According To A Global Study, CTOs Are Crucial For Companies To achieve Net-zero Emissions Goals

By Nation World News Desk

The Global Research Report on Chief Sustainable Technology Officer Created by Intel, shows that Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) play a key role in aligning business strategies with technical demands to achieve sustainability goals.

Business leaders are tackling the interconnected challenges of sustainability and digital transformation. And technology plays an important role in continuous change said senior vice president, CTO and general manager of Intel’s Advanced Technology and Software Group. Greg Lavender.  If executive team members, including the CTO and CIO, unite in support of a positive technology approach, technology change can propel us toward a greener, fairer and smarter future.

Information technology (IT) leaders are as eager to take on challenges as they are to be supported by the rest of the executive team: 79 per cent of senior IT leaders aspire to be sustainability leaders, and 82 per cent of CEOs and chief sustainability officers see the same . The role of the CTO is critical to a successful sustainability transformation. This new CTO model is tasked with achieving “tech zero,” which is defined as reducing the carbon footprint of an organization’s IT function. In addition, they must also use technology as a lever to achieve the goal of net zero emissions for the entire organization, also known as “positive technology”. Ultimately, these efforts can drive business growth and accelerate innovation, thereby impacting lasting change across the organization.

To support this initiative, Intel has established an advisory committee composed of technology and sustainability leaders from various industries. The committee will collaborate to identify best practices that help organizations determine the best path to becoming technology-positive while keeping up with real-world business demands.

The new role of a permanent CTO will play an important role in an organization’s transition to neutrality, but CTOs alone cannot meet the challenges they will face said Intel’s corporate vice president and chief digital transformation officer Motti Finkelstein,. Our goal is to help CTOs on the path to sustainability and outline a roadmap for organizations to achieve their sustainability goals.

The research found that 70 per cent of senior IT leaders believe their organizations need significant change or a complete transformation to become a net zero emissions business. And although CTOs must lead this change, a technical dilemma prevents them from playing that role: a lack of knowledge, investment, and innovation.

Intel’s global research also found that:

• 82% of senior IT leaders say their organizations need to increasingly align technology strategy and sustainability strategy to achieve net neutrality and become more sustainable businesses.
• 80% of senior IT leaders believe organizations rely too heavily on technology and their CTOs to make their businesses more sustainable.
• 70% of senior IT leaders believe their organizations will not be able to achieve net neutrality without the support and action of their IT operations.

Roadmap for the Sustainable CTO

Respondents agree that there are four key factors to a CTO’s sustainability roadmap for achieving technology zero:

-Develop the skills to understand where to optimize.

-Get support from the rest of the business.

-Understand data and optimize existing infrastructure.

-Plan for innovation of solutions and software.

CEOs see sustainability as the top driver of growth for their organizations between now and 2030, followed by digitization. 82 per cent of CEOs and Chief Sustainability Officers believe that the role of the CTO has more influence on an organization’s sustainability strategy than ever before, and now is the time for CTOs to step into the Sustainability CTO role and rise to the challenge.

In 2023, Intel conducted an independent opinion study with research body Coleman Parks in collaboration with Man Bites Dog, interviewing 1,520 senior IT leaders, 250 CEOs and 250 chief sustainability officers representing 11 different industries in 22 markets .

Market:

America: USA, Canada, Brazil, Mexico.

EMEA: UK, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, UAE, South Africa, Nigeria.

APAC: China, Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong.

Sector:

Hyperscalers, TMT, Financial Services, Health & Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Transport, Education, Public Sector, Professional Services, Retail, Travel & Hospitality.

About the Advisory Board

Advisory board members include:

• Chief Architect, Global Telecom Team, RedHat Rimma Eontel.
• Vice president, Office of Sustainability Engineering, Cisco Dennis Lee Yeh.
• Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Hybrid Cloud Services, Americas, IBM Sunil Joshi.
• Distinguished Cloud Architect, Roche David Bernstein.
• Vice President, Fuel & Lubricants Technology, Shell Selda Gunsel.
• Senior Director of Data and Emerging Solutions, WWT Brent Collins.
• Executive Vice President, Converge Emily Martin.