Rimm Panel Discussion: The Rise of Automation in Sustainability

With the rise of ChatGPT and other AI tools, hear our expert speakers on how automation is shaping the sustainability space and providing solutions to challenges.

On March 16, Rimm held our first hybrid event of the year, “The Rise of Automation in Sustainability”. The event centered around a panel discussion, focusing on how automation can be used by companies to promote sustainability and the associated benefits and challenges. We were honored to have Ravi Chidambaram (Rimm, CEO), Vincent Caldeira (Red Hat, CTO), and Steven Newman (Menicon, CTO) on our panel to share their expertise with Dr. Darian McBain (OCSO, CEO) as our distinguished moderator.

With a multitude of regulations and frameworks increasingly mandating sustainability reporting, it may seem daunting for small businesses to embark on their sustainability journey. Automation enables easy access to sustainability for all companies, including those that may lack the necessary resources and manpower to implement more sustainable practices.

“Reporting to us is really just the starting point. You could get green loans, sustainability certifications, and be supply chain compliant… There are so many use cases around sustainability, and the idea is to go way beyond reporting.” – Ravi Chidambaram

Here’s a brief summary of what our panelists had to share.

Key takeaways:

• Automation can aid companies in their necessary transition toward sustainability by demystifying and simplifying adoption, helping them overcome logistical and financial hurdles to beat the rising cost of compliance and stay competitive.
• By starting with sustainability disclosure, companies can get a clearer idea of issues that are material to them, allowing them to identify areas for improvement to implement effective strategies.
• Beyond reporting, automation can be used for data scraping, benchmarking and auditing, all of which contribute to data verification and combating greenwashing.
• Although we are still in the early days of automation and sustainability reporting, automation can help to boost the credibility of self-reported data.
• Some ESG data might be inaccurate due to the lack of verification and lack of standardization between taxonomies.
• Automation and sustainability can also bring together ESG reporting companies to capitalize on each other’s strengths to come up with better and more holistic solutions for all companies.
• Sustainability and automation will continue to grow as a key topic area as businesses continue to realize its importance and as taxonomies become more standardized.

“The idea is if we can have this combination of data management and customization, we can create many positive outcomes for clients around sustainability adoption.” – Ravi Chidambaram

Our team at Rimm Sustainability would like to thank everyone who attended the event. We hope to see you at our next one!

Want to learn more about how you can automate your sustainability analytics and reporting processes?

Watch “The Rise Of Automation In Sustainability” on demand.