These photos of Sao Paulo show that air pollution can be dramatically improved in a short space of time, the first was taken in November 2019. There are an estimated 4.2 million [4] lives lost every year related to air pollution alone. That figure doesn’t even account for deaths from events caused or aggravated by the climate crisis: flooding, tsunami, bush fires, other natural disasters and their aftermaths.
A more climate-conscious future, or back to BAU?
We’ll see in Part V that the technology industry can act, and can even take responsibility, as it becomes even more deeply-entrenched in society. Can it also help companies take positive action on climate ahead of it being enforced? This entrepreneurial approach could prove critical, particularly as major international climate meetings have been postponed to 2021, with potentially-devastating delays in policy change.
Organizations have a unique opportunity to re-think their daily operations. Having scrambled to reset and maintain operations remotely, they can now reconsider – based on employee well-being and climate impact – before resuming BAU.
Climate-consciousness isn’t just about wind farms. Companies in every sector can consider their supply chains, how they can support a circular economy, their waste and energy consumption as well as their own carbon footprint. Technology can help drive the transition, not only with remote conferences, collaboration and work, but it can also help organisations track and reduce their carbon emissions across their entire physical and digital supply chains.
ThoughtWorks partnered with Yara Fertilizers to use IoT technology that allows for real-time monitoring of fertilizer inventory to help reduce waste. Elsewhere, blockchain is increasingly being used to manage waste and improve recycling efforts [5]. There are some great tools that allow organizations and individuals to better account for carbon emissions. We’d recommend Tradewater’s Carbon Calculator [6], which helps individuals offset their emissions based on their personal carbon footprint.