Follow the Leaders: How Chobani, Campbell's, and Tupperware Are Embracing Sustainability

4/22/2022
Person holding green globe, sustainability image

Operating a sustainable business is more than applying band-aid fixes. It means taking a long-term approach, looking at the enterprise, and considering what new technologies and strategies can make operations more efficient and Earth-friendly.

How can CGs begin to tackle a challenge that often requires an overhaul of systems and thinking outside of the box, particularly for legacy systems?

Read on to discover how companies like Chobani, Campbell Soup, and Tupperware have undergone transformational journeys to put sustainability into practice across their organizations. Find out how you can leverage these strategies to tap into the power of sustainability in your own businesses.

In CGT’s latest webinar, a powerhouse CIO panel from Campbell Soup Company, Chobani, and Tupperware join to explore the technology and data strategies that are the driving force behind CG companies’ sustainable operational progress toward future growth. 

Lisa Johnston: Hello, everyone. Welcome to “Operationalizing Sustainability: Insight from a Powerhouse CIO Panel.” My name is Lisa Johnston and I'm the senior editor at CGT. I'm excited to dive into today's topic. 

Operating a truly sustainable business is more than changing products and packaging, it’s putting a top-to-bottom strategy in place that touches all owners of the enterprise across all business functions, an evolution that can only be properly fueled through data and technology. Today, we'll talk with a powerhouse panel of CIOs and tech experts to explore what sustainability means, what's driving progress, and what more needs to be done, as well as some of the companies that are getting things right.

Joining us today are Julia Anderson, chief information technology officer at Campbell Soup Company; Parag Agrawal, global chief information officer at Chobani; Rekha Ramesh, chief digital officer and chief information officer at Tupperware Brands; and Sushant Tripathi, VP and North America head of cloud transformation and cybersecurity at TCS. Welcome, everyone, and thanks so much for joining us. May you each take a moment to introduce yourselves. Julia, let’s start with you.

Julia Anderson: I'm Julia Anderson. I'm three months into my new role as chief information technology officer at Campbell Soup Company. Prior to that, I was with Smithfield Foods for six years, doing transformation and sustainability work. Before that, I spent time at Heinz, PepsiCo, and many other companies — always on the transformation side — this topic is important. 

Parag Agrawal: I’m Parag Agrawl, I've been with Chobani for about seven and a half years, and I'm the global CIO at Chobani. I'm responsible for each and every possible technology that we use at Chobani, which is a purposeful, driven company. This topic is near and dear to our heart.

Rekha Ramesh: I'm Rekha Ramesh, chief digital officer and chief information officer at Tupperware. I spent 32 years in the industry before working at Tupperware, including the music industry, A1 Products under the direct selling company, and for retail service organizations where they were all going through transformational or market disruption at the time I joined. It's great to be in this panel talking about sustainability and look forward to hearing from the rest of the panelists. 

Tupperware has been in existence for 75 years and proudly provides a lifetime warranty — which is mind-boggling because we don't get a lifetime warranty for cars, but it shows how durable the product is. The company truly believes in sustainability and reducing single-use containers.

Sushant Tripathi: My name is Sushant. I lead a couple businesses in North America — a cloud transformation business and cybersecurity business — for TCS. I've been with TCS for close to ten years now. In my role, I work with the technology leaders: CIOs, CDOs, CTOs, and so on, as well as the senior leadership of organizations to drive digital transformation. 

 

“With digital transformation, the topic of sustainability always arises. There are many offerings where we collaborate with partners, customers, and clients to help accomplish their goals on the sustainability journey.”
— Sushant Tripathi, VP and North America Lead, Head of Cloud Transformation and Cybersecurity at TCS

Johnston: Thank you all for talking with us. I'd like to begin with your focus on sustainability: What does this look like, both within your company and on a personal level? Which sustainability initiative is at the top of your company's agenda today? Sushant, from your work with customers, and perhaps on the personal level, what does sustainability look like from a company and a personal level?

