The CEO and founder of Plan A, a provider of solutions and expertise for decarbonising businesses, first became aware of the comfort of her daily life in London and her work in the world of finance, when she took part in a rubbish collection on a beach, she said at Nexus2050 on Wednesday 26 June. After this “reality check”, Lubomila Jordanova left everything behind to embark on a new path, focused on sustainability. At UFO² Consulting, a business consultancy, managing partner Bouchra Kidah explained that their work on the environmental impact of companies began with an internal reflection.
Jordanova said she realised that, thanks to the data, a real “correlation between economic stability and our way of understanding nature” could be made. She also believes that to have a real impact on businesses, we need to talk to them “about what is happening today, not in 50 years’ time”, and about how taking environmental issues into account can “support a company’s economic value”. And “that’s where we arouse the interest of CEOs and other managers”.
We process millions of pieces of data every month to find ways for companies to reduce their emissions.
Kidah is well aware of this as a company director, because before offering green IT consultancy services, she took action within UFO² itself: “We started with small things, like limiting printing and recycling, integrating electric models into our fleet of cars… Then we thought about our own business, what we offer our customers and the environmental impact of our activity. So we defined a new strategy that took account of this issue, while maintaining our objective of profitability.”
A number of observations were made: “We didn’t have enough data at our disposal to train our artificial intelligence models, so we decided to collect and consolidate the data ourselves. The idea is then to share our findings, to democratise the subject of sustainability in business.”
Assessing every aspect of the business
By offering software that automates the calculation of CO2 emissions, plans their reduction and helps with ESG reporting, Plan A enables companies to “put a tangible figure behind each of their structures”. Jordanova cites the fast-food chain KFC, for whom she has worked for several years, as an example of a client. “For them, we process millions of pieces of data every month in order to find solutions to help them reduce their emissions. We also invite all their suppliers and stakeholders to take an interest in the subject.”
The most effective way to have a positive impact on the climate is through business.
Jordanova explained that there are three categories (’scopes’) of greenhouse gas emissions produced by companies: those emitted directly by the company’s activities, emissions linked to the purchase and consumption of energy, and the indirect emissions caused by activities up and down the value chain. “They all have an impact on our customers’ carbon footprint. At KFC, for example, we have to take into account transport, food waste and the activities of their suppliers spread all over the world”. For the data to be able to express its full power, “every component of the business needs to be evaluated”, even, in the case of the finance sector, the impact of investments. In her view, this is what makes it possible to take “concrete decisions”.
Asked about the compatibility between artificial intelligence and ecology, Kidah said that “it depends on us, on how we build and use artificial intelligence. We talk about machine learning and deep learning, but what about people learning? People and companies need to be aware of the impact of the creation and use of technologies on the environment.” In conclusion, Jordanova admitted that ecology can be a heavy subject, but she believes that “the most effective way of having a positive impact on the climate is to act through companies. It is they who have the necessary financial resources and the power to influence the various links in the value chain.”
Originally published in French by and translated for Delano