts to share, reuse and recycle what you create and use.

Use data for good
Increasingly, data is becoming critical currency. There is potential for companies to use it to drive positive change by developing solutions that can accomplish such tasks as measuring energy use or steering consumers toward choices that reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

Walk your talk
Create customer and employee incentives for reducing carbon consumption – then take corresponding positive action as a company. The Chinese fintech firm Ant Financial rewards its customers with points when they make low-carbon choices such as walking to work or paying bills online. Then the company converts those points into trees.

“It’s important to take a step back and study the ripple effect that a technology product or service is creating,” Lawrence said. “There are significant opportunities in the tech sector for climate change solutions, and capitalising upon these requires the potential exposures to be minimised.”