Time for
Sustainability
Reconciling human expectations and planetary boundaries

k
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i
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Editorial
Today’s societies seem to be
driven by an increased speed inso many aspects of our lives —from work to leisure. Moreover,
our rate of consumption exceeds
the planet’s ability to provide
the resources required to keep
up with this pace. The result is
contributing to climate change,
with increasingly severe effects
every year.
Our challenge, as a human species, is to findways to reconcile our expectations of growthrate - not to mention comfort, convenience,and other factors that make us resistant toclimate action - with the limitations of what
our planet can provide.

Time for sustainability

Our ReThink series of white papers poses thequestion of how to build a sustainable future.
The first paper, Tech and the Living World,
was dedicated to technology and biodiversity.
In this issue, Time for Sustainability —coauthored with Salesforce — we reflect on
the implications of our new relationship withtime imposed on us by the climate emergency.
We believe this critical relationship is
one of the greatest societal challenges
for several generations and one that so
often is hidden or overlooked. By steering
us toward sustainable growth, we candeconstruct the values associated withspeed and slowness and stop pitting
them against each other. One way toachieve sustainable growth is to slow bothproduction and consumption of goods.

Salesforce and Capgemini both operate ina world that is trending increasingly toward
the imperative of immediacy, a world where
we need to accelerate our transformation
toward more sustainable business.
The consideration of time and acceleration
as they pertain to production and consumption
leads to rethinking the stakeholder experienceof time more thoroughly: might a longawaited product actually be more desirable?
Can companies keep up with immediate
expectations from consumers sustainably?
Could a slow transition to sustainability beconsidered a risk? Let’s take the time to reflect
upon these paradoxes… Enjoy the read!
Cyril Garcia,
Capgemini Group Executive Board Member,
Global Sustainability Services and Corporate Responsibility Head2

Businesses are rising
to the challenge ofthe climate emergency

Conclusion
PAGE 27

PAGE 4

A time for humans,or for nature: is there acrisis of desynchronization?

References
PAGE 28

PAGE 12

Index
Time for sustainability

Can tech help
accelerate sustainable
development?

Acknowledgements
PAGE 29

PAGE 203

Businesses are rising
to the challenge ofthe climate emergency
We asked Suzanne DiBianca, Salesforce Executive Vice President,
Chief Impact Officer, and Cyril Garcia, Capgemini Group Executive
Board Member, Head of Global Sustainability Services andCorporate Responsibility, to sit down and reflect on how
companies can leverage technologies to better answer
the question of racing toward sustainability solutions.

Businesses are rising to the challenge of the climate emergency

4

Time and Sustainability... What do you
think are the terms of the problem?
How is the tension between these
two apparent opposites articulated?
Suzanne DiBianca The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a direwarning of “code red” for humanity in 20211,
making it even clearer that we need tourgently address the climate crisis. The clockis ticking, and we must all accelerate climate
action now. We can’t wait until 2040 or 2050
to reduce emissions.
Our planet needs everyone — governments,
scientists, investors, businesses, andecopreneurs (startups focused on solving
climate challenges) — to take bold climate
action today. And it’s all interconnected.
If we don’t act now, we risk disrupting thenatural systems that underpin all life on Earth.
Nature plays a key role in solving the climate
crisis, and we have much to learn from nature.

Businesses are rising to the challenge of the climate emergency

Cyril Garcia In tackling the relationshipbetween time and sustainability, twointerrelated paradoxes come to mind.
The first is based on the gap between longterm commitments and short-term actions
regarding the climate emergency. In a study
from the Capgemini Research Institute,we observed that only 49% of executives saytheir company has defined a priority list ofsustainability initiatives to be implemented
in the next three years2.
The second paradox centers on the clear
change in consumers’ expectations.
They want faster deliveries and fastertransportation, to the point where it seems
there is no room for delay. This poses a clear
dilemma for companies; how can they respondto the demands for immediacy, given thatthe act of doing so would seem to contradict
the implementation of sustainable practices?

‘‘
We needto urgently
address theclimate crisis’’

5

SD Absolutely. The challenge in front of us
is indeed complex and multifaceted. It canbe difficult to take a strategic or proactive,
long-term approach to sustainability when
there are so many other urgent issues thatcompanies are grappling with these days,
including pressure from stakeholders onsocial issues, meeting operating margins,and delivering in times of economic
uncertainty. But we know that sustainablechoices drive value. Business leaders justneed to look at the wealth of emerging
data to see the ways in which sustainability
is driving positive business outcomes
across an industry.
Is the climate emergency
also an economic emergency?
And which urgency are we talking
about? The urgency to slow down?
Or the urgency to act?
CG The greater understanding of climatechange, and its increasingly evident

Businesses are rising to the challenge of the climate emergency

impacts, has obviously led to an urgency
to act, to prevent our society and theplanet from suffering more damage
and incurring significant costs. However,the concept of “degrowth” is frankly too
utopian to contemplate realistically,
especially considering the systemic and multistakeholder system globalization has created.
It also overlooks the fact that innovation
can not only improve and accelerate asustainable transition, but also maintainresponsible growth.
SD : Indeed, the climate emergency could
become an economic emergency if we
don’t seize the opportunity to reshape
our activities more sustainably. Thereis an urgency to innovate — innovationis needed to transform and expedite
the path to decarbonization. We must
increase investment in ecopreneurs andnature, research and development, andinfrastructure, to incubate and scale newtechnologies and solutions.

