Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Written by: Rogelio Legaspi

The effects of the climate crisis are not an “in the far future” thing anymore: it is already happening today. In fact, the United Nations in 2019 has already warned that we only have 11 years left to prevent irreversible damage from climate change. It may seem far-fetched for others but looking at the current environmental situation – it might not be an exaggeration.

Humans have been causing destruction to nature for a long time now. According to WWF, human activities are releasing excessive amounts of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, causing the planet to be one degree warmer on average than it was before the Industrial Revolution.

Among the top causes of this are the increased use of fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources depleting the world of natural resources, and deforestation to give way for more industrial sites.

One of the top contributors to this crisis? Enterprises. Believe it or not, just 100 companies have been the source of more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.

In fighting this crisis, consumers are always pressured to do things like reduce waste or recycle products. Sure, they definitely help. But what about businesses, especially those who have a large presence worldwide? They say change must come from within but in this predicament that concerns the whole planet, change must come from the top. Governments, industries, organisations – they all have a huge role to play in saving the Earth.

Modernisation may have changed the world for the worse but it has also introduced technologies we can use in this crisis. As the exponents of change, enterprises must use innovative solutions to improve the way they operate – for the betterment of the company and of the world. Here are some sustainable technologies making trends that can give us this chance:

1. Affordable Solar Power: Solar costs have already fallen 82% since 2010 and it’s also getting more powerful. The amount of global solar capacity rose from 40 GW to 580 GW in the last 10 years. In addition, the global solar energy market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.12% over the forecast period to reach a market size of USD $267.747 Billion in 2026. Hopefully, this trend will continue among other various renewable resources.
2. Public Transport Operating Sustainably: There are already many companies focusing on private electric vehicles but at the end of the day, that is still not enough in going sustainable. This is because cars still consume much of the space in the road with fewer passengers, compared to public transportation modes that are more efficient when done right. As such, enterprises should focus on providing technologies that benefit many people and not just a chosen demographic.
3. Effective Energy Storage: Speaking of renewable energy sources and the adoption of electronic vehicles, a bottleneck that should be considered is where the energy would be stored. One progress in this is leveraging AI to help provide insights to improve the lifecycle of a battery, which you can read more about here.
4. Sustainability-as-a-Service: You’ve heard of SaaS, IaaS or other as-as-Service solutions on the cloud. Today, Sustainability-as-a-Service is aiming to involve multiple providers and customers who must take an active part in the value co-creation process to produce and deliver methodologies, frameworks, knowledge, methods and tools in organising the features of sustainability into a well-defined value-chain.
5. Quantum Computing and Sustainable Techs: From formulating new materials and analysing flow in power grids to creating models to mitigate climate change, quantum computing is already showing potential in giving powerful capabilities beyond traditional computers.

Many countries are already adopting various “green plans” as a solution to the climate crisis, involving entities from enterprises up to individuals. However, we still have a long way to go. With all the disruptive changes to the environment modernisation has caused, everyone especially organisations must also use technologies that can help in solving this problem. Hopefully, we use such technologies –for the better, and for good.

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