For businesses, achieving sustainability goals to comply with legal regulations and ensure sustainable growth is crucial. With the advent of AI, the integration of AI and sustainability has become a hot topic. For instance, companies traditionally have to rely on manual labor to create sustainability reports by compiling data, comparing sustainability reporting standards, and preparing these reports. AI can change this time-consuming process and significantly reduce labor costs. The following introduces how companies can integrate AI and sustainability, highlighting how these integrations can lead to positive outcomes in both sustainable development and business growth.
1. Using AI to Predict and Prevent Potential Risks
In the keynote speech at Computex, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang showcased a concept video of Earth-2, revealing how AI can be used for weather forecasting to narrow and accurately predict weather patterns. This is a significant advancement for a world facing extreme climate conditions and has already been successfully implemented by Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration. In the future, businesses will also be able to leverage this development to predict upcoming climate disasters and take preventive measures to reduce potential damage. Besides using AI for climate prediction, companies can also use AI to detect abnormalities or risk hotspots in their supply chains, proactively issuing warnings to mitigate impacts. For example, large multinational enterprises like Siemens and Audi have started using generative AI to identify ESG vulnerabilities in their supply chains and seek alternative suppliers.
2. Using AI to Compile Sustainability Reports
With increasing emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) trends, businesses face significant challenges in creating sustainability reports. The continuously expanding regulations and frameworks require businesses to invest considerable time and manpower. Traditional editing tools and manual adaptation are no longer sufficient for the new framework, leading to higher operational costs and inefficiency. Many businesses are exploring ways to use AI for sustainability report preparation. For example, a Taiwanese company, Sustaihub, has emerged in this context by creating a one-stop ESG intelligence platform that integrates ESG and AI. They offer the “SMS Sustainability Management System” for rapid sustainability report preparation and establishing an “ESG Big Data Database”. By leveraging AI technology, Sustaihub systematically collects data and automatically generates ESG reports that comply with specific international standards, significantly reducing the burden on companies. This approach lowers the cost of producing sustainability reports by approximately 30% and reduces preparation time by about 50%. This example demonstrates how companies can utilize AI technologies to assist in compiling sustainability reports, reducing the reliance on manual labor.
3. Enhancing Employee’s AI Skills to Focus on High-value Tasks
In addition to using AI for forecasting and report preparation to achieve sustainable development goals, businesses must also address an important element: their employees. Valuing and nurturing employees is a crucial aspect of sustainability, falling under the ‘S’ in ESG. Businesses and entrepreneurs with sustainable mindsets not only leverage AI to reduce costs and improve efficiency but also proactively bridge the significant skills gap in AI within their teams. Through internal and external training, businesses can empower employees to learn and collaborate effectively with AI tools. This approach alleviates anxiety over human resources being replaced by AI and enables employees to focus on high-value tasks and enhance overall efficiency.
4. Acknowledging the Potential Risks of AI
While AI has improved work efficiency, it has also led to “AI crimes” like generating fake images for scams and raised concerns about cybersecurity and privacy. These issues are crucial for sustainable business development, as indicated by Eurasia Group’s “Top Risks for 2024” where “Ungoverned AI” ranks fourth. World Economic Forum’s “Global Risks Report 2024” also highlights misinformation and cyber insecurity as major risks. To address these challenges sustainably, businesses should adopt regulations such as GDPR to ensure data security and user privacy. Implementing GDPR involves conducting Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA), enhancing data encryption, restricting access to sensitive data, and increasing employee awareness of compliance to ensure information security. This approach will help businesses proactively prevent potential risks and foster a culture of responsible AI use for sustainable development.
Through these strategies, AI will not only boost business growth but also significantly contribute to sustainable development. Achieving sustainability goals is beneficial for individuals, businesses, society, and the global community. KDAN has long been committed to sustainable business practices, implementing various sustainability initiatives such as employee welfare policies and providing AI-driven digital workflow solutions to reduce the environmental impact of paper waste and commuting. Join us in creating more business value while pursuing sustainable development.