6

Upcoming legislation and rules in the U.S.
such as the SEC’s climate disclosures and theInflation Reduction Act, and the EU’s Green
Deal Industrial Plan are also poised to help
guide companies to align financial goals
with sustainability initiatives.
Isn’t the climate emergency a fundamental
opportunity for companies, insofar as they
are forced to reinvent themselves?
SD Absolutely, and one of the mostpowerful forces in business is the bottomline. If management loses track of it,or deprioritizes the factors that leadto success, trouble is around the bend.
The good news is that sustainability is
becoming more core to essential bottom-linefunctions like marketing, sales, procurement,
and other key business operations.
The logic here is straightforward: Cutting
down on expensive transportation fuel costs,
building or renting more efficient officeBusinesses are rising to the challenge of the climate emergency

spaces, and decarbonizing supply chains,
all reduce traditional — and sometimes
enormous — costs. Whether doing
so in the name of sustainability or anotherobjective, these traits are simply goodfor business. Take American Electric Power,
they recently reported saving US$12 billion
in cost - just by reducing their absoluteemissions.
CG Exactly. We cannot deny thatbusinesses have the potential to benefit
from sustainable practices, as well as
facing the challenges and costs in tacklingthe complexities of sustainability.
In fact, it’s been found that frontrunners
in sustainable transformation have alreadyobserved a 9% higher net profit margincompared to the average.

and we ensure we operationalize the value inevery area of the business — from the board
level to every employee and partnering
deeply across key functions like purchasing
and real estate.

SD That’s the reason why companies mustembed climate action in the core of theirbusiness. At Salesforce, we establishedsustainability as a core company value3,

We continually look for ways to bringsolutions to the table and innovate our own
carbon emissions reporting, such as how
we can we improve our carbon accounting

7

process to deliver faster, better, and moreaccurate data as how we can we improve
our carbon accounting process to deliver
faster, better, and more accurate data?
Would you say that a company that has
not initiated its sustainable transition
is “at risk”? From the point of viewof its corporate image or (re)financing
for example?
CG Given the long-term commitments fromthe Paris Agreement, I think a company
with a weak sustainable roadmap could be
at risk over the next few years, particularly
if their competitors have already achieved
sustainable and cost-effective practices,because they’ve anticipated the introductionof increasingly restrictive regulations.
So, it comes as a surprise, particularly given
the 2022 energy crisis, that our report notedthat 28% of executives indicated that theircompanies were reducing their investments
in sustainability4.

Businesses are rising to the challenge of the climate emergency

This shows a clear gap between short-term
preoccupations and the long-term risks ofclimate change, which have been estimatedto cost in total US $178 trillion in the next
50 years5.
SD And yet, consumers, investors,
employees, and regulators today expect
companies to make climate pledges, before
they buy or invest. And business leaders
are feeling the heat. Studies indicate thatthe majority of CEOs feel pressureto increasetransparency across their environmental,social and governance (ESG) initiatives6.
We believe that accountability throughtransparent reporting and measuring
progress are vital to help organizations
achieve their sustainability goals
and communicate their impact to theirstakeholders. In 2021, we published
our Climate Action Plan7 to clearly outline
our journey to net zero and provide a
blueprint for others to accelerate theirs.

8‘‘At Salesforce,
we like tothink ofevolution as
innovation inslow motion’’
Businesses are rising to the challenge of the climate emergency

Does sustainability depend on masteringtime? How can companies, economic agentsand citizens regain control of time?
SD Sustainability depends on a world inbalance and that includes time — healthy
ecosystems mean healthy and thriving
humans. There is so much we can learn fromnature and its intrinsic pace. At Salesforce,
we like to think of evolution as innovationin slow motion. In nature, problems are
solved with endless patience and ingenuity.
In business and society, innovation is often
impatient, challenges are pressing, andchange is the only constant. In the end,
you can only control your own actions,and your values as your north starto guide your decisions. It’s best to embracea beginner’s mindset - to stay nimble
and responsive to the current moment.

and personal levels. The control over timeis clearly related to prioritization. We need toplace sustainability as a core priority, and thiscertainly is still a challenge, when we see that,for instance, only one in five executives see
the sustainability business case as clear8.
At an individual level, we also need to place
the value that is embedded in sustainability
above that of speed. Immediate gratification
is not always related to, say, the qualityand durability of a product; on the contrary.
Look for instance at tourism; this industry isshifting its focus, including more and moredigital or purpose-driven experiences, where
sustainable solutions are integrated and can
influence consumers’ choices9. Slow tourism isdefinitely an opportunity to rethink the visitor
experience, but we need to find the rightbalance between the product promises andthe actual “delivery”.

