Can AI add value to your Sustainability Strategies?

We often share with our clients that data is an important element to consider when building their sustainability strategy. Some of the megatrends involving data, generational change and sustainability are providing to be an excellent lever for forward-thinking companies. It can assist these companies to improve their customer and employee value proposition.

Key megatrends involve data and sustainability.

1. 90% of the world's data was created in 2019 and 2020. Data creation is growing at an exponential rate.
2. 75% of the workforce will be Gen Z and Millenials by 2030. These generations love creating and using data
3. 60% of consumers and investors currently view a proponent's ESG (or sustainability) record before making a decision.

As human beings, we are facing such a large scale of technological progress that if we want to achieve sustainable development, we must improve our knowledge of data management, including topics like artificial intelligence and machine learning. Then, applying this knowledge to our sustainability data (how we use it, create value from it, and improve our storytelling), you stand a better chance of winning the hearts and minds of your employees and customers. And most importantly, this approach will likely work for future generations too.

Allow us to introduce Chatgpt.

It's a hot topic right now because it is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool that makes conversation with the person interacting with it. I had been putting off exploring this tool not wanting to get caught up in the hype, but recently I concluded that I might as well test it, given that AI is going to be such a major part of my kid's life. So if I don't understand how I can help them live with it? Here is a nice, not too technical description we found of what Chatgpt is; "ChatGPT is a large language model chatbot developed by OpenAI based on GPT-3.5. It has a remarkable ability to interact in conversational dialogue form and provide responses that can appear surprisingly human. Large language models perform the task of predicting the next word in a series of words. Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) is an additional layer of training that uses human feedback to help ChatGPT learn to follow directions and generate responses that are satisfactory to humans." (Search Engine Journal (2022, December 26). What is ChatGPT And How Can You Use It? Searchenginejournal. Retrieved January 19, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/)

So, could you converse with Chatgpt to help develop a sustainability strategy?

Currently, at everfocus, we are working with local governments to integrate economic development with sustainable development through business capability building and mapping ecosystems between councils, businesses and the impact sector. It's super exciting because we believe one of the most effective ways to scale up positive environmental and social impacts whilst also increasing local business and community resilience. It helps address the problem that often local governments are held accountable by the community to deliver sustainable development but have limited resources themselves to implement all the required solutions.

Our short conversation on Council-Business ecosystems with Chatgpt

We ran a small test by asking two questions of Chatgpt. Responses came back to us for each question within 30 seconds. Here is the transcript of our test conversation, typing errors included!
everfocus: Why are businesses better and delivering sustainable development as compared to local governments?
ChatGPT: Businesses may be better suited to deliver sustainable development than local governments for several reasons:

1. Businesses are generally more agile than government and can respond more quickly to market opportunities and changing consumer preferences.
2. Businesses have the resources and financial incentives to invest in sustainable practices and technologies that may be cost-prohibitive for governments.
3. Businesses are driven by profit and have a vested interest in finding sustainable solutions that can lower costs, increase efficiency, and attract customers.
4. Businesses are often more able to innovate and adopt new technologies and methods to deliver sustainable solutions.
5. Local government may have limited resources, lack of expertise and political will to deliver sustainable development.

However, it's worth to mention that businesses alone cannot achieve sustainable development, they need to work with government, civil society and other stakeholders to create an enabling environment that encourages sustainable development.
everfocus: In what situations will local government do a better job at implementing sustainability solutions than businesses?
ChatGPT: There are several situations where local government may be better suited to implement sustainable solutions than businesses:

1. Infrastructure projects: Local governments are often responsible for building and maintaining infrastructure such as roads, public transportation systems, and water and sewage systems. They may be in a better position to design and implement sustainable infrastructure projects that benefit the entire community.
2. Regulations and policies: Local governments have the authority to create and enforce regulations and policies that promote sustainable development. This can include things like building codes, zoning laws, and regulations around waste management and energy use.
3. Community engagement: Local governments are often more closely connected to the communities they serve and may be in a better position to engage with residents and gather input on sustainable solutions.
4. Coordination and collaboration: Local governments often have a mandate to coordinate and collaborate with different stakeholders such as businesses, non-profits, and community groups to create a holistic approach to sustainability.
5. Public goods: Some sustainable solutions such as public parks, community gardens, bike lanes, and sidewalks, may be seen as public goods, and therefore, fall under the jurisdiction of local governments.

Overall, local governments and businesses have different strengths and resources, and both are needed to create sustainable development. A collaborative approach between local government, businesses and other stakeholders is often the most effective way to implement sustainable solutions.

Did Chatgpt give appropriate answers?

The short answer is yes it did. They are entirely appropriate and agreeable in our view. Many of the Chatgpt's responses can be found in the regular learning events we run for this topic. This is understandable, given that the training data for Chatgpt's large-scale language model likely included research resources we use at everfocus (academic, business publications, standards etc).

Is it feasible to use Chatgpt to help you build a sustainable development strategy for your business?

In this case, we think Chatgpt, as it stands now, will give limited value. It might be one of many information sources you use to provide background to selecting potential impacts your business might face and give you the general context in understanding sustainable development. It might even identify directional themes for you to consider in your strategy and action planning (like considering council-business ecosystems further social sustainability and limiting environmental impacts in your region). But there is much more to designing your sustainable development strategy that artificial intelligence and machine learning are likely unable to complete reliably for you now.

What cant Chatgpt do for your sustainable development strategy?

It cannot replace you identifying the specific stakeholders of your business and asking them what is important to them and why. It cant scan the live internet yet to identify ways to benchmark your business for sustainable development maturity and replication opportunities. It won't be able to judge your business to prioritise the most significant material impacts and issues you want to address. It won't be able to tell you what effort and resources you can commit from within your business to implement actions that will. It cant set goals and the level of ambition your business has to improve. It certainly can't work out right now the best way to embed your actions into your business-as-usual routines so that the improvement efforts you make are sustainable year after year. It cant measure your progress and then communicate that to your stakeholders. And it cant certify your processes or produce formal external reports in line with global reporting standards for sustainability.

How will further technological progress impact future generations

There are current limitations to Chatgpt its designers are open about for general use and problem-solving. It can write plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers. Slight changes in your question can also result in different answers. But work is already underway to fix these issues and build an even bigger model where user feedback can be incorporated. Our view is that there will be huge progress made in the future and new generations will have more and more complexity to deal with when using machine learning ai systems. It has a place in helping you build your sustainability strategies, but only a small one. There are naturally many human touchpoints in sustainable development because that's what it is all about......people and the planet. Human engagement, judgment and storytelling are all key critical ingredients to sustainability that will never change in our minds at everfocus.

Speaking of stakeholder engagement, we want to hear your thoughts.

We are very interested to hear your views about AI and Chatgpt in general, but also in how they can be a positive or negative impact on sustainable development. Please leave a comment with your thoughts. If you want a deeper conversation, contact us via the button below.