Tripathi: I love this question because it bridges two ends of the spectrum — at the macro level (the company, corporate organization), and at the micro (personal level). Talking about the macro level, I'll go into a bit of ancient history for a moment and then come back to what we do in TCS on this parameter.

There's a gentleman, Thomas Midgley, Jr., who if you look him up has the dubious distinction of being an individual who hurt the planet the most. He was part of a corporate research team and an automobile company exactly 100 years ago. He came up with a couple inventions, which were great at that point in time. One of them was tetraethyl lead (anti-knocking) in the automobile industry, and the other was the refrigerants that were used in the 1920s, which were extremely flammable. This gentleman, being a researcher as well as a chemical and a mechanical engineer, was given the task of finding a solution to that problem. He came up with what we call CFCs today, within three days. This became the norm in the industry for a long time.

Tying that back to the macro level, if you fast forward 100 years to today, you see that the basic things of greed, convenience, misinformation, etc. is something corporations have moved away from. Now, it's all about responsibility, knowledge, sharing things in a common form and a common platform. 

At TCS, we have a couple great advantages of being in the position that we are in the industry. The first being what we do for ourselves. As an organization, we have committed to be net carbon zero by 2030, which is 20 years ahead of the pledge a lot of organizations have made. In fact, we set a goal to get to 50% by 2020 and have exceeded that goal. I'm proud and delighted to say we are doing well on our sustainability journey. We have about 200 different products, where we work with our clients — government, cities, and so on — different ecosystems where we help accomplish sustainability objectives, by initially assessing where they are, helping curate the journey, or helping realize different points of the journey. That's what we are doing at the TCS-level.

Coming to the micro or individual level, if you take the basic needs of a man (food, clothing, shelter), we are trying to practice sustainability. It’s included at a lot of different levels, but if you raise a couple levels of abstraction, it becomes about lifestyle. Take it up another level of abstraction, and it's about behavioral architecture or the way we think about sustainability as individuals. That's where the opportunity lies ahead of us to make an impact in the world and leave a better world behind for our children and the next generation.

“When you talk to the corporates at the boardroom-level, the C-suite level, such as my fellow panelists here, they have all embraced sustainability — they're driving the sustainability agenda. If I look at my tiny bubble of the technology services company — as a software engineer starting out or someone starting out in their career — a lot of them have not embraced sustainability as a personal agenda because they don't have access to the same level of data, information, and vocabulary.”
— Sushant Tripathi, VP and North America Lead, Head of Cloud Transformation and Cybersecurity at TCS

Talking about behavioral architecture, it would be great if we could all help accomplish this and make sustainability cool for the young generation — and on a personal level, too.

There are a lot of different ways to do that. At a fundamental level, as humans, we are inherently status-seeking creatures whether we admit it or not. Sometimes it's hard to admit that, and the currency of what gives you status will change with time. If sustainability could be a token, a way to get there for somebody who's starting out at the individual level, if they're proud of that… If at every level of individuals associated with our companies and industry we can make sustainability cool, we could make an impact or influence the industry — that would be phenomenal. That demonstrates the point of how we can impact at the individual level as well.

Johnston: That’s a great point about making it cool. In a lot of research, we’re seeing that sustainability is becoming more of a priority with younger generations, we're on the way. Parag, in your introduction you mentioned that purpose is a big part of Chobani's mission. I'd love to get your take on this.

Agrawal: Chobani is a young company for folks who are hearing this and don't know much about the company. Chobani started in 2007, making us about a 15-year-old young company. For the first time, we set up formal ESG goals in 2018. When we set up those goals, we were mainly a Greek yogurt company. Since then, we have expanded into oatmeal, creamers, ready-to-drink coffee, and many other segments. 

Our goals included renewable energy, fuels, and sustainable packaging, but the two key ones we are focusing on right now are zero waste to landfill and water and being water-neutral. When I talk about the zero waste to landfill, what I mean is on the food side, as we produce our primary product, which is yogurt, whey is the biggest product. Now, instead of sending it all to the landfills, we sell 90% of almost all of our whey to farms where it is used to add moisture and nutrients into dry feed, which is then fed to the animals. The other 10% is used as an additional nutrient to the crop irrigation.