CG Mastering time is a very complex question
as ultimately it boils down to structural changes
in our own practices, at both institutional

This is why I think it is important to empowerstakeholders with both information and choice.
Whether it is new options for consumers

9

to meet their immediate expectations moresustainably, or new solutions for companies
to achieve their objectives at different speeds
while still considering their sustainable goals.
What role can technology play in thisgeneralized reset? Do you share the ideathat technology is a small part of the
problem and a large part of the solution?
CG I would say that tech is a doublesided coin; IT represents the third mostpolluting “country” when aggregated.
But it also has the great power to accelerate
sustainability solutions and scale them up
to the required level, so that we can meet
our long-term commitments. I would
even say that, beyond the idea of techno
solutionism, technology bridges the gap
between the short- and long-terms actions,by providing very quick solutions.
SD Absolutely, technology can play a criticalrole to help us act faster and smarter.

Businesses are rising to the challenge of the climate emergency

We’re at an inflection point in the climate crisis
where we need “all of the above” solutions
at the speed and scale that the planet will
notice. We need everyone to leverage theirsuperpowers or core competencies to tackle
climate change. Our superpower is ourtechnology.
CG The transition to a low carbon economy
is as big as the Industrial Revolution, but weneed to deliver it at the pace of the Digital
Revolution, and climate technologies willplay a crucial role. From green hydrogen,to batteries, or carbon capture, usage, andstorage (CCUS), most businesses will needto integrate such innovations to decarbonize
and reduce their environmental impact10.
And if hardware technologies are key forsustainability transformation, the collection
and analysis of big data, generating moreaccurate predictive insights, is also helping
to design more efficient roadmaps.
We’ve found that 53% of organizations have‘‘
Climatetechnologies
will playa crucial role’’10

experienced faster progress towards their
net zero goals by embedding emissions
data in decision-making11.
SD And our own research12 has revealed
that only 17% of business leaders areusing data to help guide their climate
targets. Other studies have revealed thatthe vast majority of companies still use
spreadsheets to manually enter and tracksome or all of their carbon emissions data.
We’re also proud that earlier this year
Salesforce became one of the first global
companies to launch a Nature Positive
Strategy13. For Salesforce, incorporating
nature into our decision-making is not
only about managing risks and costs,
but also about value creation, innovation,and collaboration. We’re excited to bring
the full power of Salesforce to ourcustomers, partners, and ecopreneurs
so they too can be part of shaping a net
zero, nature positive future.

Businesses are rising to the challenge of the climate emergency

We are also a founding sponsor of UpLink14,
an open-source, digital crowd-engagement
platform, to connect ecopreneurs aroundthe world as they develop the next generationof climate solutions. Ecopreneurs are launchinginnovative ideas to protect the planet and drive
climate impact locally, and at scale. Businessleaders need to invest in and empower them.
CG With the rise of IoT, the quantity of data
to process is unprecedented, and the numberof solutions too. AI and Cloud are playing
undoubtedly a core and critical rolein this race towards a more sustainable
future. At Capgemini, we are becoming atrusted integrator of climate technologies.
SD Together, we can leverage the powerof technology to accelerate our sustainabletransition and envision in the long-term amore equitable and sustainable world.

1. www.news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1097362
2. capgemini.com/insights/research-library/sustainability-trends/
3. Salesforce: sustainability as a core value
4. www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/investment-trends/
5. www.deloitte.com/global/en/about/press-room/deloitte-researchreveals-inaction-on-climate-change-could-cost-the-world-economy-usdollar-178-trillion-by-2070.html
6. www.assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/us/pdf/2022/08/
ceo-outlook-report.pdf
7. www.salesforce.com/company/sustainability/
8. www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/sustainability-trends/
9. www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/future-sight-sustainable-travel-is-beating-new-paths/
10. www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/perspectives-from-capgemini-cyril-garcia-and-florent-andrillon/
11. www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/data-for-net-zero/
12. www.salesforce.com/news/stories/data-skills-research/
13. www.salesforce.com/news/stories/nature-crisis/
14. www.uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/

11

A time for humans,or for nature:is there a crisis ofdesynchronization?
The consumer frenzy of the last seventy years has
disrupted our relationship with time, and we no longer
understand the limits of natural resources. In essence,
humans are going too fast for the planet. We need tore-synchronize our development with that of the planet.

