IDC predicts that by 2024, 35% of companies and public service institutions in the region will leverage AI technology to advance their ESG metrics and data management beyond reporting capabilities to generate sustainability-driven cost benefits and competitive advantages.
In a survey conducted in August 2023, technology buyers in Asia/Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) ranked AI and its derivatives as the number one most useful innovative technology to meet their sustainability/ESG objectives. Furthermore, 46% of APEJ enterprises find GenAI particularly useful in ESG data analysis.
AI is predicted to remain a critical technology in the operationalisation of ESG in 2024 and beyond:
• Responsible AI: By 2025, 25% of ESG review boards in APEJ will include ethical and responsible oversight of AI efforts in their purview.
• Sustainable Supply Chain Management: By 2026, AI-powered demand forecasting will reduce excess inventory levels by 20% minimizing waste and lowering carbon emissions from excess production.
In addition to the growing role of AI in meeting sustainability/ESG objectives, IDC also noticed that APEJ organisations are in a cusp of a great shift which will lead to more demand for sustainability and ESG-enabling technologies and related business services.
IDC’s sustainability surveys reveal accelerated adoption of sustainability/ESG in the region in the last 12 months, much faster than anywhere else in the world.
Important sustainability/ESG topics in 2024
• Decarbonization: By 2027, 50% of large organisations in APEJ will require a carbon neutrality strategy as a standard part of enterprise technology procurements and RFPs as compared with 40% today.
• Circularity: By 2024, 50% of APEJ organisations will require OEMs/ODMs to provide detailed circularity metrics about design, manufacturing, life cycle, repair, reuse, and disposal in dashboards to facilitate reporting.
• Social Sustainability: By 2028, 30% of APEJ companies will track social capital KPIs (e.g., human rights management) to reflect the increasing demand from external stakeholders to address social sustainability topics.
• Biodiversity and Nature Positivity. By 2027, 25% of APEJ companies will consider biodiversity a material ESG issue for their business and will have implemented concrete impact mitigation strategies and data management tools.
• ESG Services: By 2027, due to increased focus on climate risk, 80% of all sustainability-related services engagements will include a climate risk component, a 30% increase from the present.
• Sustainable data centres: By 2026, 35% of all data centre energy consumption in APEJ will be powered by renewables.
• Chief Sustainability Officer: By 2028, companies most advanced with sustainable business transformation (~10–20%) will have sustainability embedded across the organisation, and CSOs will have only a coordination role.
“Over 90% of enterprises in the region are navigating their sustainability journey, responding to global and local regulatory pressures and the need to stay competitive. Manufacturing, logistics, ICT, and financial services sectors, and public sector institutions, such as government, education and healthcare, increasingly rely on digital technology solutions and ESG-related consultancy services to get them started or help them advance in sustainability maturity. IDC foresees a rapid expansion of sustainability tech applications in the near term, expanding use-cases and scope of material topics,” says Melvie Espejo, a research director for sustainability strategies and technologies at IDC Asia/Pacific.