We are also trying to set ambitious goals for ourselves for zero waste to landfill, starting with one particular factory, our upstate factory. It's an old factory where Chobani started. We are constantly refining manufacturing processes because we want to meet this target of zero waste to landfill by 2022. We had a successful pilot around 2021 and are on track to do that in one of our plants by the end of 2022. Then, we'll roll it out to the other factories.

We are also working toward being water-neutral because we consume a lot of water and we want to be very clear. Eighty percent of the water we consume is driven back to natural sources. 

“There are a lot of areas of opportunities that we are looking into where we can reduce the consumption of water or use cost effective technologies, such as reverse osmosis or ultrafiltration, so that we can do more with the same amount of water in our plants.”
— Parag Agrawal, Global Chief Information Officer, Chobani

There are a few things, which depend on the industry in terms of renewable fuel and sustainable packaging, but I'm not at liberty to talk about all of that other than a tremendous amount of work is going on in those areas.

Secondly, on the personal level, it has to start at the grassroots level. I'll tell you, I've got a teenager and an 11-year-old, and they keep us in check — when I was growing up, we didn't think much about sustainability, but my kids keep me in check. If you come to my house, you will hardly find any paper. We have transitioned from reading paper books to digital books. We even pushed ourselves and are trying to get into all the EV vehicles, our primary vehicle is the EV vehicle. We recycle as much as we can.

As Sushant said, I do the same when I go to the hotels. I started doing that due to COVID, but now it's a habit that I don't ask them to come and change my sheets. If I'm staying there for three days, I'm good having the same sheets for three days. I reuse the towels, since it's just me. I do my part in making sure that I do whatever I can do at a personal level for sustainability.

Johnston: I also have a teenager who likes to keep me in check about this and consistently reminds me that we've already ruined the planet enough, so I should do my part to stop ruining it from now on. 

Rekha, unlike Chobani, you're not a new company — you've been around for a while, to say the least. What does sustainability look like for Tupperware and on a personal level?

Ramesh: Tupperware is a 75-year-old company and is definitely looking at waste. In 2020, we already hit 72%; the goal is to exceed 80% of diverting the disposal to reuse. Tupperware takes it a little bit further because it's not just the environment. Of course, they're focused on that and the mini targets, but Tupperware believes in making everyday focus on nurturing a better future. That means social sustainability, we are a very proud company. 

“We already achieve 60% women in executive and management roles, and participate in partnerships. We actually have a patent for our PONDS (Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System), which means for NASA or advanced space exploration, we help astronauts to stay healthier by providing a container where nutritious vegetables can be grown so they can eat healthy in the space stations.”
— Rekha Ramesh, Chief Digital Officer & Chief Information Officer, Tupperware Brands

Anyone who knows Tupperware doesn’t think of it in that way. We are also very committed, partnering with U.S. national parks across the nation to contribute and support water refill stations, as well as food wastage composting and recycling for national parks. 

Now we are partnering with TerraCycle, Burger King, and Tim Horton's to reduce single-use containers. We'll be having Tupperware containers for takeout burgers and other fast food chains. It goes far beyond the water usage, energy consumption, carbon footprint — those are definitely areas of focus, but we take it even further. We are very proud to be able to do that and have many targets set for 2025.

Personally, we are all very proud across the panelists, and I'm sure even beyond this call. The younger generations are far more aware of environmental protection. I have two grown-up kids, 28 and 23, they not only keep me in check, but they influence me. When we host, there are no paper products allowed, we have to use reusable items. They are pushing me, I have to admit, I'm not there yet. If I go to any fast food takeout container, reduce that, and influence that habit. Hotels, whether we reuse towels or everything, that has become normal, but how do we take that further? It must be an intentional effort in everything we do. Both Tupperware and my kids are keeping me in check.

Johnston: Julie, you're at a company, not a new company, but you are in a new role. What does sustainability mean for Campbell's or on a personal level?

