About 15 months ago we made a prediction.
“COP26 has been the most urgent we have seen yet, with governments, businesses, and individuals all hearing and responding to scientists’ calls for expedient action to protect our ways of life. We will see this imperative running through RFPs and procurement choices in 2022, and I predict that Cloud Service Providers (CSP) will be required to share a metric of their carbon footprint and details on their green agenda.”
There were already plenty of clues pointing us towards this assertion. SAP had found that the thousands of organisations it polled were “overwhelmingly motivated” to take environmental action. And Gartner’s 2022-23 CEO priorities report told us that, for the first time ever, CEOs were placing environmental sustainability in their top 10 business priorities. In fact, 74% agreed that increasing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts attract investors towards their businesses, and among the 80% who intended to invest in new or improved products over the next two years, environmental sustainability was cited as the largest driver.
But 2022 was an unexpectedly tricky ride for many organisations (Neil has written here before about the triple squeeze—high inflation, talent scarcity and supply chain issues), so does it still matter at all?
Deep into 2022, Capital Group was st