How corporations are embracing sustainable practices by leveraging data

Transparency and accountability are at the core of data integrity. Sustainability refers to integrating these two factors in order to support business growth, manage risks and enable companies to find their place in society.

Businesses can utilize the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) as a guideline for managing economic, environmental, and social risks while improving their position within their industry. Business models incorporating the SDGs are expected to create at least US $12 trillion worth of opportunities by 2030 and up to 380 million jobs.

Today's ecosystems require action. Left unaddressed, environmental and social issues can inhibit an organization's ability to expand. Supply chain inefficiencies lead to additional expenses; by 2026, businesses may bear US $120 Billion of direct costs from environmental risks in their supply chains alone; manufacturing, food, beverages, agriculture, and electricity generation will all bear their burden most heavily.

How can data analytics contribute to sustainable development?

Sustainability is about knowing your business' impact and purpose. But you need the right data and technology to take action. Analytics and business intelligence can be used to help businesses make better decisions. They will become more proactive, transparent, and accountable.

Big Data for sustainable development seeks to collect and cross-correlate physical components such as weight and volume of recyclable and non-renewable inputs used in production, percentage of recycled materials utilized, hazardous and nonhazardous waste generated, the disposal methods utilized, CO2 emissions, etc. into meaningful insights for analysis and action.

Data are extracted for interactive visualization by utilizing advanced data analytics solutions. Examining all these datasets together helps avoid geopolitical conflict, understand employee behavior during unexpected mishaps during the operations as well as improve understanding of vulnerability and resilience.

Opportunities data analytics offers to business leaders:

Data analytics and visualization tools are prevalent across a wide range of industries, from government, e-commerce, manufacturing, EPC, hospitality, and transportation to healthcare. Data can be leveraged for applications including consumer profiling, individualized prices, marketing/advertising efforts, as well as predictive analysis. Firms today face the daunting challenge of striking a balance between long-term viability and profit maximization goals. Data plays an essential role in the decision-making process and accountability - big data analytics has now become part of marketing, advertising, and management practices. Consumer profiling, personalized services, and predictive analytics are standard practices within the private sector, but similar digital transformation solutions could also be utilized in humanitarian relief to track real-time information on well-being among individuals and target humanitarian aid to those in need. New data sources such as satellite data, technologies, and analytic tools should be utilized responsibly in order to facilitate more rapid, agile decision-making based on evidence while simultaneously broadening and improving monitoring progress toward meeting Sustainable Development Goals.

Data analytics offers companies an invaluable way to gain an in-depth view of their environmental footprint and identify areas for improvement before taking steps toward reaching sustainability objectives.

There are numerous examples of how data analytics solutions can be utilized to support sustainable development.

By harnessing data analytics, companies can gain invaluable insights into their environmental impacts, pinpoint areas for improvement and take strategic actions to meet their sustainability objectives.

Supply chain analytics for sustainable initiatives

A supply chain is a group of parties that exchange material and information in order to fulfill a customer's request. Supply chain analytics offers types of tools that help companies use the data generated by their systems to gain insights and optimize operations.

Data analytics for a green transformation

Logistics operations often emit carbon footprints that can have a negative impact on the environment. Descriptive data analytics tools can help organizations reduce the Co2 footprint by optimizing the frequency of deliveries. With the right data analytics tools, logistic businesses can get information on all the routes and traffics depth, and these actionable insights help managers to visualize and find the optimal route that reduces travel distance and frequency and cut carbon emissions.

How does Advaiya enable businesses to transform their business models?

Advaiya's consultants stand at the intersection of data science, business strategy, and sustainability. We currently offer data-driven insights and analytics solutions based on products like Microsoft Power BI, which utilize artificial intelligence as the power behind transformational change.

We can provide customized Power BI dashboards and reporting solutions designed to facilitate ESG (environmental, social, and governance) insight across multi-brands, markets, and portfolios allowing companies to visualize, track and pilot all ESG insight in one convenient location. It ranks their efforts towards moving from ESG reporting to long-term impact measurement. Businesses using this sustainable business intelligence platform can see at a glance how to move beyond greenwashing; and evaluate positive impacts from activities including carbon intensity reduction, decarbonization initiatives, science-based pledges, and business goals, as well as sectoral trajectory analyses and simulation of future actions/commitments made.

Our tailored BI dashboard offers a suite of data-driven sustainability tools, from analysis of all unstructured text and data documents that report on climate and environmental issues relevant to your business, from corporate websites, activist websites, news media reports, financial analysts' reporting to social media posts and content from social networks such as LinkedIn or Facebook. With this dashboard, businesses can identify where their time and resources should be invested for maximum impact while knowing where not to waste time and money. This intelligence platform empowers business leaders to make more informed business decisions with knowledge on where best to invest their resources as well as what to avoid doing when investing their time in ESG measures or reporting their time on climate and environmental-related matters - saving both time and resources as well as knowing exactly where investments should be made.

Final words:

Time is running out for us all to make changes that benefit the environment, from changing business models and transitioning from linear economies to circular ones or decarbonizing supply chains. There's no time to waste; now is the time for action in order to reduce our impact on an increasingly fragile ecosystem - not years later! AI and other digital technologies provide every business with tools they can quickly use to identify areas where their negative environmental impact can be minimized while scaling those improvements up across their operations quickly and rapidly scaling them across their organization.

Conroy D’Souza

Conroy joined Advaiya as Senior Vice President – Customer Success. He brings with him a rich experience of over 30 years in sales and marketing of Business & IT solutions and services. Prior to Advaiya, he helped clients achieve positive business and technology outcomes while working for PwC-IBM, Infosys, HCL-AXON, LTI, Dell-NTT DATA Services, Coforge, and Sabhya Technologies. He has deep knowledge of the Digital Enterprise Application, Infrastructure & Smart Platform sales ecosystem (BPaaS, PaaS & SaaS) and is a proven business leader.