Anderson: Campbell's has been around a long time, and has the mission that's been evolving: trusted food, vibrant communities, thriving people, healthy environment, and all of those with programs underneath that they continue to invest and put more resources towards. Today, our corporate responsibility report came out with an announcement about science-based targets. For me, being a data person, when I was looking for my next role, I wanted to make sure I was at a company with a purpose and that was taking ESG seriously. It's great to see the science-based targets announcement because we are trying to use data and to focus on strong targets.

“One of our current goals, the meet is zero, and you see the plan, the activities, the actions that are going to get it to that next level, all the way up to our commitments. I'm excited about the science-based targets and the approach. It's been a company with great brands and a purpose for a long time, but making it actionable is what is exciting.”
— Julia Anderson, Chief Information Technology Officer, Campbell Soup Company

On the personal side, I have five kids, they’re 30 and up. We want the planet to be there for them. My husband and I are committed to making an example by using automation, driving EV vehicles, but we're also involved with an organization called Save the Sound, which works around the Long Island Sound area to use data to measure water quality, report that to people at the beaches, and when you find poor water quality to go and hold corporations and towns accountable. There's a lot of sewer and storm drain systems that are old and failing, and this organization holds them accountable. We've been active with them for a while. 

We're boaters — we’re in the water, swimming… It's just an example that those types of policing, reporting, and measuring have to be done by all of us as citizens.

Johnston: Let’s touch on technology and how you're using it to drive progress. Julia, do you have anything to add about the technology? This could be, perhaps, in your past experience from your previous roles that you're seeing that are able to effectively advance sustainability goals and priorities.

Anderson: The most immediate thing in my current role is around this data collection and understanding these accurate data points and reporting. Holding ourselves accountable. In my past role with Smithfield Foods, there was quite a focus on ESG. On one hand, we all know we're trying to move to non-protein or plant-based diets for people, which isn’t a light switch. At Smithfield, we came up with our own plant-based brand, marketed that, and there was a large project around it.

One of the things about animal waste is methane. For the hogs, the animal waste goes into a lagoon, and the technology that was created put a digester over the lagoon, then partnered with the energy companies to convert the waste into natural gas and put that right back into the grid at the source — not putting it in a truck, not moving it, not adding other non-sustainable pieces to it, but bringing those pipes in and safely converting it and putting it into the grid.

That was deployed, and was a good example of how we need to move up the ladder away from animal protein, but at the same time, what are we doing about the waste and gas emissions that are happening at the plants?

Johnston: Rekha, could you tell us a bit about the technology? You mentioned a new partnership that you've announced with Tim Horton's and carry away containers. Can you expand at all on any of the technologies that you're using to effect change?

Ramesh: We are a direct selling company, and print quite a number of catalogs. It's in the traditional business — every two weeks, every month — depending on which country. We are present in 60-plus countries, which means we print a lot of catalogs. What we have done is begin to use technology to digitize. It's a digital catalog, but shoppable, clickable.

As our consultants move towards WhatsApp and the social selling platforms, we are using the pandemic as an opportunity to digitize our Salesforce journey, our consultants' journey, to reduce the number of catalog prints being printed and moving customers and consultants into using digital catalogs. It's one of the big initiatives, which is not only influencing our group, but also our customers and consumers on how they interact with Tupperware. 

“We are also looking at product innovation: How do we enable product innovation? How do we embed sensors? To Julia's point, how do we capture data? How are we going to help identify food expiration or signaling how long the food has been stored in the container?”
— Rekha Ramesh, Chief Digital Officer & Chief Information Officer, Tupperware Brands

Those are some of the things we’re also exploring on what kind of technology can be used and how we are going to drive sustainability efforts through product innovation.

Johnston: Parag, how about Chobani?

Agrawal: At Chobani, we are manufacturing and distribution. Apart from using a lot of cool technologies in the plant — water-neutral, reverse osmosis, and ultrafiltration — there is also a focus on corporate technology from IT's point of view. Along with our principles, there are three key principles to our strategy, which are cloud-first strategy, modern workplace, and modern architecture, which each play into sustainability. 

