Every furnace, pump, and compressor in your facility is tested and verified for performance and energy use. So, the question is, why isn't your software?
We trust digital tools to deliver on their promises. These include smarter operations, faster efficiency gains, and lower emissions. But few companies track whether these outcomes actually happen. At the same time, digital tools consume significant energy that rarely gets full visibility. Data centres already account for 1.5 percent of global electricity use.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that demand could surpass 1,000TWh by 2026, roughly equivalent to Japan's total annual consumption. Some of this impact is captured under Scope 3 reporting. However, emissions from cloud platforms, artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, and industrial analytics remain hard to measure and are often underreported.Here's what's missing. If software is part of your digital transformation and sustainability strategy, it needs to be measured like one. It's time to start putting promises to the test.
Digital transformation has been sold on promises of efficiency and sustainability. But too often, companies measure neither the operational gains nor the emissions impact. Without tracking results, we're flying blind.
Vendors often highlight the handprint, which is the operational wins and emissions avoided through smarter scheduling, predictive maintenance, or digital twins. These tools can deliver real gains, from reducing asset downtime to eliminating costly reworks. Yet across the industry, many of these benefits remain unmeasured and unverified. As a result, they are often disconnected from most operational ROIs and carbon reports.
At the same time, the footprint—the energy consumed by data centres, AI processing, and compute-heavy analytics—rarely appears in sustainability reports. When you combine missing emissions and unverified efficiency claims, the industry faces a growing credibility gap.
In the US, that gap is under growing scrutiny. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s proposed climate disclosure rules are reshaping expectations for accountability. At the same time, investors and stakeholders are calling for greater transparency in ESG reporting. Across the industry, we're facing a collective challenge: to validate sustainability and efficiency claims with evidence. That call to action was echoed at Climate Week NYC, where business leaders and policymakers came together to push for better measurement and clearer progress tracking.
If digital tools are now central to net zero strategies, measurement must be considered in advance, not bolted on at the end. Before approving any new platform or software solution, procurement leaders, CIOs, and sustainability heads should be asking three questions:
Until leaders demand those answers, decisions about digital transformation and sustainability will continue to be made on potential, not performance. That has to change.
Demanding proof is only the first step. To close the credibility gap, sustainability measurement frameworks should be considered as critical as cost, speed, and functionality. This isn't about buying features. It's about choosing tools that deliver real, measurable outcomes in operational performance and sustainability impact.
That shift requires resetting expectations. Business leaders can no longer take vendor promises at face value. If a platform claims smarter operations, cost savings or sustainability gains, performance data should be provided during the procurement process, but buyers should also be open to sharing back their own measurable results after implementation.
For companies looking to operate more sustainability, third-party sources, like the Green Software Foundation, can provide helpful and industry-tested frameworks for standards to help meet sustainability goals. Additionally, companies can further embed sustainable best practices and outcomes into tech stacks but specifically choosing vendors with smarter, sustainable, software and hardware designs. This is an early step companies can take on their path to greener outputs, while ensuring innovation and collaboration are not hindered.
Software is no longer exempt from scrutiny. It's part of the performance and emissions story, and better design, means a better solution.
Industrial leaders can no longer afford to treat digital tools as delivering by default. Software consumes real energy, drives emissions, and makes big promises about efficiency and productivity. Until we make progress on measuring both the true costs and the delivered gains, we're working on assumptions, not evidence.
This is the moment business leaders must take control of the software narrative. Digital doesn't mean efficient or green, unless we make it so.
So, ask all providers where they are on the journey to accountability. Demand proof and be willing to be part of the roadmap that provides insights into sustainability tracking. Performance and sustainability aren't promises anymore—they're outcomes. And it’s time we measured what matters the most to move forward faster, together.
Lisa Wee has over 15 years of experience working on environmental and social issues for global companies having previously worked in multiple sustainability roles at Chevron and more recently having built up a sustainability programme at Under Armour. Lisa has a successful track record across all major areas of corporate sustainability.
