Sustainable Development in Information and Technology Services

Sustainable development/sustainability is a movement that started to gain popularity in the late 1980’s. This wave of popularity was majorly due to the 1987 Brundtland report published by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) that sought to achieve global sustainable development by the year 2000. Many industries and companies have achieved the ever-changing status of Sustainable (while pursuing the effort to maintain it), but as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals suggest, there is still room to improve.

What is sustainable development/sustainability?

The Brundtland report contains one-of-the-many definitions of sustainability, however, it happens to be the most widely used and accepted definition of sustainability. The report defines sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Surprisingly, this definition lacks the explicit environmental concepts that are commonly associated with sustainability, think renewable energy, planting trees, and minimizing waste. The actuality is, this definition does imply these concepts, albeit inexplicitly, and so much more.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a management concept that utilizes social and environmental sustainability within business operations. Corporations, such as Microsoft, often publish a CSR report each fiscal year, read the 2020 Microsoft Corporate Social Responsibility Report.

Sustainability at CRM Dynamics

CRM Dynamics is a company that majorly exists within the device you are reading this blog from. We work and operate within a digital environment, eliminating a major component of any company’s environmental footprint. Internally we are cautious of the technology we use/purchase and where it goes when we no longer need it. Nevertheless, we still have the capacity to practice sustainability, and we do, by making others more sustainable.

In layman’s term, sustainability is optimization, the need to do more with less. Microsoft Dynamics 365 tools allow for optimization across many aspects of a business however, having tools does not make you a carpenter. At CRM Dynamics, our role is to ensure you have the right tools and know the basics of ‘carpentry’, allowing for technology and/or information optimization. When technology and information is optimized in the digital world it works to create optimization in the physical world. Some of our solutions and blueprints are explicit in their sustainability (the Field Service app uses a schedule board that can minimize travel time) and others are implicit (the Construction Blueprint works to create efficient communication reducing wasted time, efforts, and resources). 

Sustainable development may be a new term to information and technology services, yet it is the core of what we do. At CRM Dynamics we continuously aim to be more sustainable by providing our expertise to others, optimizing their digital world, and enabling the creation of optimization/sustainability in the physical world.

Talk to our team today and hop on the Sustainable Bus, last stop, sustainable business.