First of all, we are lucky that we are a young company because we don't have a lot of legacy baggage from a technology standpoint. If you look at our corporate systems, all of them are in the cloud and all the servers are virtualized. That's a very basic principle at Chobani: If there is anything new, it has to be in the cloud; if it's on-prem, the servers have to be virtualized. From the hardware technology point of view, there are a few servers in the plant that cannot be in the cloud, but all of those technologies and servers are virtualized.

Secondly, if you look at today's world, the pandemic in this case has helped us. Pre-pandemic, there was not a good enough adoption of video conferencing and the like at Chobani. Everybody used to travel across the country and world to attend meetings for a couple of hours. The pandemic helped us to relieve that. 

Now, we have completely moved away from traveling — not entirely, but to a large extent we are using collaboration platforms such as Teams and Zoom to minimize travel, which helps with our carbon footprint. It helps with the greenhouse gas emissions, whether we are talking about planes or using the hotel. It also helps companies to save a lot of money and gives people more time to spend with their family.

Then, we take it to the next level. Since we are a manufacturing company, we are trying out some new, cool technologies, like smart glasses with augmented reality. It used to be that we had an army of engineers in a place, so that if something goes wrong in the plant environment, somebody can help out as we are rolling out new categories, new products. 

“Now, with the help of smart glasses and augmented reality, people can help folks in the plant from anywhere in the world.”
— Parag Agrawal, Global Chief Information Officer, Chobani

Similarly, as part of the modern workplace, which is another key principle, we have removed desk phones from everyone’s desk in the office. With the collaboration technology that is coming, why do we need phones? None of us are using phones. It provides more desk space, while at the same time reducing the technological waste or hardware waste that is happening in the world. Along those lines, any kind of hardware — we no longer use desktops, every laptop that we have is usually refreshed for our employees every three years. 

Now, we refresh it for our employees, but instead of recycling all of the older laptops, we give it out to the people in need who cannot afford it. In a way, we are helping our people, but at the same time, we are extending the life of the hardware we have.

For example, Rekha mentioned minimizing the usage of paper. Their business is a catalog business. At Chobani, we have an internal goal to eliminate paper altogether. Seven years ago when I joined, about 20% of the business functions were running on technology. Now, 95-97% is on systems. We are doing our best to try to make sure there is no paper being used to the best of our ability. I'm not going to say that there's zero paper right now, but there is a conscious effort to avoid it.

At one of the upstate plants, there are a couple of rooms that are full of stacks of paper because people would make a copy in case they need it, the system would crash, or something would happen, but they have tons and tons of paper. Now, we are removing the paper and bringing in technologies to store everything digitally, which helps with the sustainability efforts, from the IT point-of-view.

Johnston: It's funny when you talk about the paper. Coming from the media point-of-view, you're bringing new meaning to the term “print is dead.” It sounds like you all have 360-degree views on and approaches to operationalizing sustainability. How are all of these goals, initiatives, and plans that you're doing? Does this focus on sustainability impact how you roll out new technology? Rekha, I'd like to start with you.

Ramesh: As Parag mentioned, one of them is the cloud. For us, since we are 75 years old, we have quite a bit of technology debt and legacy applications. Last year, we moved about 40% to cloud, and this year our target is 90%. In other words, anything in the plant will be left behind, and the rest will be moved to the cloud. Obviously, that's one of them, but we are also looking at how to digitize the entire direct selling business: How do we go about onboarding new consultants? Do we have to send them training materials? Do we have to send them registration papers? Everything is now being digitized. How are we onboard? How do they do their business with their friends?

As we know, Tupperware direct sellers are the traditional social influencers. They host a party, invite their friends, and influence purchase patterns. It's like today’s digital social influencers, but 75 years ago these were traditional social influencers. Now, we are helping them continue social influencing in the digital world and hosting parties. As you know, the moment we say Tupperware, everybody thinks about a Tupperware party. How do we do that in a safer world, particularly with the pandemic, but also beyond pandemic. 

