For major corporations, sustainability has shifted from being a buzzword to being a corporate priority that leverages the cloud. Many are supporting the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner. This is a target of completely negating the number of greenhouse gases produced by human activity, to be achieved by reducing emissions and implementing methods of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

A good first step in a company’s sustainability journey is simply moving its data center to the cloud. The comparatively smaller carbon footprint of cloud computing is a consequence of both improved infrastructure efficiency and a reduced need for IT infrastructure to support a given user base.  

Companies find that formalized sustainability and carbon emission reduction initiatives and adopting sustainable and green practices are more than simply a good thing to do. They are finding that sustainability has become a catalyst for reimagining the way they have been doing things for years at an operational level. As a result, organizations are becoming using less energy, water, and other resources and becoming more efficient, competitive, and profitable. 

Another compelling reason to adopt a sustainability program sooner rather than later is that society is increasingly recognizing the need to adopt sustainable practices to combat climate change. They are willing to pay more for sustainable products and services.  

Different kinds of organizations have focused on different areas. For example, athletic shoe brands reduce waste, minimize their carbon footprint, and build a greener and more socially conscious supply chain. Companies like Nestle evaluate the entire product life cycle and water efficiency and waste reduction. Because they are dependent on a large clean supply, soft drink companies focus on water stewardship and water replenishment.

In biopharma, energy efficiency, waste reduction, and other ecological measures are essential, as are social impact programs via partner initiatives in the areas of health and safety. However, the tech companies are particularly innovative in their approach.

Tech companies are also leading the way in the cloud. For example, Microsoft has announced that it is going to be carbon-negative by 2030 and will remove its historic emissions by 2050. It will improve efficiency in operations, devices, and the supply chain. In addition, it is delivering cloud technology to help customers measure and manage their carbon emissions more effectively and lead the way with carbon removal purchases and investments to help develop the carbon reduction market.

The company’s Cloud for Sustainability offer is particularly worthy of note. The Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings enable companies to discover and connect to real-time data sources, accelerate data integration and reporting, provide accurate carbon accounting, measure performance against goals and enable intelligent insights for organizations to take more effective action.

Microsoft’s Cloud for Sustainability helps companies take control of their environmental initiatives with comprehensive, integrated, and automated insights to accelerate each stage of their sustainability journey. For the C-suite, this is becoming more and more important as it can directly impact company stock price as institutional investors begin to contemplate sustainability metrics when making investment decisions

Sustainability reporting is all about communicating to investors about implementing these changes and how things will be moving forward. The report discloses and communicates environmental, social, and governance goals (ESG). Choosing to implement these changes and setting goals is the way to take a giant leap forward. It is also about informing stakeholders how the organization is implementing strategies to achieve these goals. Doing so raises investor and shareholder confidence.

David Catzel is a visionary with a long and distinguished history of working at the crossroads of industry and technology innovation in the cloud, helping companies streamline existing businesses and prepare for changing business in the future. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 17, 1953. He is a pragmatic futurist who has built a career helping executives understand the future and the digital and cultural transformation needed to make that future possible

In his current role as Senior Industry, Digital Strategist for Microsoft’s Automotive, Mobility, and Transportation Industry Team, he engages with senior leadership at mobility partners, taking an ecosystem view and ideating around the future of mobility and electrification, and most importantly, sustainability. He has consulted with ports, shipping companies, airlines, airports, automotive companies, and rental agencies about the future of their industries, the growing interconnection between them, and their combined opportunity to positively impact sustainability and our planet’s viability.

While his current role is a world apart from his earlier career at the intersection of media and technology, his current career trajectory makes sense in retrospect. In the corporate communications sector in the 1980s and early 90s, he designed and developed innovative new product introductions for automotive, packaged goods, and energy companies using early computer programs to synchronize projections, lasers lights, and special effects. 

Building on this media production experience, David Catzel next sought to expand his film and video business skills in partnership with Kit Thomas. They launched KitCat, a music video company. Soon, his agency became a prominent name in the market and produced music videos for a wide variety of artists, such as Donna Summer and John Denver, and documentaries for MTV music personalities such as Roger Waters, the charismatic but enigmatic leader of Pink Floyd.

After making his mark on the music production industry, David Catzel decided to pursue his passion for technological innovation. He parted ways with Kit Thomas, who continued to work in the music field. This departure meant new beginnings, and David Catzel joined North Communications, an IBM Partner Company, in 1990. He led the development and deployment of interactive public access touchscreen kiosk networks for various governments globally for three years. 

In 1994 David was approached and recruited by Lucasfilm. As a technical director, David Catzel helped develop media and technology control and management platform to realize George Lucas’s dream of a new kind of entertainment and retail marketplace experience. 

In 1996, David Catzel joined Microsoft as a Senior Developer Platform Evangelist. In that role, to lead a company repositioning from simply being a technology provider to the media and entertainment industry to becoming a strategic partner to the sector. 

David built strategic partnerships with many of the major studios and networks to launch and promote new digital distribution channels across Microsoft Xbox, laptop, and mobile platforms for partners as diverse as The Walt Disney Company, Fox, Paramount, Warner Brothers, and Sony. 

He joined an Israeli cyber security company in 2018 but later returned to Microsoft in 2020 as a digital strategist

While his background has traversed several industries, one thing has remained constant. His passion for leveraging technology to create change for the better. At present, a focus on the future of mobility is tightly linked to leveraging technology in the service of sustainability while at the same time improving partner and customer company’s bottom line and shareholder value.