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How tech can help build trust and eliminate greenwashing

Santhosh Jayaram, global head of sustainability, HCLTech

The effects of climate change continue to wreak havoc. After ringing the alarm bell long ago, with a demand that more is done to protect the environment, several organisations have accelerated their efforts to try to achieve a sustainable future.

Not every initiative will protect the environment: some are simply painted green to hide unsustainable practices. A popular term for this is “greenwashing”.

While big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technologies make IT one of the significant contributors to global energy consumption, such technology will also play a big part in telling the difference between bona fide green claims and greenwashing, while building trust and transparency.

Here’s how these technologies will help green activists, sustainability specialists, environmentalists and climate experts.

Artificial intelligence

Controversy’s child, artificial intelligence, tops the list. AI’s carbon footprint may be high but this does not take into account its energy-saving capabilities, which are considerable.

The productivity and efficiency it brings across industry is supplemented by how it will help people understand the difference between green claims and greenwashing. With natural language processing (NLP), greenwashing can be detected early. Reliable, timely and comprehensive insights into green claims will both identify related risks and generate ESG alerts.

Big data analytics

Of the 17 UN sustainable development goals (SDGs), SDG 13 calls for “urgent action to combat climate and its impacts”. Climate change is the greatest challenge we face today. 

This is where big data analytics will be of use. These give organisations real-time insights of their value and supply chains. Such understanding – with the ability to take action – will ensure efficiency and visibility. This is essential to a company that wants to improve its sustainability posture while eliminating any chance of being accused of greenwashing.  

Predictive algorithms combined with machine learning and AI will help companies utilise their data to become more sustainable. Green data will help to optimise energy management and resource use, reduce carbon dioxide emissions derived from production, anticipate repair needs and replace machinery in good time.

A special data project is Copernicus, Europe’s satellite-based Earth-observation programme. This calculates the influence of rising temperatures on river flows and provides figures to help optimise water resource management, biodiversity, air quality, fishing and agriculture.

Other such projects include the US Environmental Protection Agency’s stream catchment data set project, Microsoft’s life-on-Earth project that plans to simulate the entire biosphere and Aqueduct,  which analyses water quality and quantity and makes interactive risk maps. Two others are the UN’s Global Forest Change that calculates deforestation with high-res satellite imagery and the Danger Map that determines pollution levels.

Big data applied to the environment introduces transparency while improving progress on the SDGs. This information will guide consumers towards more sustainable behaviour while creating sustainable value chains.

Blockchain

This is a decentralised or distributed ledger where data in the form of transactions or records are stored. Scores of transactions are added in one block and each new block is linked to the previous block, creating a chain in which every participant holds a copy of the network ledger. 

This “single source of truth” will increase trust among participants. Blockchain brings the “smart contract” concept to the table with transparency along the entire supply chain. Companies using it will be able to trace a product from its point of origin to its current location, making way for sustainable consumerism. 

With a variety of use cases and the concept of carbon credits, blockchain will help organisations define the difference between effective carbon offsets and greenwashing. It will eliminate misleading facts that are sometimes presented when an organisation claims that it invests in sustainability. 

It is important to direct customers to not only understand what they buy but also to make the best out of their product and tell them how to return the packaging. 

Besides reducing the transaction cost related to verification, blockchain brings transparency to retail. The aim must be a complete ecosystem where information is not only available but easy to understand and consumable.

Sustainability as a business priority

Companies need to prioritise sustainable initiatives if they are to survive and thrive. Employees, customers and investors now expect green claims to be tangible and measured. There are also economic perks attached to moving to the green side.

Governments are also making regulators stronger. The UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill, for example, is likely to drive down misleading environmental claims, using fines of up to 10 per cent of global turnover for a breach of consumer law. Even the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has started cracking down on greenwashing in advertising, issuing reprimands to global companies. 

Sustainability is now a business priority. Increasingly it will be a benchmark for every successful business. The tools and technologies are available to help any organisation carry out sustainable initiatives. Any company that continues to greenwash will damage its reputation, perhaps starting a slide into obscurity.