Paul and a team of our experts have been writing a white paper on sustainable digital transformation, which will be published later this week. Here he tells us a little about why sustainability is such an important subject for him:

The climate crisis is the biggest threat we face as a society. Digital technology has a huge part to play in helping to address the problem, however, we all still need to use it responsibly and sustainably as well as make the technology itself more sustainable. The commoditisation of digital technology ushered in by the cloud, and the simple fact that we can’t see the impact of our actions – like never deleting stuff, leaving servers running all the time, writing inefficient code etc – means that we do need to remind ourselves from time to time that resources are finite.

I have been working with digital technology for over two decades, consulting on and delivering all manner of solutions, and I’m sure like many others, I’m really grateful for the opportunities it has afforded me. Like most people I try to do my bit outside of work, but until recently I didn’t feel I was able to make much of a difference. However, through learning more about sustainable digital technology and then helping people to apply those concepts, I feel like I’m making more of a positive impact. I’d be the first to say that I don’t have all the answers, but helping to make digital technology more sustainable feels like I’m doing my bit, however big or small.

At work, I find that trying to consider more efficient, sustainable solutions gives me more of a sense of purpose. For organisations, sustainable solutions are almost always cheaper, and often faster and more reliable too. But the main benefit is that building, running and using digital technology sustainably is the right thing to do; everything else is a bonus.

We hope you enjoy reading our whitepaper!