“The biggest misconception people have is that sustainability is about carbon emissions,” says Pablo Orvananos, global head of sustainability consulting at Hitachi Digital Services. “This is what we call carbon tunnel vision. Sustainability goes well beyond carbon. There are a multitude of environmental and social issues that businesses need to focus on.
Companies seeking to take action will find themselves faced with significant complexity surrounding their sustainability efforts. Companies are responsible not only for their own emissions and use of fossil fuels (Scope 1), but also for the sustainability efforts of their energy suppliers (Scope 2) and supply chain partners ( Scope 3). New regulations require organizations to look beyond just emissions. Businesses need to ask questions on a wide range of environmental and societal issues: Are supply chain partners sourcing raw materials in an environmentally responsible manner? Do they treat workers fairly?
Sustainability cannot be confined to just one specific task, such as data center decarbonization. The only way to achieve sustainability is to take a comprehensive, holistic approach, says Daniel Versace, ESG research analyst at IDC. “A siled approach to ESG is doomed to failure,” he adds.
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