Extreme weather in recent news has put a spotlight on environmental sustainability and increased Responsible Business adoption in organizations across the Asia/Pacific region. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) study estimates that the region has seen the greatest number of weather-related disasters compared to other parts of the world since 2000. UNESCAP estimates that these weather-related disasters have incurred economic losses of 3.8 million in USD per month in the Asia/Pacific region. With frequency and severity of these disasters predicted to increase in years to come, and the expectation that the Asia/Pacific region will bear the brunt of the worst of these adverse impacts, environmental sustainability has become not only a resiliency and business continuity imperative but also a source of new opportunity for forward-looking Asia/Pacific enterprises.
I caught up with Subhasis Majumdar, Managing Director of Vertiv, to discuss on why supporting sustainable outcomes has become a crucial strategy for enterprises in the region and the role of technology and tech providers in bringing about results that make real difference in mitigating harmful effects of climate change.
IDC: There seems to be urgency to act now. Sustainability adoption rates have gained momentum in enterprises. An IDC May 2023 survey shows that in the past 12 months 35.4% of enterprises in Asia/Pacific launched their sustainability programs. Technology is the key to successful outcomes of these sustainability plans. What is Vertiv’s view of the role of technology in sustainability in Asia Pacific?
Subhasis: Technology is a key enabler of supporting our customers sustainability goals and one of the main drivers for Vertiv to meet and exceed our responsible business goals. Vertiv’s approach is simple:
- Bring to market highly efficient Vertiv products and services: We are working to increase the efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of our products to address our customers’ requirements to lessen their carbon footprint.
- Leverage on technology’s ability to produce actionable insights. We are applying AI and advanced analytics to generate insights, predictions and recommendations to improve customer decision making, performance monitoring and outcome assessment, which leads to more efficient and environmentally responsible.
- Provide solutions that help increase efficiency, reduce carbon footprint, and promote a circular economy: We are improving our internal processes to reduce waste, energy consumption and carbon emissions. We are also continually improving our ability to measure and track our progress.
- Build a collaborative ecosystem: We are currently collaborating with our stakeholders to share our learnings and to gain from the learnings of our stakeholders’ sustainability journeys. Vertiv has partnered with several of our global customers to reach their net-zero emission goals.
IDC: You mentioned important pillars of how technology providers like Vertiv can contribute to sustainability agenda – one of them is the technology for actionable insights that has something to do with data. Could you elaborate more on this?
Subhasis: The amount of data generated and consumed is growing rapidly every year and the trend will only continue in the future. Data related to responsible business is just one piece of it. To manage this data, we will need facilities that house the servers, storage devices and other equipment that store and process this data. The data centers consume a lot of electricity to power and cool their equipment. Furthermore, the demand for cooling will significantly rise with the implementation of high-density computing. There are, however, number of ways to reduce the impact of the data and data centers, such as, improving equipment’s energy efficiency, use of renewable energy sources, optimizing cooling solutions and improving the monitoring and maintenance of data centers to optimize overall energy usage.
Vertiv plays a critical role in this area. We have been constantly innovating to make our existing solutions more energy efficient, and innovating to bring in new solutions which are a step up in these aspects.
IDC: While sustainability positively impacts business continuity and resiliency, this is not the only business value enterprises have seen from sustainability adoption. Based on an IDC survey, Asia Pacific enterprises have seen financial and non-financial benefits from their sustainability programs in areas of people, products, processes. Is this the same experience for Vertiv?
Subhasis: Absolutely! There are financial and non-financial benefits associated with responsible business programs that an enterprise can derive and Vertiv is no exception. Responsible business leads to benefits in the medium term to long term – it helps reduce cost, increase revenues and helps build a brand or image for the enterprise.
Our sustainability programs are now quantifiable, and we can measure progress and monitor them continuously. Our responsible business strategy has also led us to continuously work on providing more environmentally responsible solutions to our customers. Our suit of efficient and reliable products in turn helped us attract and retain customers and helped differentiate us from our competitors.
Responsible business/EHS Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) has had a very positive impact on our employees, too. They have now become more engaged. Thus, we are encouraging more employee participation in our responsible business initiatives, such as our Corporate community engagement programs responsibility initiatives. We noticed too that since responsible business at the heart of what we do we have better employee retention and are able to attract new talent. In fact, a study by IBM Institute for Business Value titled “Sustainability at a turning point” in 2021 said that over 70% of workers and those looking for work are drawn to environmentally sustainable employers. In addition, the report also stated that more than two-thirds of respondents said they are more likely to seek out and take jobs with environmentally and socially responsible organizations, and almost half surveyed would take a lower salary to do so.
Climate change is probably the most critical threat we are facing and as a company, Vertiv will do our bit to make a difference.
