Sustainability needs AI!

Anil Nair, Founder, ThinkStreet (Impact Consulting)

"Technology, guided by wisdom and compassion, has the power to transform our world. As we navigate the complexities of sustainability, artificial intelligence emerges as a visionary ally, paving the way for a harmonious coexistence between humanity and our planet."

Environmental sustainability

When we refer to sustainability, more often than not, it’s the environmental facets that get more attention than the economic, social, and developmental aspects. And while we discuss this dimension in this paper too, there are many linkages – like the intelligent, economic use of resources, social equity in its distribution, minimizing ecological damage, and renewal. Environmental sustainability gets more attention because it affects us all overtly – including climate change, natural calamities, waste, and pollution of air and water. And less obviously and more gradually, by way of continuous degradation of land, our biodiversity and the entire ecosystem.

Leveraging AI

The use of AI can transform the way we address sustainability challenges. Whether it be in analyzing vast data sets, comparing and identifying optimal avenues of choice, figuring patterns, or making forecasts and predictions. Equally so in ensuring precision material usage, cutting waste, effluent treatment, creating effective supply chains, or fashioning durable product life cycles.

Critical areas to prioritize

Renewables: A critical area that has captured global imagination is the shift away from fossil fuels to sources that are natural – like wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower. This minimizes the emission of greenhouse gasses, including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, and nitrogen. Grid modernization for renewables involves significant investments but will hasten efforts for renewables to constitute two-thirds of global energy consumption by 2050. Widespread use of AI here includes - accurate energy forecasting based on weather, history, and site conditions, smart grids for assessing demand and resource allocation, proactive actions in real time for grid stability, more efficient carbon capture methods, and energy storage. Energy trading and exploration leverage AI extensively.

Ecosystem preservation and renewal: Preserving forests, wetlands, and the habitat is critical, considering they could potentially store 30% of carbon dioxide emissions. Protecting biodiversity, renewal of water tables, and protecting wildlife is equally important. AI-powered drones are now helping identify hotspots to address reforestation efforts cost-effectively, tracking animal populations via satellite images is preempting poaching, and the analysis of underwater video footage is helping protect marine life.

Transforming agriculture: The use of sensors to collect soil and water characteristics, combining that with weather-related information, and enlightening farmers on sustainable practices has the potential to make farming more viable. AI is now helping farmers combine soil management, process automation, yield and demand assessments, and input cost optimization. Other AI themes include better land use, crop protection, cutting the environmental footprint of food production, limiting agricultural and food waste, and accelerating the acceptance of plant-based diets.

Promoting a circular economy: In the age of use-and-throw, our model must embrace refurbishment, recycling, and reuse. For that to happen, we have to rethink product design, manufacturing processes, and the entire ecosystem. The Government of India’s e-waste policy, applicable to all manufacturers, producers, refurbishers, dismantlers, and recyclers, has launched an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regime that includes annual recycling targets based on prior sales. The Ellen McArthur Foundation estimates $1Tn in annual savings globally from transitioning to a circular economy. Other estimates indicate that in India alone this industry and allied sectors can create 6.3 lakh direct and indirect jobs by 2025. Illustratively, AI finds extensive use in prioritizing waste streams and optimizing designs to cut waste. And AI platforms are helping in the creation of new supply chains.

Interesting industry examples

A digital intervention we are all familiar with is FASTag. It’s an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag fixed on the windscreen of cars that facilitates immediate payment from a rechargeable, prepaid account. It minimizes queues and saves fuel, which in turn lowers carbon emissions. It also eliminates usage of paper, reducing deforestation, while saving on water and energy used in its production. It reduces noise pollution too. Aggregated nationally, fuel savings, reduced pollution, and logistics benefits are immense.

Another interesting case is that of industry major, Godrej & Boyce, constructing a 500 sft office at their greenfield campus near Mumbai in just 40 hours. It included civil works, waterproofing, painting, lighting and electrical works, plumbing, sanitation, drainage, furniture, and landscaping. They used prefab modules, created using 3D construction printing technology, leveraging building information modeling and lean construction methods.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 for universal peace and prosperity by 2030. They include no poverty, zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, clean energy, sustainable cities, and strong institutions.

A 2020 Nature Communications study indicates that AI could help achieve 79% of SDGs and 82% of the 169 targets in the internationally agreed 2030 Agenda. AI clearly has an enabling role in poverty alleviation, education, food, health, water, energy, and the environment.

Challenges and Considerations

Access to AI-enhanced systems may not be accessible to less economically developed communities, and it could cause inequalities when AI jobs demand additional qualifications. When used in countries with underdeveloped ethical frameworks, transparency, democratic principles, even human rights, could be compromised. Also, with AI systems being trained on all available material, it could violate intellectual property principles and display biases from skewed data sets, causing political polarization and harming social cohesion. Moreover, AI requires massive computational resources, consumes huge amounts of power and water, and is associated with a very high carbon footprint.

In summary, no one is oblivious to the fact that the planet is suffering irreparable harm due to our anthropogenic actions. The general belief is that this will hurt future generations. But the undeniable realization that it is hurting the current generation too should accelerate actions to mitigate the rapid deterioration in global sustainability. And that’s exactly where AI can help, despite the downsides.

 

The journey into industry

Anil is currently a senior fellow at Portulans Institute, a Washington DC based technology and policy thinktank, an Independent Board Director at ECM company Syrma SGS Technologies Ltd., and a Board Advisor at solution integrator Netcon Technologies.  He writes regularly on emerging technologies and management in leading business publications like The Economic Times & Fortune magazine. 

He was Managing Director, Country Digitization for APJC at Cisco Systems till 2021, involved in accelerating national digitization strategies across various countries. Prior to that, he was MD/CEO at AGC Networks Ltd, Securitas India, Aegis Consulting and Avaya GlobalConnect Ltd.  He did his Advanced Management Program from ISB-Kellogg Business School, Chicago. 

Anil has led 4 successful turnarounds and 2 start-ups. He has won the Udyog Rattan Award and been the recipient of an Award for Professional Excellence from the Indian Institution of Industrial Engineers.