Techno fixes

The music industry as we (ie anyone over 25 years old) know is changing radically. This isn’t news and has been much discussed in the media – but it is one of the most obvious examples of the power of product dematerialisation.

Even if you haven’t turned your vinyl and CDs into computer files or downloaded any songs yet, I’m fairly confident that almost anyone who remembers the old breeze-block answer phones of the 1980s is grateful for its successor, the digital service on our mobile phones.

We're all, in our own ways, adapting to technological changes and expect technology to continue to evolve. And business is keen to learn from the mistakes made by the music industry by being better prepared for the changes ahead. So how can we ensure that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will deliver not just business benefits but also improved sustainability to all sectors - from built environment to leisure and retail?

Our new report, Connected, attempts to answer this question. It confirms that ICT has an essential role to play in the delivery of a more sustainable future. In recent years the ICT sector has been looking at ways of reducing resources required to produce hardware and the waste produced throughout a products life cycle. And that’s great. But the greatest opportunities for ‘greening’ the ICT sector lie beyond the production and use of ICT, in its application.

We identified four key areas where ICT has the potential to deliver real improvements to people and planet: Work, Travel, Shopping and Meeting.

Take shopping – ICT has already helped to create new business models. Abel & Cole, the home-delivery service for organic food based mainly on online ordering, is now one of the largest organic ‘box’ providers in the UK. None of its goods are transported by air, and the company sources most products from the UK. This success hasn’t gone unnoticed: in 2007, the company got a major private equity injection.

There are plenty of other examples in the report of the ways in which ICT is dematerialising our lives and delivering more sustainable approaches. And together they make a compelling case for the need for the ICT industry to move away from addressing the negative impacts of its hardware, and towards delivering more sustainable services.