“Our true competition is other gig economies. When we are attracting the new consultants, are we creating the earning opportunity for them in a much more flexible, safe environment? They can do it at home, at their own flexibility, and earn additional opportunities, but how do we help them host live parties virtually?”
— Rekha Ramesh, Chief Digital Officer & Chief Information Officer, Tupperware Brands

It begins with the internal. Internally, we have moved everything to Zoom, no more desk phones, but we are not stopping within Tupperware operations. We are taking that to external consultants and product innovation. How can we embed technology, whether AI or gathering consumer signals on what they prefer, and embed it? We are famous for water bottles — does it stop us from going with PET water bottles? No, it doesn't. That's driven purely from data, and that's an insight which is helping us with the new product innovation. The other one, which I also mentioned, is sensor-based. How can technology help that?

Beyond that, we’re looking at different kinds of partnerships and how that partnership works. Where can we truly influence and disrupt social behaviors? For example, fast food, can we influence that? We are very confident, particularly with the younger generation, if there is an option available, they will go for reusable containers. How do we teach them with these kinds of campaigns? In my mind, there is a technology component to every aspect, whether it is marketing those initiatives, providing IoT integrations, or digitizing the way we do business. We think about utilizing technology in every aspect of our business transformation.

Johnston: Do you think your existing tech stack and infrastructure is enabling you to accomplish those goals?

Ramesh: Certainly there are challenges. It is not an immediate step for us to lift and shift, and it's not going to be good enough. How do we enable our legacy applications? Even simple things like how to reduce our cotton usage. Is our supply chain system enabling that? With the legacy footprint, it is not that easy. However, we are taking that, and that's why there are multiple fronts of modernizing the technology within Tupperware.

Johnston: Julie, how does your focus on sustainability impact how you're rolling out new technology? Do you think that your existing tech and infrastructure enables you to accomplish these goals?

Anderson: I absolutely agree with everything that's been said so far on this topic; however, there's one piece that we haven't talked about yet, which is around change management and getting people to understand sustainability, social, or the piece of the project that speaks to them to make them want to help make it successful. When I say project, meaning rolling out technology, a change, or adopting a change, being willing to put the video on, whatever that may be. They understand that means we're saving miles on the road, giving people flexibility. People are more willing to give it a try. 

“A big piece of how we roll out technology and change today goes back to understanding the stakeholders and going back to that traditional change management. What's in it for them?”
— Julia Anderson, Chief Information Technology Officer, Campbell Soup Company

It used to be that when we were doing big transformation projects, it was a big debate at the leadership level in companies as to whether we should spend money on that. Is that consulting speak? Does that matter? Now, everybody understands that every person in the company chooses to be there. All your consumers choose your brand and the change management aspect very much matters. Rolling out technology is something we're very good at in this panel. We've all been doing it for many years with many different companies. We've had partners to do that with, but a successful rollout adoption rate is really using it.

Back at PepsiCo in the late 2000s, Indra Nooyi was the CEO. She came out with a performance with purpose. It was intended to marry financial success with social responsibility, and she was early. She was talking about this stuff before this became the big topic. What I learned there was that we had to operationalize our human sustainability, environmental sustainability, and talent sustainability. If we presented a project during AOP and it did not have a component that clearly had a positive impact, go back in line and figure out how that's affecting our goals.

That's always stuck with me and resonated with me. It's something I learned early in my career, and when I create a PMO, a project or a process, I always say, "What's the impact? What are we doing in this project to make a difference?" We talked a lot about the actual technology, but the human factor, the engagement, and the actual adoption of change is just as important.

Johnston: When we talk about people, process, and technology, Julie, the people come first. What do you see as the future of technology-enabled sustainability? Sushant, what do you see as the future of technology-enabled sustainability?

Tripathi: It's incredibly heartwarming to hear what we are doing in our respective ecosystems to make an impact on technology. When I advise senior technology leaders on digital transformation, I compare that with the sustainability advisory component that we have. The digital transformation is a sprint; Twelve to eighteen months is usually the life cycle where we want to make that impact and deliver the value. However, sustainability is a conversation that spans decades, and drawing upon some of the panelists, for example, adoption. How do you bring that sense of urgency? How do you make it here, now, real, and something that you can impact the world with?

