MIT Sloan Looks at What Businesses Need to Address Sustainability

The introduction and advancement of sustainable practices in industries like biopharmaceuticals, IT, and energy, has already turned into increased profits, as well as a boost in talent in recruitment. Rebecca Linke from MIT Sloan looked deeper into the changes and why more are needed soon.

 Sloan Professor and Sustainability Initiative Director Jason Jay defines sustainable business practices as those which “align creating business value with creating value for society and the environment.” He explains, “Research is revealing that when companies take a systematic approach to managing sustainability issues. They actually do very well from a business perspective.”

Biopharma companies like Biogen and Allergan have begun to acknowledge and take steps to offset the environmental impacts of their industry, such as introducing waste and antibiotics into the surrounding soil and water. Biogen’s vow to go carbon neutral is just one aggressive investment the biopharma industry has made that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Newsweek’s Green Rankings, for instance.

Although the environmental issues of the Information Technology sector are often “overshadowed by … information security, cybersecurity, [and] privacy,” Jay points out that “the cloud is not an amorphous, nonphysical place. It’s a server farm sitting in a building, sucking down tremendous amounts of energy.” Patrick Flynn, MBA ’12 and Salesforce Director of Sustainability has been “championing cloud buyers’ principles for corporations to follow to achieve a cleaner cloud.”

E-waste is another major concern for IT, with a projected 50 million tons expected to be thrown away in 2018 as people periodically replace their devices with new ones. The persistent update cycle also “translates into increased mining for raw materials.” Nonprofit company The Green Grid has been particularly active in addressing e-waste.

The Energy industry has also been buckling to “pressures from customers, investors, and regulators” to implement more sustainable business practices, albeit much too slowly according to Jay. The article reports an estimated 50 percent of the U.S.’s “6,587 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2015 coming from electricity production and burning gas and diesel for cars.”

Jay explains, “There is a big push toward decentralization, digitization, and decarbonization. But it is really unclear how utilities will transform themselves and create a pathway for growth. The Sustainability Initiative is working to convene an MIT power summit to help utility leaders figure out business models and policies that will allow energy companies to thrive while producing cleaner energy.”

You can read the rest of Linke’s article here.

regions: Boston

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