Set in the home of Institution of Civil Engineers, Westminster, this was the first time I have personally attended an event hosted by the GDSA. The Government Digital Sustainability Alliance founded in 2022 has been a rapidly growing driving force in understanding what Digital Sustainability looks like for businesses and organisations across the UK. The summit saw nearly 300 people come together from academia, industry and government to ask the question that is becoming impossible to ignore for every single one of us.
With a full day of challenging panel discussions by passionate leaders punctuated by excellent keynotes from Mary Creagh CBE MP, and Mike Berners-Lee few stones were left unturned in at times quite frank discussions, as to where we sit on our current rather bleak trajectory. And whilst undeniably the numbers can make for miserable reading at times, I was left with a real sense of opportunity for us as businesses and organisations in this country to really pioneer the changes we need to make.
The first panel was aptly named “Making Digital Sustainability Business as Usual”, and I think you would struggle to find anyone that has ever given thought to this topic that would disagree with that sentiment. The tricky bit is what follows next… ‘How?’ And… ‘What is it going to cost?’ Throughout the day we heard some great real-world examples of organisations taking that first step, DEFRA’s Edd Parry noting they have done away with default time-based upgrades on user devices and making a conscious effort to reduce attendance to online meetings. On the surface these are simple material changes that objectively make a measurable difference, but at their core it is a mindset shift. Having less Teams meetings won’t get us to Net Zero by 2050, but an educated workforce that understands why that action makes a difference just might.
But why should this matter to all businesses? From a compliance standpoint policy is quickly becoming practice, governance is changing and every organisation is going to need to understand their supply chain regardless of where you sit within it. Public bodies like the NHS have stated by 2027 any prospective supplier is going to need to submit increasing amounts of sustainability data, including the often allusive and invisible Scope 3. Ray Knight, Head of Sustainability Services at Atos told us that 75% of a laptops carbon expenditure is in the embodied Scope 3 number, and P2zero’s Ewen Anderson clearly echoing that Scope 3 is our biggest hurdle in getting to Net Zero. Brand-new technology causes massive damage before it even reaches your desk or data centre. Understanding and being accountable for your supply chain always comes back to the same thing, data. Convenient access to thorough, reliable and normalised environmental impact data across all areas of technology is an area that requires vast improvement quickly to enable all organisations to start their Digital Sustainability journey in earnest.
The data dilemma gets even trickier when we consider that carbon, whilst the best understood, is simply just one of the data points we really need to be measuring and reporting on. The critical minerals depleted by manufacturing everyday technology are absolutely finite resources, which at our current rate of consumption it will not be much longer until we find out just how finite.
Extending the life of perfectly usable technology is the lowest hanging fruit for most organisations, and Mark Butcher of Posetiv reminded us we should all be buying less in the first place. The endless quest for resilience is ultimately futile and far more damaging than the benefit it yields. Cate Warman-Powell, MOD, made the pertinent point that there is the perception that being sustainable is expensive, and quite simply on multiple fronts that is just not the case. The commercial case for Digital Sustainability has never been more prevalent and easier to make to stakeholders than it is today. Clearly not realistic however that we all just stop buying technology altogether, Anthony Levy of Circularity First, highlighted how with authorised remanufactured programs and utilising new technologies to control a buildings key systems such as lighting and temperature over the network, organisations can keep growing whilst reducing their Scope 2 and 3 impact, and often exhibiting tangible financial benefits.
In 2026, organisations must stop treating Digital Sustainability as an afterthought, siloed department or ignorable issue. What it can be is a driver for positive and profitable change for all of us in the workforce. When considered as part of every decision it quickly stops feeling like a complication and becomes an opportunity to be a leader of positive change whilst realising the commercial benefit it can untap. A key takeaway for me was that not every organisation needs to become a sustainability or technology expert, and definitely not both. This country offers incredible, growing expertise ready to share. Digital Sustainability is so much more than just one thing, but at its core it is collaboration. Let’s talk, and let’s start fixing this.