“If I take another dimension, I'm reminded of what the head of sustainability at Starbucks said: Information technology constitutes only 1% of the carbon footprint, dairy constitutes 20% of the carbon footprint. Now, that does not mean that if you're sitting in the bubble of information technology, you cannot make an impact. It allows you to drive a lot of different things at different levels.”
— Sushant Tripathi, VP and North America Lead, Head of Cloud Transformation and Cybersecurity at TCS

Today, the world's data centers consume about 1% of the electricity, that’s simply a statistic. Push it to some of the projections, 2030 is expected to be anywhere between 3-8%, depending on how the world evolves and the adoption of some of the new technologies happening, electricity. Then, if you push it further 20, 40, or so with the proliferation of the applications we have, the computer capacity, all these devices that we have, it's likely to be about 14% of the carbon footprint by 2040.

This is while we are trying to do things on the other dimensions of sustainability, such as paper, dairy, and so on. It's equally important to be conscious and press the “Go Fast” button to accelerate the sustainability agenda on information technology. There are some pretty obvious use cases if you look at that. 

The most obvious use case, which Julia pointed out, is data. If you don't have data, if you don't measure what you're trying to do, then it's hard to improve it. Data is an ecosystem play. It's about collaboration, bringing data from different partners. It's a shared responsibility, not an individual responsibility for any one organization, corporation, government, or whatever, but a shared responsibility. How do you bring about that collaboration of data?

The other obvious use case is moving out of the data centers into the cloud. Parag mentioned a cloud-native company, the new generation company. A lot of companies that have technology debt, how do you accelerate that? When we do the scans of data centers or computer environments of organizations, we find that the CPU utilization is about 18-25% tops for most of these organizations. 

This is because they had to build out for the future of their business. As they're moving to cloud, they’re moving that needle from about 20% to north of 70-80%, which is possible and pretty easy to do for most organizations. TCS is a partner with several organizations in that journey that's a phenomenal lead.

You can get more nuanced about it within the choices you make on cloud. How do you pick regions or zones which are greener than the others? How do you pick the computer capacity? How do you try to pick the SLAs that are congruent with what your business needs and not go overboard on that? It can get very nuanced on that, but that's a beautiful component.

Then, the final element is green software development or green software engineering. This is not popular yet in a lot of circles. There are about 30 million software engineers in the world — compared to the world population, it's a tiny number. However, if one million of them could influence and impact them to start developing whatever platforms, green software, carbon-neutral apps, or design in a way that they consume less carbon, then there could also be things like carbon-aware apps. For example, if I'm charging my laptop, it should only do it from green energy when possible, etc.

“There are a lot of use cases that you can build on top of each other, but the bottom line is that even within the bubble of IT, it's possible to make a significant impact on how the planet shapes and evolves its journey towards sustainability for all of us.”
— Sushant Tripathi, VP and North America Lead, Head of Cloud Transformation and Cybersecurity at TCS

We offer a few products. One is for the CPG industry, there’s a framework from TCS and a product called Envirozone, which gets into the supply chain transparency, efficiency, etc. There's a component of circular economy within that, and then for organizations that are embracing this sustainability journey and they need help with planning and tracking that journey, we help with the initial part as to laying out that whole plan. Several customers such as Nestlé and Mars have embraced some or all of these products. 

Likewise, with a lot of governments or cities, we have a TCS product called Intelligent Urban Exchange, which uses a lot of IoT devices and analytics. Essentially, we are able to capture data from different points within the city and help develop a green ecosystem for the city. That's how we are helping with the technology dimension from within the one-person bubble that we sit in with IT. The joy and delight of partnering with several of our customers across the ecosystem and the government puts us in a great place.

Johnston: Parag, what are your thoughts on what you see as the future of technology-enabled sustainability?

Agrawal: The first thing I’d like to note is that Julia is absolutely correct. Being a little bit of a younger company, we have embedded it. We have key principles and strategies around IT, and each of those pillars also keeps in mind how we are working toward sustainability. That's how we ensure that everything we do must align with a strategy, and all of those strategies also align with a sustainability goal that we have.

