Hello CEO: Carl Piva, The Internet Foundation

Sustainability Hello CEO
The role of digitization in sustainable development and decarbonization could amount to one fifth of the reduction required by the Paris Agreement. It is therefore an organization that "The Swedish Internet Foundation has such an exciting opportunity to not only drive an internal sustainability agenda, but also to take an important role in socially beneficial digitalization throughout Sweden. This is according to Carl Piva, CEO of the independent, business-driven and non-profit organization The Swedish Internet Foundation, which works for an internet that contributes positively to people and society.

In our Hello CEO series, we are currently focusing on sustainability, an area that Carl Piva believes is entirely in the hands of politicians, who need to tighten up their demands on all of us, and an exploding cleantech industry that has finally started to deliver innovation and solutions.

- For many years, The Swedish Internet Foundation has been working on sustainability, not least our internal one, which has created a good foundation and understanding of how we affect our surroundings, both directly and indirectly. In addition, we have launched an activity aimed at helping the rest of society to succeed in its transition," says Carl Piva and continues:

- There is fundamentally no contradiction between investing in sustainable solutions and investing in traditional ones. An exciting consequence of taking the plunge is that, in addition to future-proofing your business, you can often make long-term cost savings in parallel. It doesn't matter whether it's building more efficient energy systems or smarter infrastructure. If you use fewer resources to do the same work, it will usually be cheaper too.

- At the same time, society needs to be much better at setting minimum requirements for companies and individuals and using the strength of society's procurement volumes to steer towards the climate-smart. This creates a huge market for the right type of sustainable solutions, and also the right breeding ground for innovation and development.

What is your focus in the area of sustainability?
- The Swedish Internet Foundation's ambition in socially beneficial digitization for a sustainable Sweden is to help municipalities and the public sector to change, always with an eye towards what has the highest impact. This cannot be done in a credible way without us doing a good job internally. After a number of years, we have managed to quantify the vast majority of direct and indirect emission sources related to our operations and are working on everything from limiting our own air travel to encouraging suppliers to choose
renewable electricity.

How did you get involved in the field?
- I come from a background of running a global smart cities program, and have had the privilege of immersing myself in many of the international programs running globally, involving cities from Wellington in the south to Tampere in the north, from leading smart cities like Dubai and Barcelona to challengers like Bristol and Dublin. Here at home, I have recently become involved in the board of the Stockholm Green Innovation District and started a promising discussion with Viable Cities, a program where 23 cities have signed agreements with government representatives to become climate neutral.

What are your plans for future sustainability work?
- As an organization, we have worked with annual emission targets, but have now started working on how to become climate neutral by 2050. It is a challenge to reduce all CO2 emissions and it can only be done if you have a correct map to navigate by. In parallel, we will continue to invest in what I hope will be our really valuable contribution, namely to use The Swedish Internet Foundation's role in society and influence others, by contributing knowledge mainly to municipalities and decision-makers in Sweden linked to how digitization can drive the transition.