Director, Invest in Norway, North America at Innovation Norway, bridging the gap for large tech companies expanding into the Nordic Region.
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The Covid-19 pandemic hit nearly every industry hard. Clean energy braced for a massive blow, but as the pandemic stretched on, the worst of the pain never arrived. In fact, leaders believe clean energy investments could spur recovery from the economic devastation that accompanied the pandemic, driven in part by the new European Green Deal. Renewables are on track to overtake fossil fuels as the world’s largest source of electricity within five years, and investors continue to flock to sustainable energy as the must-own asset of the future.
Major companies continue to make pledges to reduce or eliminate their carbon footprints. At the start of this year, Apple announced it is modifying executive bonuses based on environmental values in 2021. Microsoft also recently took major action and pledged to become a carbon-negative company within 10 years. As part of this effort, it launched an Azure cloud region in Norway, which is quickly gaining traction as a go-to nation for sustainable business. As the site of the world’s largest green data center, Norway provides an ideal home for businesses seeking a more sustainable future.
GitHub has also made a push toward sustainability, again leveraging its presence in Norway, storing a full archive of all current public repository data deep in the Norwegian mountains. This archive, named the Arctic Code Vault, will help GitHub preserve millions of lines of code in open-source software for hundreds of years.
Tech giants are not the only companies making these pushes. Aquaai, a startup working to improve sustainability in the fishing industry, is using Norway as a testing ground for its new solutions.
Examples like these demonstrate that companies at the top of their industries recognize the massive opportunity of sustainability — and the opportunity cost of letting this chance slip by. The U.S. government under President Joe Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement while the EU continues to put pressure on its members to head toward carbon neutrality. For startups and enterprise leaders alike, the time to embrace sustainability has arrived.
Leading Sustainability Across Industries
Over the last five years, consumers have exhibited a strong shift in preferences for more sustainable products. They want companies to use more recycled materials, move away from fossil fuels and reconsider their roles as stewards of the resources they use. Everyone, from food producers to technology companies, is subject to this scrutiny.
Data centers and other high-tech building projects present a massive opportunity for more companies to look at their long-term sustainability plans. New data centers will continue to pop up worldwide as growth in the sector accelerates. They will need to be nimble in terms of where they place their data — some data will need to be readily available, while other data can be archived and stored as backup data in more sustainable locations. Likewise, heavy compute can be shifted to more sustainable locations. Battery production plants, too, can expect a boost as transportation around the world electrifies.
Within all this explosive growth, companies should not lose sight of the two major drivers of sustainability demand: employees and consumers.
Employees today do not just want to work for paychecks (although given the wealth disparities in the world, they are also seeking more pay). In addition to money, today’s employees want to work for companies with missions that promote inclusivity and sustainability, not divisiveness and harm to the environment. Companies looking to hire the best talent must consider that money may not be enough to woo a new generation of conscientious workers.
The same goes for consumers. People today are willing to pay a premium for a product created sustainably, or at least by a brand they perceive to be sustainable. Given the option to buy from a company of questionable character, consumers will often wait to make a purchase until they can do business with a brand they trust.
Pressure from both workers and buyers should demonstrate to every company in the world that sustainability next year and in the years to come is a necessary evolution, not a luxury. CEOs, founders of startups and other leaders must communicate a vision of sustainability and follow through on their promises to set up their companies for success in a new, more careful world.
How Business Should (And Should Not) Shape Sustainability Policies
Companies cannot treat sustainability as an afterthought, nor can they afford to invest in the appearance of sustainability without the underlying business principles and processes. Today’s workers and consumers can recognize which businesses are legitimate in their commitments and which are not.
To attract the best talent and maintain an enthusiastic audience of customers, businesses must genuinely work to make the world a better place. This includes private companies’ pursuit of the UN’s sustainability goals by making products and operations more sustainable, both inwardly and outwardly, not only on issues of sustainability but also on diversity and inclusivity.
Leaders of companies making the move to sustainability should consider both where and how they do business. Microsoft could have built a data center anywhere, but the tech giant chose Norway for the country’s leadership on sustainability. Natural capital will continue to decrease around the globe, so companies need to be creative in how they address these challenges.
As the world reopens in the wake of the pandemic, businesses will face a series of choices on whether to go “back to normal” or whether to embrace an uncertain yet promising future. Sustainability drives growth, but only when companies commit to more sustainable practices and establish strategies to guide their sustainability initiatives.
By investing in good people, staying accountable and committing to a mission of sustainability inside and out, businesses in 2021 can push the world toward a better future while strengthening their own positions as market leaders in the bargain.
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