Corporates embrace sustainability

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While the UK government seems to be backsliding on its commitment to a low carbon economy, companies are embracing more sustainable practices, as Neil Tyler discovers.

www.newelectronics.co.uk/, Nov. 28, 2023 – 

While the UK government appears determined to redouble its efforts to exploit the North Sea's remaining oil and gas reserves, it also claims that it wants to see billions of pounds being invested in renewables, carbon capture and nuclear power – but is enough being done to deliver a low-carbon economy?

The on-going crisis in Ukraine, and the fear of a wider war in the Middle East, means that the UK government's recent decision to water down its commitment to net zero policies comes at a time when businesses are now more focussed on restructuring their supply chains and putting more emphasis on resilience rather than efficiency.

There are serious risks to the global economy, so energy and economic security are becoming increasingly important both at a national and corporate level.

The UK government has been criticised for not offering greater clarity over how it intends to deliver greener energy and the level of support it will provide businesses with who are looking to decarbonise production or build new more sustainable facilities.

While the EU and US are offering huge subsidies to encourage businesses to reduce their carbon emissions, here no one really knows what the UK government plans to do. So, there is certainly a need for long term certainty.

In its annual report the International Energy Agency (IEA) while welcoming the gathering pace of the transition from oil and gas to cleaner forms of energy, warned against countries looking to derail or slow progress by weakening environmental targets.

Electronics industry

Looking specifically at the electronics industry, its environmental performance has never been under greater scrutiny and whatever the government's attitude is toward renewables and sustainability there is a sense of momentum within the sector when it comes to delivering on net zero, energy, resilience, and sustainability. For senior executives, however, there is a real challenge when it comes to navigating the increasing complexity that's associated with delivering on climate goals.

Unlocking benefits from the transition to net zero depends on gathering the right data, so that companies can apply the right sustainable actions – consequently, carbon footprint assessments, a process of quantifying the total greenhouse gas emissions produced by an organisation and encompassing all scopes of emissions, are becoming increasingly popular.

"As the energy grid is redesigned for renewable energy sources, there must also be a focus on driving energy efficiency in all applications. In the context of total emissions, for example, roughly 50% of global energy is consumed by industrials," said Martin Cotter, Senior Vice President of Industrial and Multimarkets Group, at Analog Devices. "Investing in sustainability goals and driving profitability are not mutually exclusive."

One of the key drivers of energy usage is the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and it is having a massive impact on energy consumption as new figures from Schneider Electric show, with AI accounting for over 4.3GW of power demand today. With a CAGR of between 26 and 36% that figure is expected to reach 13.5 to 20GW by 2028 - addressing the issues of power and performance have never been more important.

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, there is a strong demand for more detailed information on a company in order to gauge its long-term viability, sustainability performance, and how it's addressing its social responsibilities.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Europe Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) have, for example, finalised initiatives that require mandatory carbon footprint disclosures and assurance on sustainability impacts to help investors and stakeholders make better decisions.

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