Five sustainability trends businesses will embrace in 2024

A sense of urgency to address climate change has led many businesses to commit to carbon neutrality or net-zero emissions by 2030, and many more by 2050, yet just 5 percent of the UK’s biggest companies have said how they plan to get there.

This disconnect between ambition and action is something my firm is out to solve through IT infrastructure. These are five of the biggest sustainability trends I believe businesses must pay attention to in 2024.

Trend 1: Stress-testing Sustainability Plans

Sustainability was high on the corporate agenda in 2023, but with heightened consumer and social pressure, new reporting standards, government regulation, and better measurement, CEOs are under immense pressure to turn their sustainability pledges into action. EY analysis recently found that while 78 percent of the UK’s largest firms have published partially developed net zero plans, just 5 percent have disclosed sufficiently detailed transition plans to become net zero.

This year, businesses will need to answer key questions on strategy and execution, translating long term-thinking on sustainability into action that begins to move the dial today. That requires more robust net-zero plans, but also increasing pressure on all parts of the business to sniff out efficiencies and take risks on innovations that could have meaningful impact.

Trend 2: Embracing the Circular Economy 

In a circular economy, products and materials are kept in circulation through processes like maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, and composting. Two-thirds of companies were employing at least one circular economy principle in 2023, and that number is expected to grow significantly this year as companies face up to the reality of their climate pledges. 

There are many ways a business might choose to introduce circular principles, and these will vary greatly between sectors, but IT infrastructure, and remanufacturing in particular, is one area that almost every business in the UK should be thinking about in 2024. Remanufacturing is an industrial process that converts a computer to a like-new quality in both appearance and performance by testing and replacing individual components through a rigorous process. When accredited by a third party, it provides technical certainty that the device will perform as well (if not better) than a new machine.

The environmental benefits of taking this circular route are overwhelming. Lifecycle analysis of Circular Computing laptops conducted by Cranfield University found that remanufactured laptops produce over 15 times less CO2 compared to the average new laptop. In fact, every one of its laptops entering active use, be that in the public or private sector, prevents approximately 316kg (700lb) of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere, 1,200kg of the Earth’s resources from being mined, and saves over 50,000 gallons of water from the industrial processes involved in making a new laptop. Sustainability is often seen as a zero-sum game by executives, but this is one area where the benefits are seen in both cost and climate, with no impact on performance. 

Trend 3: Supply Chain Management and Transparency

Companies are used to facing criticism if they are seen to exploit people or natural resources, but now with greater focus on Scope 3 emissions, they are finding they need to pay just as much attention to where, and from whom, they source their products and services. Scope 3 emissions refer to any greenhouse gasses that an organisation is indirectly responsible for, up and down its value chain, such as in products it buys from suppliers, or those released by customers when using products or services.

As awareness of this web of interrelated climate accounting grows, scrutiny on supply chains is growing too. From media and investors to whistle-blowers and activists, calls for transparency in supply chains is encouraging businesses to be more discerning when choosing business partners, and more selective when running tenders.

Trend 4: AI for sustainability  

AI may have been the tech buzzword for 2023, but its impact on the world is plain to see, especially in the sustainability space where it holds a huge amount of promise. From improving efficiencies in energy use and supply chains, to refining the way we collect and analyse sustainability data, this is an area where we expect to see a huge amount of innovation in 2024.

Some of the best examples for businesses include helping to develop materials that are lighter and stronger, so aircraft, delivery vans, and wind turbines consume less energy. AI is also making agriculture more sustainable by predicting weather patterns, or analysing images of crops for signs of pest, disease, or nutrition problems. Google is even using AI to make its data centres more energy efficient by predicting how small changes in process impact energy consumption in its data centres on a grand scale.

But for all the promise, there are still hurdles for AI to overcome before it is seen as a net positive for our planet. A recent study found that OpenAI’s GPT-3 produced 500 metric tons of carbon dioxide during training, and Sam Altman himself has inferred that a single request in ChatGPT can consume 100 times more energy than one Google search.

Trend 5: Green skills training

We’ve witnessed a boom in the number of job adverts for sustainability-related roles as business leaders come to terms with the climate crisis and look for ways to be part of the solution. This trend will continue in 2024, with an increased focus on upskilling staff across a wide range of job functions. While this is great to see, only 17 percent of companies currently offer training for green skills, and almost a third of employers admit that their staff have asked for more training. It should come as no surprise to see a new generation, marked by heightened environmental awareness, urge employers to adopt more robust and responsible sustainability practices. Businesses are far more likely to achieve their net-zero goals if the ambition comes from the top down, but the desire for change must be understood and acted on by the whole workforce to truly succeed.

Image credit: Olivier26/depositphotos.com

Steve Haskew is Head of Sustainability and Social Leadership at Circular Computing, creators of the world’s first remanufactured laptop. Steve leads on defining, developing, and implementing the CSR strategy for Circular Computing. His vision is a key driver of growth across the business and ultimately looks at achieving a reduction in carbon footprint.