Could an open integration platform advance your sustainability agenda?

By Liz Porter

Businesses worldwide are prioritizing sustainability as they recognize the long-term benefits of responsible practices that manage environmental impact.

Sustainable operations can help drive cost savings through energy efficiency, waste reduction and resource optimization. Consumers increasingly favor brands that prioritize ethical practices and environmental stewardship. In fact, Boston Consulting Group reported that awareness of a company’s sustainability practices can drive an 80% increase in positive perception, which can lead to actions such as a willingness to pay more for a product or recommending the brand to others.¹ Investors, too, are looking at sustainability metrics as indicators of long-term viability and risk management.

Against this backdrop, the work of managing IT sustainability creates new challenges for CIOs. Although 84% of organizations recognize sustainability’s strategic importance, only 19% have implemented firm management plans, and only 6% leverage sustainability data as a business asset.²

The increasing adoption of open integration platforms — also referred to as digital business platforms — promises to help bridge the gaps. Open integration platforms are AI- and machine learning-powered digital business architectures that connect multiple systems and applications, allowing organizations to collect data and streamline workflows across the entire IT estate. The platforms can address many of the challenges associated with tracking sustainability data and managing sustainability plans.

Challenge 1: Lack of data visibility and integration

The Kyndryl Readiness Report noted that 54% of leaders say meeting sustainability goals is a challenge.³ One of the primary issues of managing a sustainability strategy is the lack of visibility into energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across the hybrid IT landscape. This incomplete view makes it difficult for CIOs to track and manage their organization's environmental impact effectively.

How an open integration platform can help

An open integration platform can help gather and consolidate sustainability data from various parts of a company’s operations into a single view. It can help measure real-time energy consumption and emissions data, providing a detailed view of an organization’s environmental impact.

For example, an open integration platform could be used to (1) monitor a company’s power usage and CO2 emissions for servers running in data centers and the cloud, and (2) provide insight into green or general energy trends and what can be done to reduce power and CO2 emissions. A large European manufacturer identified 9,500 kilowatt-hours of potential energy reduction based on insights from an open integration platform, which recommended moving to more energy-efficient servers. They also identified 1,500 kilograms of CO2 equivalent emission reduction. The organization was able to demonstrate the impact of these reductions against their sustainability goals.

Challenge 2: Limited capacity to interpret sustainability data

Another significant challenge of implementing a sustainability strategy is effectively using AI to analyze sustainability data and draw actionable conclusions.

The Kyndryl Readiness Report found that only 27% of respondents’ organizations had realized sustainability-based outcomes, such as lower emissions, from technology modernization initiatives.³ A culprit may be the capacity to obtain meaningful insights from their companies’ sustainability data.

How an open integration platform can help

An open integration platform with built-in AI capabilities can analyze sustainability data and generate actionable recommendations to improve energy efficiency across the entire IT estate.

To continue the previous example, if the company uses servers with an unnecessarily large capacity, the open integration platform might suggest how much power and CO2 could be saved by reducing the size of the servers.

The platforms can also eliminate bias and human error in manually monitoring systems. They can also save time by using multiple tools for observation and insights across the IT estate.

Challenge 3: Maintaining stakeholder communication and buy-in

Implementing a sustainability strategy in a corporate environment of competing agendas and organizational complexity requires collaboration across multiple disciplines.

How an open integration platform can help

To track metrics and provide insights that impact sustainability, an open integration platform needs access to data from all areas of the business that influence sustainability efforts. For instance, it can incorporate financial data into sustainability analyses, giving a more comprehensive view of sustainability spending and effectiveness. This integration of data into common views can help stakeholders more accurately understand and evaluate how different parts of the organization contribute to the organization’s sustainability strategy and outcomes.

Start of a movement?

Open integration platforms are gaining traction. Globally, 19% of enterprises have adopted a digital business platform approach as of 2023.⁴ IDC has forecasted that by 2028, organizations with established digital business platforms will have 50% higher digital market share and greater ability to track ROI and execute digital revenue initiatives.⁵

Given the advantages of improved data visibility, better data interpretation and improved stakeholder communication, those companies that use open integration platforms are likely to enjoy a competitive advantage over their peers in meeting sustainability objectives.

While it’s currently the exception rather than the norm for companies to use an open integration platform to manage sustainability efforts, I anticipate more will consider the approach in the near term.

Liz Porter is the Global ESG Consult Leader at Kyndryl.

¹ Accelerating the Pace of Sustainability Transformations in U.S. Publicly Held Companies,
Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Social Impact Review, April 2024
² From Insights to Action: The Technology Impact on Sustainability, Ecosystm, November 2024
³ Kyndryl Readiness Report
⁴ Deliver Better Bottom-Line Results with an Open Digital Business Platform, IDC, August 2024
⁵ IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Digital Business Strategies 2024 Predictions, IDC, October 2023