A time for humans, or for nature: is there a crisis of desynchronization?

12

S

ince the 1950s, the promise ofgaining more time, accompaniedby the economic growth and massconsumption of firstly the OECD
countries, followed by Asia in particular,
has become an advertising selling point,in favor of “progress”. Household robots,
3-in-1 beauty products, TV dinners, etc.,
all these products seek to make our lives
easier by saving us a few precious minutes
every day.
But, today, the way in which the consumer
experiences time - while in the process of
consuming - also comes into play. Time asa subjective feeling is now an integral partof marketing strategies, with brands seeking
to satisfy consumers who are increasingly
conscious of how they manage their time assets.

In our “fast”, hyperconnected societies,
where purchasing decisions are often madein just a few seconds, everything is designed
to enable you to buy and consume as
quickly and easily as possible. Strawberries in
winter, supermarkets open in the evenings,
on-demand video - the concept of frustration
is gradually becoming foreign to us. We wanteverything, right now.
Whether it’s goods for consumption, orservices to experience, immediacy seems tobe the ultimate goal; the holy grail that needs
to be achieved to please consumers who areincreasingly in a hurry. Food delivery in 15
minutes, walk-in beauty salons, glasses readywhile you wait - the relationship between
quality and price seems to be giving way tothe relationship between time and price.

A time for humans, or for nature: is there a crisis of desynchronization?

Bought quickly; thrown away quickly.
As payment methods continue to getquicker and more streamlined, they areplaying an important role in facilitatingthese instantaneous purchasing
experiences. We can now pay in just a
second, with a simple click online, or byplacing our debit card on a contactless
terminal or flashing a QR code with a phone.

13

Logistics is also at the heart of this acceleration.
Haulage companies are the subject ofsignificant innovations in delivering to ourhomes or place of work ever faster. In justa few years, we have seen the evolutionof the promise of “fast delivery”, reduced
from 48 hours to 24 hours, to as little as
1 hour. Estimated at US $263 billion in 2020,
the express delivery market could reach US$484 billion in 203015. This evolution has been
particularly fueled by GenZ, who are willingto pay an additional 5% of the value of theirorder to get a product within 2 hours16.
This is leading to a growing lack of investment
in items - assets, products and things on the part of the consumer. Everything canbe thrown away; everything is replaceable.
It is often quicker, and even cheaper,to buy a new item than to have it repaired.
“In terms of repair, there are still many
barriers for the consumer,» explains Anicia
Jaegler, a senior professor of Sustainable
Supply Chains at Kedge Business School.

A time for humans, or for nature: is there a crisis of desynchronization?

“These barriers are both technical (finding a
repair center, being able to take the item to it)
and psychological (will the repair be reliable?
given the cost, would it not be better to buy a
new item?)”.
“Fast fashion” is emblematic of this frenetic
consumption; for many, as soon as a pieceof clothing is bought and worn once or
twice, it is abandoned, already out of dateas the next new trend emerges. Somebrands revamp their collections several
times a month. We are therefore now
buying 60% more clothes than we did in2000 - clothes which we wear for half as long17.

14

A dictatorship of
the instantaneous
While ancient civilizations lived by anestablished rhythm– alternating between
day and night, the cycle of the seasons,the reproduction of plants and animals,
the liturgical calendar – we seem tohave lost this measurement of time,
as a consequence of this acceleration.
Paul Virilio, an architect and philosopher,observed a major desynchronization
between the tempo of living and thatof technology. “Ancient societies were
attuned to logical rhythms. Today, we
have entered in an arrhythmic society,where everything relies in the snapshot18.”
Real-time communications, continuous
news flows, lean economics: becauseof technological advances, we can havethe feeling that we are living undera dictatorship of the instantaneous.
In effect, urgency imposes itself uponus, therefore destroying our relationshipwith time: it is the reign of the shortterm, of the deadline.
This culture of immediacy deprives usof our decision-making power, making
it ever more difficult to distinguishbetween what is essential from what
is secondary; in other words what is truly
urgent. Once limited to a few specificareas – medical emergencies, firefighting,natural disasters and even warfare– urgency is now becoming the newstandard of time in our societies.

A time for humans, or for nature: is there a crisis of desynchronization?

A desynchronization crisis
For Hartmut Rosa, philosopher andsociologist, this acceleration constitutes
a time regime that is characteristic of our “latemodernity19” . However, this new time frame
is leading to a harmful desynchronization; ouractivity is depleting natural resources fasterthan they can renew themselves. Also, we arethrowing away products, as waste, at a ratethat is too fast to allow nature to decompose
it and recycle it. In summary, our ecologicalfootprint is reaching new heights.
“All the current major crises”, Rosa summarizes,“can be described as desynchronization crises.
Society has become too fast-paced for nature’s
own rhythm and processes. Let’s take theexample of tree felling. Beavers have been
felling trees for thousands of years. But humans
are felling them so quickly that the forest
doesn’t have time to grow back20.” The samegoes for a variety of our activities.

