Angie Gifford, Vice President EMEA at Meta, and Hannah Helmke, founder of right. based on science discuss the digital transformation of business and society – and how it can help get global warming under control.
Many companies and government organizations are still slow to digitize their processes, Gifford notes, and this is a real risk to prosperity.
“Not being digitized, and not being leading edge, is going hurt us”, she says. “This is going hurt our social wealth, this is going to hurt us in terms of the economy.”
The topic should be at the top “of every leader’s agenda” in Europe, Gifford argues. She praises the EU Commission for launching the “digital decade” – but points out that there’s also the question of, “How are we going to get there?”
Fostering entrepreneurship is a crucial part of the answer, Hannah Helmke suggests.
“What established companies should see is that entrepreneurship creates an ecosystem of innovation for the established economy to flourish and to support a healthy economy”, she says.
Her own company calculates the climate impact of corporations, real-estate objects, financial portfolios and more. “Plain and simple in a degree Celsius figure, so that everyone can understand: Where do I stand with my company in terms of the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Climate Agreement?”
When the founders set out to achieve this goal, “it became clear very quickly: this has to be a digital company”, Helmke explains. “To solve this, we need to build software.”
The need for more transparency is clear, she argues. To limit global warming, “all sectors still need do their homework and make fundamental changes, including IT and online platforms“.
