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Digitalization gives a completely different leverage to sustainability work

Almedalen Digitalization Sustainability Innovation

Anyone who thinks that digitization and sustainability are mostly about electronic climate gadgets and clever apps is missing the point. It's about smart financing solutions, big data analytics and cleantech-as-a-service. Among many other things.

The seminar "Global Sustainable Development Goals. How do we do business for the IT and telecom industry in Sweden?", organized by Samsung on the afternoon of Almedals Tuesday, offered a rich menu of the many ways in which digitalization contributes to achieving the climate goals. Four actors offered as many perspectives:

1. The fintech entrepreneur

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Sam Manaberi, Trine

Sam Manaberi, founder of Trine, showed how a digital financing solution is helping to eradicate energy poverty in East Africa. Investors can easily contribute to solar roofs that give poor families access to electricity so they no longer have to chase climate-damaging kerosene and diesel.

2. The Big Data innovator

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Erik Wetter, Flowminder

Erik Wetter, co-founder of the Flowminder Foundation, gave examples of how large amounts of anonymized call data have been used to manage and streamline relief efforts in earthquake- and flood-affected areas in Haiti, Nepal and Bangladesh

3. The metropolitan digitizer

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Christer Forsberg Filip, Chief Digital Officer , Stockholm

Christer Forsberg Filip, Chief Digital Officer in Stockholm, showed examples of how the city, by making open data available to entrepreneurs, is helping to develop smart solutions, including in traffic planning.

4. The innovation promoter

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Stefan Henningsson, World Wildlife Fund, WWF

Stefan Henningsson, senior adviser climate innovation at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), presented a number of examples of how digitalization has changed and broadened the conditions for innovation in climate development. One of these is that there has been a clear shift from developing individual technical gadgets to developing comprehensive solutions, such as Cleantech-as-a-service. Sweden and the Nordic countries are world leaders in innovation, Stefan said, and WWF has supported this with a special Climate Solver program.

Some inspiring conclusions from the presentation and the subsequent discussions:

  • Sustainability is no longer just a matter for marketing, PR or social responsibility professionals, but has become a strategic issue that looks at the big picture, taking into account both business and societal benefits.
  • The role of digitalization in achieving the SDGs represents a significant business potential - according to Stefan Henningsson, who refers to a study by Accenture, a market equivalent to USD 2100 billion.
  • The digital entrepreneurs - the start-ups - have now started to find ways in which their disruptive ideas can interact with the more established IT companies.

All hopeful entrepreneurs and visionaries on stage, not keen to discuss obstacles. Somewhat reluctantly, however, the following was highlighted: the (un)habit of public and non-profit organizations to reward collaboration with the same organizations they have always worked with rather than with other, more innovative ones, and the public/non-profit sector's over-reliance on large, 'co-prepared' solutions rather than small-scale, entrepreneurial initiatives.