15‘‘ All the current major
crises can be described as
desynchronization crises ’’Beyond living things, this observation also
applies to the planet itself. We now knowthat the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and thatits geological resources are becoming more
and more scarce. Unthinkably, somethingthat is as ordinary as sand is a commoditythat is disappearing. Forty billion tons areused each year, the majority of which is used
to make concrete. This could be viewed as
unbridled consumption of a resource thattook the Earth tens of thousands of years

to produce and is now being replaced ata much slower rate. This surpassing of theplanet’s limits has given its name to the firstgeological era that bears the trace of humanactivity: the Anthropocene.
We are therefore living in the awarenessof a double present: that of our human
immediacy, and that of geological time,
which by contrast is immeasurably long.
“We humans are more and more entangled

A time for humans, or for nature: is there a crisis of desynchronization?

in long-term horizons in relation to timeframes”, summarizes historian Dipesh
Chakrabarty.
“Through their activity, human beings
have the capacity to modify the climate forthe next hundred thousand years. That is
a time interval which is extremely difficult
to consider. When it comes to petrol reserves,companies only consider the next two
hundred years, at most21”.

16

Re-establishing ourselves over time
How can we re-establish our human activity
in cycles that respect the planet’s cycles?
How can we learn to ensure that the rhythmsof our societies work together with nature’s
long-time frames?
“Putting in place sustainable supply
chains takes time”, warns Anicia Jaegler.
“We need to start by taking an inventoryof the current situation, in order to see where
the points for improvement are. Then, we needto develop products that take account of thesescarcities, but also change the mentality of all
the actors in the chain, from manufacturers
to end consumers”. It is difficult to find acommon tempo. “As supply chains get longer,
all the actors will not necessarily have the same
degree of maturity in terms of sustainability”.
This long-term cooperation and sharedvision are, however, essential conditions
for the implementation of an approachthat is truly sustainable.

15. ALLIED MARKET RESEARCH. Express Delivery Market by Application, End
Use and Destination: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030, July 2021, 260 pages.
16. CAPGEMINI RESEARCH INSTITUTE. What matters to today’s
consumer, January 2023.
17. UNITED NATION ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM. “Wasted: Fast fashion
is fueling our ecological crisis” Campaign, online, 2022.
18. www.philomag.com/articles/paul-virilio-ce-qui-nous-menace-cest-lacceleration
19. HARTMUT (R.). Accélération. Une critique sociale du temps [Acceleration: asocial critique of time], coll. « Théorie critique [Critical Theory] », La Découverte,
Paris, 2010 (translated into German by Didier Renault).
20. ARTE FRANCE. « Que perdons-nous à gagner du temps ? »[“What are we losing by saving time”], Les idées larges [Major ideas], 2022.
21. CHAKRABARTY (D.). « L’humanité est devenue une force géophysique comparable à l’astéroïde qui a anéanti les dinosaures [Humanity has become a geophysicalforce comparable to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs] », interview for
Philosophie Magazine [Philosophy Magazine], published on May 20, 2022.

A time for humans, or for nature: is there a crisis of desynchronization?

17

Use Case: TOWTWind power:
making maritime
transport
environmentallyfriendlyWith its sailing cargoships, the maritime shipping
company TOWT is aiming to
reduce the carbon emissionsof maritime transport by
90%, because shipping goods
around the world represents
one of the main cogs in themachinery of globalization.

As a cornerstone of ourglobalized economy, themaritime transport industry
represents 70% of all goods
trading worldwide22. Maritime
freight is renowned for being“greener” than air transport,
but still constitutes a significant
source of pollution. It currently
represents 3% of greenhousegas emissions, and accounts
for 40% of the CO2 emissions
attributed to transportation23.
So, what was the solution
devised by Guillaume Le Grandand Diana Mesa, co-founders of
TOWT, in 2011? A high-capacity
ship powered by…wind.
Both traditional and disruptive
This surprising solution
represents a real technicalchallenge. Here, Guillaume

Le Grand sees an alliance
between tradition and thefuture. “In reality, boats likethese have existed for five
thousand years. We have
simply innovated by exploiting
different materials, suchas a carbon mast, a Dacron
sail, etc., and invested inadvanced technology. For
several years now, we have
had high-performance routing
software, which allows winds
to be predicted with extreme
precision”. According to
Le Grand, this quote fromNietzsche best sums up
this return to common sense,
enriched by technology:“Fertilizing the past by creating
the future; that is the meaningof the present”.

