Holding vendors accountable

Every week our team meets with large companies confused about where to start with digital sustainability and reducing their carbon emissions. They are increasingly bombarded with green claims from their key suppliers, all claiming to be virtuous and green.

This is great, but is it actually true? Possibly yes, but likely not in all cases, so the next time your tech vendors visit talking about sustainability and being green, we suggest you ask them these questions.

1) Have you baselined digital emissions from your IT services?

2) Can you share your baseline report

3) What was your methodology?

4) Which scopes and subcategories did you include/exclude and why?

5) What waste have you identified?

6) What is your emissions reduction roadmap and where are you on it?

7) Who owns the roadmap?

8) What targets and KPIs have you put in place and how are you tracking against them

9) What’s your net zero target date and are you relying on offsets or similar approaches to reach this target?

10) What have you learnt so far and what has been your biggest win?

If they can’t answer these questions clearly then I’d suggest they shouldn’t come back till they can!

We think you’ll see a lot of blank looks and a wholesale inability to answer clearly. Our belief at Posetiv is that if you’re going to talk about sustainability then you need to be able to prove you’re working equally as hard on your own digital emissions!