By Bradley Pulford

The need for sustainable business practices is becoming weightier by the moment. With headlines dominated by protesting students and images of plastic waste polluting our waterways and oceans, we now live in a world that is awakened to the necessity for businesses to ensure they are not negatively impacting our planet but helping to reduce their carbon footprint.

As Gen Z enters the workforce with clear purpose and enlightened consumers put pressure on businesses to offer transparency around supply chains, all industries are faced with the same prospect: adapt or be disrupted.

Success is, and will increasingly be, defined by a business’ ability to demonstrate its focus on sustainability.

That means more than just lip service, and for the channel it requires smarter collaboration and shared goals. From energy hungry data centres, to increasingly complex supply chains, the technology sector has a huge role to play. Like all other industries there are environmental, social and economic implications.

In fact, the technology that is set to tighten up sustainable practices will by default be data-centric and lead to further pressure on the channel to build environmentally sensitive, resource savvy supply chains and practices.

By now we all know that a data explosion is on the horizon. According to an IDC report, the Global Datasphere – a measure of how much new data is created and replicated each year – will grow by more than five times over the next seven years. The total amount of new data created in 2025 is forecast to increase to 175ZB from 33ZB in 2018.

The report suggests that nearly a third of the Global Datasphere will be driven by growth of video surveillance, signals from IoT devices, metadata, and entertainment.

One of the top five fastest-growing segments of data creation is attributed to user-created and user-consumed online video like YouTube. We’re on the cusp of an incredibly exciting moment technologically and businesses are looking for trusted advisors to provide intimate knowledge of their environments, to guide them through tailored transformations that enable them to seize the opportunities afoot. And sustainability must be a part of this equation.

Some businesses may still be ‘scratching their heads’ when it comes to truly understanding what the term sustainability means for them.

For example, Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) is a process by which public authorities seek to achieve the right balance between the three pillars of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental – when procuring goods, services or works at all stages of the project.

This is the point at which channel partners could find themselves in a tight spot, when a potential customer asks at the point of tender how their business is working towards minimising its impact on the world? Those prepared with comprehensive and concrete proof-points are more likely to win the deal – and rightly so.

As the IT industry grows and data centres boom, it is important that partners take this seriously. But ultimately, businesses need to be led by example – and that needs to be set by the government. Improvements in sustainability practices can be influenced from the outside in, with the EU Public Procurement Directive of 2014 stating that businesses must consider how sustainable their IT choices are, instead of focusing on competitive pricing, the initiative is there.

But this needs to backed-up by and scaled out with businesses across all industries being held to account under the same guidelines – creating standardised and easily navigable goals.

Take for example, the EU Commission-funded EURECA project, which was set up to help public sector organisations across seven European countries to identify the environmental and financial impacts of their data centres.

In 2018, after three years of work, the project revealed that assessing 350 public sector data centres helped save 45 gigawatt hours of energy a year and €4.5m in cost savings annually.

This calls to attention both the environmental and financial burdens that hidden unsustainable practices and technologies can bring to an organization, as well as the substantial gains that can be made from tweaks to existing process and operations.

With pressure from end-customers and policy-led sustainability requirements and government initiatives raising the bar, channel partners need to look internally, too. After all, trust in a company starts with transparency and customers expect it.

This means creating open, knowledge sharing relationships with partners and peers in order to progress sustainable working practices – and from collaboration, innovation is born. Supporting and empowering those in the supply chain to evolve and align will only bolster transparency and trust.

Ultimately, progressing towards sustainable supply chain goals gives businesses a competitive edge, while contributing to the ongoing innovation set to enable future businesses – in a world where environmental and social resources are gold. But no partner is in it alone, the extraordinary is only achieved together and that includes sustainability.

Bradley Pulford, is Senior Director, Channel Sales, Africa, Dell