18Use Case: TOWT

90% de-carbonized journeys
The TOWT sailing cargo ships
undertake almost their entire
journey using only wind power,
which leads to a decarbonation
rate of 90%23. Two ships are
currently under construction,with an order for 12 additional
ships. Armed with a portfolioof a hundred clients, TOWT
is number one in the world
for sailing transport and aims
to attract a significant portionof global maritime flow.

Slower…but fasterA traditional shipping container
certainly moves faster thana sailing cargo ship: 16-18
knots, compared with 10-11.
However, the success of the
TOWT ships lies in the factthat they can cross the Atlantic
in 17 days, compared withshipping containers, which takearound 30 days. This is because
traditional cargo ships needto make additional stops
and also, they are subject
to the constant congestionof ports. This contrasts witha typical TOWT crossing.
“Our ships do not experience port
congestion, and because they aresailing ships, they are entitledto special treatment”, explains
Le Grand. In this way, we cansee that, as exemplified in thefable The Tortoise and the Hare,“it is of no use running; to set out
betimes is the main point”.
22. ITF (2021), ITF Transport Outlook 2021, OECD
Publishing, Paris.
23. ITF (2021), ITF Transport Outlook 2021, OECD
Publishing, Paris.
24. Per ton and per kilometer, compared to the average
ship on the La Havre – Guadeloupe route (230 m long,
2750 TEU [Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit])

19

Can techhelp accelerate
sustainable
development?
Technology plays a dual role in our quest for amore sustainable world. It is a factor that exacerbates
the loss of time management and, as an industry,it has an ever-increasing carbon footprint. However,
it is also the purveyor of solutions that can help us
achieve our sustainability objectives more quickly,
and with greater certainty.

Can tech help accelerate sustainable development?

20

T

echnology plays a dual role in ourquest for a more sustainable world.
It is a factor that exacerbates theloss of time management and, as
an industry, it has an ever-increasing carbon
footprint. However, it is also the purveyor
of solutions that can help us achieve oursustainability objectives more quickly, andwith greater certainty.

Nowadays, it is difficult to imagine a world
without technology. It’s omnipresent in ourlives, and on a planetary level, it has led to the
production of 34 billion pieces of equipment
for 4.1 billion users25. And while it saves us
precious hours every day, at the same time,
technology swallows up our time.
Firstly, this paradox is linked to the levellingup that technology enables. Certainly,
sending an email is faster than writing a
letter and going to post it, but where once
we wrote just two letters, now the average
office worker sends out 40 work-related

Can tech help accelerate sustainable development?

emails, and receives 90 of them each day,cancelling out the time saved.
In addition, we know that the social media
giants are engaged in a relentless battle forour attention, and, in the process, they are
re-shaping our relationship with time. “Whenyou pull out your phone and they design how
this works or what’s on the feed, it’s scheduling
little blocks of time in our minds”, explains
Tristan Harris, a former ethicist at Google,
now a whistleblower26.
“If you see a notification, it schedules you
to have thoughts that maybe you didn’t
intend to have. If you swipe over that
notification, it schedules you into spending
a little bit of time getting sucked into
something that maybe you didn’t intend
to get sucked into”. Endless newsfeeds,
targeted advertising, videos, online games;
if we don’t know which of the giants will
win the attention battle, we’re alreadycertain who will be the ones that will lose.

21

The environmental cost of tech
In addition to stealing time, tech is also
guilty of pollution: its omnipresence in
our lives has an environmental cost. Today,
digital technology represents 3-4% of theworld’s greenhouse gas emissions. If techwere a country, it would have two to threetimes the ecological footprint of France27.
The costliest aspect of tech, in terms of theenvironment, is equipment manufacture,
followed by the electrical consumptionof the equipment, and then the electricalconsumption of the network. These impacts
are destined to increase significantly,
particularly with the expansion of smart
products. The International Data Corporation
estimates that, by 2025, we will be using
more than 55 billion smart objects (IoT),
which will generate almost 80ZB (zettabytes)of data28– or 80,000 billion bytes.

Can tech help accelerate sustainable development?

Rethinking our usage
If the issue is about finding a rhythm
that is viable and sustainable for our manysocieties, tech is undeniably an integral
part of the problem. Firstly, as individual,
we obviously need to rethink our use of tech.
Some voices are amplifying this viewpoint,
arguing in favor of low-tech. This approachconsists of becoming much more awareof our use of tech, taking the issue more
seriously, seeking out recyclable materials,

and more sustainable devices, while also
adopting a logic of discernment in its use.
Other voices are urging us to recover our“time well spent”, which is the name of
the movement launched by Tristan Harris.
The idea is not to renounce the use of thesmartphone, but to look at it less often, while
making a conscious decision to look at it (rather
than it being a reflex action) and being much
more aware of what we are doing.

22

‘‘
Tech
steals time,
but it can also
give us thesolutions’’
Can tech help accelerate sustainable development?

