Our Most Significant Challenge Ahead

Earth’s life support systems are the sum of the planet’s ice sheets, oceans, forests, rivers, lakes, a rich diversity of life, and gigantic recirculations of carbon, water, nitrogen, and phosphorus. The system is now most definitely unstable and could push it over the edge, taking us – 7.8 billion people – with it.

– Johan Rockström

This chapter will teach you about the basics of climate change and understand the breadth and depth that digitalization and hyperconnectivity have on our society.

The main objectives of this chapter are to introduce you to climate change. It will teach you basic concepts such as the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) protocol, carbon accounting, scope 1, 2, 3, and 4 definitions, the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), net-zero standards, and circular economy principles. These key concepts will be beneficial in later chapters when we dig into sustainable IT practices for you to understand how everything is linked together and what actionable insights you can formulate.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Climate change – why is it our most significant challenge ahead?
• What causes climate change?
• What are GHG emissions?
• History of sustainability
• Sustainability trends
• The Paris Agreement
• EU taxonomy
• Sustainable finance
• GHG protocol corporate standard
• Science-based targets
• Circular economy practices
• The well-kept secret of the IT industry

Additionally, this chapter includes a point of view from Nicole Mercedes Zethelius, Head of Global Sustainability and ESG Strategy at CGI, on the importance of data-driven Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) decision-making.

By the end of this chapter, you will have learned about the fundamentals of climate change, and understand the implications of IT on the environment, what we need to do to start living more sustainably within the constraints of planet Earth, and what you can do in your IT decisions to ensure greener practices.