Digital sustainability and its implications for finance and climate change

• Main Authors: GEORGE, Gerard, SCHILLEBEECKX, Simon J.D.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
• Subjects: COVID-19; pandemics; digital sustainability; digitisation; climate change; Finance and Financial Management; Public Health; Strategic Management Policy; Sustainability; Technology and Innovation
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6721; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/7720/viewcontent/DigitalSustainability_pv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

As the pandemic forced the entire world to a virtual standstill, nature revived a little. The US emitted 10.3% less CO2 in 2020 than in 2019 and other regions similarly experienced emission declines. Depending on the source, global carbon emissions were down between 4 and 8% in 2020.2 Consumers globally have expressed more concern about sustainability, an observation confirmed by large survey research by Accenture, Kantar, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Ipsos.3 In its latest Emissions Gap Report4 , the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) explicitly connected the pandemic to climate change, nature loss, and pollution. Besides the acceleration of business digitalisation with the move to work-from-home, the pandemic has created a shift in how we think and talk about sustainability. Our thesis is that digitalisation and sustainability are converging and that new digital technologies will empower novel sustainability solutions that may help avoid the worst of climate change.