Tech-enabled Sustainability Services: Leveraging Digital Technology for Integrating Sustainability Into Core Business Operations

Enterprises are integrating sustainability into core business operations due to increased regulatory disclosure requirements and pressure from internal and external stakeholders. Manufacturing, BFSI, retail and CPG, and utilities and resources industries are leading the adoption of sustainability services through projects in green IT, green financing, and sustainable product design. While cloud and automation have found their way into production sustainability projects, enterprises are still gauging the effectiveness of next-generation technologies such as Gen AI for tackling sustainability challenges.

Both demand- and supply-side trends are covered in Avasant’s Tech-enabled Sustainability Services 2023–2024 Market Insights™ and Tech-enabled Sustainability Services 2023–2024 RadarView™ , respectively. These reports present a comprehensive study of tech-enabled sustainability services providers and closely examine the market leaders, innovators, disruptors, and challengers.

We evaluated 39 service providers across three dimensions: practice maturity, investments and innovation, and partner ecosystem. Of the 39 providers, we recognized 18 that brought the most value to the market during the past 12 months.

The reports recognize service providers across four categories:

• • Leaders: Accenture, Cognizant, HCLTech, IBM, Infosys, and TCS
  • Innovators: Capgemini, LTIMindtree, Tech Mahindra, and Wipro
  • Disruptors: Birlasoft, NTT DATA, PwC, and UST
  • Challengers: Atos, CGI, ITC Infotech, and Virtusa

Figure 1 below from the full report illustrates these categories:

“Regulations and stakeholder pressure are compelling enterprises to embrace sustainability in core business operations,” said Swapnil Bhatnagar, senior research director at Avasant. “They are evaluating the impact of next-gen tech such as Gen AI and metaverse for solving sustainability challenges.”

The reports provide several findings, including the following:

• • Enterprises are leveraging digital technologies to enhance the data collection, management, and analysis process for ESG reporting, resulting in more automated and efficient reporting.
  • Manufacturing, BFSI, retail and CPG, and utilities and resources industries are leading the adoption of tech-enabled sustainability services, with a mammoth 63.35% of all active enterprise sustainability engagements coming from these industries. Use cases for these industries include green financing, sustainable product design, and water/waste management.
  • About 45% of tech-enabled sustainability services projects concentrate on green IT software development and business strategy, strongly emphasizing green data centers and green financing services. Projects on climate risk assessment services are also gaining traction, with a 37% increase in climate risk assessment engagements from 2022–2023.
  • Most sustainability engagements that use next-gen technologies, such as Gen AI, are still in the pilot/POC stage, where firms evaluate their efficacy for various use cases before moving to production.

“Growing enterprise demand is driving providers to enhance their tech-enabled sustainability services,” said Anupam Govil, partner at Avasant. “They are enhancing capabilities in ESG data management, tracking, reporting, and other areas by developing innovative solutions and engagement models.”

The RadarView also features detailed profiles of 18 service providers, along with their solutions, offerings, and experience in assisting enterprises in their sustainability journeys.

This Research Byte is a brief overview of the Tech-enabled Sustainability Services 2023–2024 Market Insights™ and Tech-enabled Sustainability Services 2023-2024 RadarView™ (click for pricing).