Tristan Harris blew the whistle in 2017
and, rather remarkably, in the wake of this,
Google, Facebook (now Meta) and Appledeveloped tools to allow users to “track”
the time spent on a device, enabling them
to be more mindful of their usage. Tech steals
time, but it can also give us the solutions
to recovering it.
An accelerating factor in achieving
sustainable objectives
On a collective level, tech gives us themeans to achieve ambitious goals related
to sustainability more easily, or more quickly.
Thanks to its potential for more accurate
modelling and long-term forecasting,it can help shape more informed strategic
decisions, meaning that tech can constitutean accelerating factor in the transition
to a more sustainable life.

the long term. But who will still be there in
2050 to verify that they have honored theircommitments? For this reason, it is necessary
to back up these long-term visions withspecific short-term objectives.
By adopting a systemic approach totransformation, in which technology and data
use play an essential role, we can design
innovative technologies and sustainableobjectives together. In this way, data analysis
allows a company to visualize its carbon
footprint so that it can optimize its practices.

However, for both companies andgovernments, promises of sustainability
are, by their very nature, directed towards

23

In addition, in terms of the planet, open
data can be an essential asset in monitoring
the populations of endangered species.
One clear example is the Elephant Listening
Project29. Thanks to its 50 listening units
covering 1,250 km² in the Congo and theacoustic science data collected, the project
allows environmental NGOs to monitor the
movements of elephants, In the same way,
to help protect endangered sharks, the NGO
Ocearch30 collects data from the oceans andpublishes them in real time on their website,enabling researchers to understand shark
movements better31.
25. GREENIT.FR, BORDAGE (F.). Étude : Empreinte environnementale du numériquemondial [Study: The ecological footprint of the digital world], October 2019.
26. HARRIS (T.). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds
every day, TED Talk, made available online on July 28, 2017.
27. GREENIT.FR, BORDAGE (F.). Étude : Empreinte environnementale du numériquemondial [Study: The ecological footprint of the digital world], October 2019.
28. IDC BLOG. Future of Industry Ecosystems: Shared Data and Insights,
January 6, 2021 (online).
29. www.elephantlisteningproject.org
30. www.ocearch.org/tracker
31. See no. 1 in our series ReThink: Tech and the Living World.

Can tech help accelerate sustainable development?

24Use Case: Peugeot Sport Hypercar

Peugeot
Sport:
accelerating
electrification

warming, such as legislation
to ban the sale of combustion
engine cars in the EU from 2035, the car industry needs
to substantially rethink
its models. It also needs
to constantly innovate,
to imagine what sustainablemobility will look like –starting from tomorrow.

Faced with the climate
emergency and increasing
regulations, car manufacturers
are being forced to innovate
increasingly quickly. The 9x8
hybrid hypercar from Peugeot,
developed in collaboration with
Capgemini, is a laboratory initself - for the cars of the future.

In this race to innovate,automotive sport is a field
for advanced experimentation.
This is how Linda Jackson, CEOof Peugeot, sees it. “I’ve always
thought of motorsport as a bit
like a laboratory, where we candevelop creative innovations
and technology, try them out
on a race car, and then, of course,
they can be transferred to the end
customer in our production cars32.”

Subject to increasingly strict
standards to help fight global

From the racetrack to our roads
Revealed in July 2022 at the
FIA (Fédération Internationale
de l’Automobile) World
Endurance Championship(WEC), the Peugeot 9x8

hybrid hypercar serves as aspringboard for innovation,and for considering themobility of tomorrow. “Energy
transition is really importantfor Peugeot,” continues
Jackson. “And looking at it
through the lens of endurance
means that we can reallydemonstrate our excellencein terms of engineering, interms of hybridization, the link
between internal combustionand of course performance andelectrification”.

25Use Case: Peugeot Sport Hypercar

Jean-Marc Finot, Senior VP
of Stellantis Motorsportand Director of Peugeot
Sport, confirms this: today’sinnovations are destined
to become tomorrow’s norm.
“We are trialing a new voltage
at 900 volts, as traditionally wehave been working with 400
volts on the road-legal cars. So,
it’s a new field we are discoveringwith this car. It’s also aboutskills. The engineers who aredeveloping race cars, such as
the 9x8 hypercar, are the same as
those who work on mainstream
cars, so what they are learning
in motorsport and in racing is
also applied to our road-legalcars. We also have the samedevelopment tools for bothcars, so we have many fields andpossibilities to carry over what
is done in motorsport into what
our customers will find in their
Peugeot cars”.

AI in service of performance
The Peugeot 9x8 was
designed to win; nothing
was left to chance. In addition
to the software developedby Peugeot, the scientificcalculation methods,
algorithms, and artificial
intelligence were provided
by Capgemini as part of
the hypercar partnership

between the two companies.
The use of AI allows theperformance of the car to be
improved through multiple
simulations, but also underreal-world racing conditions.
32. PEUGEOT SPORT OFFICIAL. Introducing Peugeot 9X8- Reveal Hypercar, made available online on July 7, 2021.

