How does a company achieve the sustainability goals it has set itself? With greater collaboration comes better use of technology. According to the latest report “Fit for a sustainable future” commissioned by Vodafone Business and conducted by B2B International which involved 3.101 companies in 15 countries.
The 3 obstacles on the road to sustainability
According to the study, the difficult economic situation we are experiencing, between pandemic, war and energy crisis, has caused progress towards sustainability to stall. There are mainly 3 obstacles that stand between companies and sustainability. The first concerns collaboration. According to 71% of companies, greater collaboration between organizations is needed to make progress on sustainability challenges. Secondly, lack of technological skills (27%), a problem to which poorly informed decisions on green technology are added (26%) identified as obstacles to the ecological transition. Finally, companies are recognizing that previous approaches are not enough and need to be moved beyond the so-called “compensation”: 54% of companies say that their sector is now too tied to this practice.
The need for a sustainable ecosystem
Let's start with collaboration: it is essential to mitigate the impact of climate change. Everyone has to do their part in order to create a sustainable ecosystem. Companies seem to be aware of this and are ready to work with their competitors, as well as with universities, charities, regulators and governments.
“Fit for the future” companies, in particular, are willing to play the leading role in the ecological transition process of their sector, “leveraging their deep understanding of the challenges to be faced and their willingness to collaborate with other organizations”, reads the report.
The technology for sustainability
Many companies are hoping for another industrial revolution to create a more sustainable economy. Fit for the future companies recognize the potential technology can have as an accelerator of change. It will be essential to make up for the lack of technological skills and to remedy the poorly informed decisions on green technology among the main barriers to progress in the field of sustainability and to the possibility of exploiting the full potential of technology.
From “compensation” to action
Compensatory actions are no longer enough. “Companies are adopting a broader approach to sustainability, which also includes changes within supply chains, value chains and, more broadly, within their decision-making processes, explains the survey.
According to the report, in fact, the sustainability is a primary goal for 63% of Italian companies, and for four companies out of ten, it will in the future be an opportunity for differentiation from competitors on the market. In 40% of cases they are the expectations of customers and investors – with their calls for more concrete and structural actions for the ecological transition – representing the main drive to make sustainability a corporate priority. A new awareness that is leading almost half of the companies to consider the results of the so-called compensation no longer sufficient and to implement more effective actions.
Lastly, most Italian companies believe that a broader one is needed collaboration between companies – including competitors, 68% – and organizations – governments, regulatory authorities, universities, research institutes and NGOs, 40% – and thus create an ecosystem to address sustainability challenges more effectively. According to what emerges from the report, in addition to collaboration, technology also plays a crucial role: for seven out of ten companies it can be a help to better identify any waste of resources.
