Building the Foundation for a Sustainable Tech Future

Ben Coleman, Founder and CEO of Performa IT

As a passionate technical diver, I’ve witnessed firsthand the immense beauty of our ocean environments – and the impacts of human activities like pollution, overfishing and climate change. Protecting our planet’s delicate ecosystems is not just an ethical imperative; it’s a business-critical priority for long-term viability and growth.

The tech industry has an outsized environmental footprint. Energy-intensive data centres produce over 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions – rivalling the aviation industry’s share! E-waste from discarded devices and hardware has surged 21% in just five years to over 53 million metric tons annually. Unless we drive innovation toward more sustainable practices, our environmental burden will only intensify with increasing digitization.

At Performa IT, we’re committed to being a force for positive environmental change by minimising our ecological impact and leveraging technology as a sustainability solution multiplier across industries. Although we are proud to have achieved a carbon-neutral status in 2023, we aim to be Net Zero by 2030. Our Key initiatives include:

  • Sustainability assessments for premises and remote workers
  • Application to become BCorp certified
  • Supplier environmental impact reviews
  • Using AI and IoT for energy optimisation, emission tracking and predictive maintenance
  • Asset depreciation and usage assessments to design for environmental efficiency
  • Implementing circular economy principles to reduce, reuse and recycle e-waste
  • Incorporating sustainability and waste reduction as a focus for all employees

Our efforts have already produced tangible results. We’ve achieved carbon neutrality across operations through a combination of energy efficiency, renewable procurement and credible offsetting projects. Beyond our direct footprint, we aim to empower corporate partners and ecosystems with digital solutions that enable sustainable transformation and a net-positive environmental impact. 

To support restorative and protective environmental initiatives, our team have nominated organisations such as Humane Society International and the Marine Conservation Society as chosen supported charities – with employee-led efforts to protect wildlife and ecosystems; we hope to embed environmental advocacy in our culture.

While the tech sector’s environmental challenges are significant, I’m confident we can rise to meet them through collaborative innovation and public-private partnerships. Digital technology catalysed much of the environmental strain – it must now be marshalled to build a truly sustainable path forward for the planet we all share.

References

Masanet, E., et al. (2020) Recalibrating global data center energy-use estimates. Science, 367(6481), 984-986.

Forti V., et al. (2020) The Global E-waste Monitor 2020. United Nations University.