26

Conclusion
Working towards a newhierarchy of rhythms?
Time for humans, for our societies, for economic
and social development? Time for nature and forthe planet? As we have shown in this white paper,
the rhythms of our lives and that of nature are now
out of synch. What must we do to resolve this issue?
The age of the Earth, and the length of time thatnatural resources take to renew themselves, shouldcause us to show some humility, even perhaps toslow down. However, it is difficult to imagine that
we would adopt the concept of degrowth unless
it was economically viable.
So, isn’t it the case that the solution lies in new
determinations of time? Somewhere between
a utopian degrowth and destructive overproductivity, it is up to us to invent a hierarchyof rhythms that enables human development

Time for sustainability

and economic growth to become sustainable once
again. No doubt, in our daily lives, we would bebetter off if we freed ourselves from this stateof permanent urgency: one-hour deliveries, urgent
emails, incessant notifications, etc. Extracting
ourselves from this regime could allow us to better
distinguish the essential from the secondaryand redefine our priorities.
This clearer vision would also help us make techan important ally in our approach to sustainability.
Modelling, previewing, forecasting: from now
on, exploring different medium- to long-term
scenarios will prove to be indispensable in making
appropriate decisions - without being blindedby false urgency.
We conclude with a comment attributed
to US President Dwight Eisenhower: “What is
important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent
is seldom important”.

27

References
Social Acceleration. A New Theory of Modernity.
In this essay, the philosopher and sociologist
Hartmut Rosa described modernity through thephenomenon of social acceleration – in transports
and communications, faster and more frequent socialchanges. Columbia University Press, 2015 (translated
by Jonathan Trejo-Mathys).
Ralentir ou périr. L’économie de la décroissance.
Can an economy flourish without growth? That is the bet
the economist Timothée Parrique makes, showing a path
towards a degrowth economy. Éditions du Seuil, 2022.
Le tic-tac de l’horloge climatique. Climate change
leads us to rethink our economic growth models.
The economist Christian de Perthuis suggests
introducing new regulations to better address
sustainability objectives and climate justice.
Éditions De Boeck Supérieur, 2019.
L’Âge des low tech. The engineer Philippe Bihouix isconvinced: green technologies are window dressing.
In this essay, he suggests another path to maintain

Time for sustainability

the living standards we acquired, while respecting
planetary boundaries – that of low tech.
Éditions du Seuil, 2014.
It’s possible, épisode 2. In this UN podcast, Patricia
Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change,
lists the priorities and actions to maintain the global
warming at under 1.5°C. Episode 2, February 25 2022.
Que perdons-nous à gagner du temps?
For the Franco-German TV Chanel Arte, philosopher
Hartmut Rosa reflects on his key idea of accelerationand shows how our modern pace is faster than ever.
Arte, Les idées larges series, « Que perdons-nous
à gagner du temps ? », 22 mn, 2022.
Environmental footprint of the digital world.
Led by the GreenIT, the French collective, thisstudy details the global environmental impactof IT and its evolution from 2010 to 2025.
Published in 2019 online.

28

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank everyone who supported and enriched this second
edition of ReThink by sharing their perspectives and expertise:Contributors

-

-

-

Anicia Jaegler, Full professor, Associate dean for Sustainability
and Inclusivity à la KEDGE Business School
Guillaume Legrand, co-founder and CEO of TOWT
Julie Ravillon, Global CSR and Sustainability Solution Engineer, Salesforce
Siobhan Jones, Global Alliances, Sustainability GTM & Strategy, Salesforce
Jacqueline Young, VP Group Strategic Initiatives & Partnerships, Capgemini
Jane Hommet, VP Global Salesforce Partner Executive, Capgemini.
Jacques Olivier Parisot, Area VP Net Zero Cloud, Salesforce
Noémie Lauer, Global Head Sustainable Financial Services, Capgemini
Sabrina Empis, Head of Salesforce Business Partner Europe, Capgemini
Anne Catherine Volkers, Head of Marketing and Communications Switzerland, Capgemini
Cyril Dairain, Regional Salesforce Practice Lead, Capgemini Switzerland SA

Time for sustainability

Solène Thomas, Copywriter and editorial consultant
Olivier Mongeau, Content Director, frog, part of Capgemini Invent
Sophie Baudry, Group Sustainability Accelerator Offering Lead, CapgeminiMarie-Neige Couriaut, Group Sustainability Accelerator Vice President, Capgemini
Emmanuel Lochon, Group Sustainability Solutions Marketing Lead, Capgemini
André Sammarcelli, Group Sustainability Marketing Project Manager, Capgemini
Clare Argent, Global Marketing Specialist

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