We have 10 years left to reache 17 UN Sustainability Goals laid out in 2015. Even though this has been a topic the last years, I think the debate and focus on these goals will heat up in the year to come. Any companies not taking a stand going forward will struggle to survive.

Digitization and technology play a contradictory role in this quest, however. They are key to ensuring success, but at the same time are often part of the problem. Digital progress is a double-sided sword that we need to manage better.

Many new technologies contribute positively towards sustainable impact: AI leads to solutions on health and climate issues and removes language barriers; CRISPR will eradicate critical diseases; IoT will help create more sustainable cities; and additive manufacturing will introduce new, sustainable production methodologies.

Some technologies are less positive. Smartphones, for example, are fantastic, but how can we justify the 1.5 billion phones scrapped annually? And, how much longer can we keep extracting the rare minerals needed for electronic components? E-commerce is convenient and we love it (the revenue from Singles Day in November 2019 exceeded $ 30 billion) but, what about the huge amount of packaging created to ship 2.600 items every second? Not to mention the amount of empty space shipped inside each box. Forbes estimates that an incredible 61 million containers of empty space travel the world each year due to e-commerce.

We have to keep changing and developing digital solutions and technologies to conquer the world’s biggest challenges. They must become more sustainable. I predict that this will be one of the main topics for the year to come.