IDC's Global CIO Advisory Board - Making Sustainability Real for the CIO

This IDC Perspective summarizes IDC's Global CIO Advisory Board discussion on sustainability strategies, particularly in the age of AI everywhere. Speakers included chief sustainability officer, human rights officer, and head of Digital Inclusion of a major insurance company and Bjoern Stengel, research and practice lead at IDC."Artificial intelligence (AI) has a tremendous potential to accelerate organizations' sustainable transformation journeys and create business value by helping them automate their ESG data collection and increase the accuracy of their reporting, improve operational efficiencies, and anticipate and respond to supply chain risks. However, the use of AI also poses risks that can harm their ESG performance, compliance, and trustworthiness (e.g., if algorithm bias leads to unfair or unethical decision-making). As organizations are implementing artificial intelligence into their operations, they need to be strategic about the sustainability-related use cases that generate the greatest financial and nonfinancial ROI and aware of the industry-specific risks that this technology can pose," says Bjoern Stengel, Global Sustainability research and practice lead, Sustainable Strategies and Technologies, IDC.