“Technology is a very small part of sustainability. Technology is everywhere, and is the enabler of everything we do in life today, which means technology plays everywhere. Two areas where technology can help are agriculture and transportation.”
— Parag Agrawal, Global Chief Information Officer, Chobani

Seventy percent of the fresh water today is consumed by farmers. Farmers also use practices where there are greenhouse emissions, like burning fields and clearing forests. I come from India where there is a huge problem around burning fields and things like that. There are technologies available in the market today about precision application. There is precision application equipment available that is enabled by technology where you don't need to use so much freshwater or chemicals. It can be so precise that wherever there is a crop, you can use it exactly at that point. That is going to be a big-time game-changer once the world adopts it.

Second is transportation. Look at greenhouse gas emissions, 29% comes from transportation. All the companies are pledging, and by 2025 or 2030, the car manufacturing companies will stop producing non-EV vehicles. I would love to see that. In the industrial area, the bigger corporations, we are lagging behind in terms of getting EV vehicles and better infrastructure for them for long distances. That needs to be developed for us to get to the next level, and that's where technology is going to help. Everything is driven by technology. Those are the two big areas where industry technology is going to come and make a dent toward sustainability.

Johnston: What is the ROI for companies addressing operational sustainability? That's an important question and we might get different perspectives from each of you.

Agrawal: There are two things. Not everything is ROI-driven. For example, one of our key pillars as an organization is being purposeful. You can’t think about yourself, you have to give back to society, give back to the community. This is all part of that. 

Secondly, from a technology standpoint, every strategic pillar that we have has an underlying sustainability impact. You need to be aware of it because sometimes sustainability becomes a blind spot for everybody. 

“You have to be more aware of it, think about it in a different and creative way, and see how you can help. That small grassroots-level work will also help, but if you start by doing it ROI-based, we’ll never make a dent on that.”
— Parag Agrawal, Global Chief Information Officer, Chobani

Ramesh: That's the similar approach in Tupperware, as well. It is not ROI-based. Sustainability is beyond looking at ROI, it's making a better future for younger generations. Obviously, there are initiatives with past ROI. We are reducing carbon footprint by moving to the cloud, there's a huge savings there. There are initiatives, but the initiative is not driven by an ROI.

Anderson: It goes back to reputation, brand purpose, and engaging — not being tone-deaf with consumers, the world and everything that's happening in the world. Maybe it's not driven by ROI, but the opposite effect can happen if products and brands are not doing the right thing. For example, with Campbell's, there's nothing more recyclable and environmentally-friendly than a can. Companies started moving to a wax box and other formats, but it's cans and certain recyclable plastics that need to be focused on, and that's good business sense.

Tripathi: The ROI conversation needs to be passed through two lenses. One is the cost, we all get questioned on that whenever we put a business case we're in. The other is the growth and revenue because the way we see it, we call it a helical enterprise within TCS. It's also about adaptability and agility. If you take things from the physical world to the digital world, what agility do you infuse into the ecosystem of whatever you're trying to do in your value chain, whether it's directly your value chain, upstream, or downstream? Then, what is the multiplier or exponential multiplier effect of that business agility on the growth you can deliver and where you can take the enterprise?

It's possible with industry data and metrics. With so much information available, it's possible to quantify the growth dimension. When we take these business cases, not just on the cost optimization, but also by the growth and transformation dimension, jointly to the CFOs, CEOs, the boards, their eyes light up. They love that. When they're able to put that into their annual report, balance sheet, investor conference, etc. and deliver that, it makes all of them proud. It makes the world a better place. That growth dimension, which feeds into the ROI is important as well, not purely the cost dimension.

Johnston: Well, we are out of time. Those are great words to leave us with, Sushant. I'd like to thank all of our speakers for giving us your time and subject matter expertise today. I'd also like to thank TCS for sponsoring today's webinar, and thank you to our audience for your time today. We hope you found it worthwhile. Have a great day.

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