Source Feed: Cherelle Leong with The Other Side
Published: 2026-05-12 21:15:52
Content Type ID: 3
Sustainability used to be about doing good for the planet. Good ideas, good intentions, but in reality, it produced very little actual impact. Industries got caught up in jargon, arguing over best practices and measurement. Governments talked themselves in circles trying to get regulations in place. And while all of that was going on, businesses were accelerating growth, market share, and resource use.
Now sustainability efforts are so far behind, they’re no longer enough. Companies seem surprised that their box ticking hasn’t had much impact. Saying the business has put back as much as it extracted through mechanisms such as carbon offsets is problematic. It hasn’t slowed biodiversity loss, temperature increases, or land degradation.
That form of “sustainable business” is a sugar-coated myth showing up now on business balance sheets. Increased materials costs, increased operational risk, increased pricing competition. That little bit of greenwashing thought to do no harm is harming future business prospects.
And now it’s all things AI – as though it’s the magic bullet that will fix everything…
AI can speed up processes. It can scale them too. But if the processes are broken, if they’re continuing to harm communities and impact ecosystem services – that’s scaling disaster, not success. As for futureproofing by getting ahead with AI? Turns out it’s not all about tech. Unless it’s considered, measured and linked to values and positive impact, it’s not going to dig any business out of the next natural disaster.
What we don’t know and what we forget
Net zero is a term that is bandied about in climate circles as a target. Most businesses only have a vague understanding of what that means in real terms. There are discussions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate global warming. Targets named as a 45% reduction by 2030. The problem is that for anyone outside of the scientific community, it remains an abstract concept.
It’s similar for biodiversity loss. Children growing up in urban areas rarely see insects, birds and animals on a daily basis. They’re simply not around because the concrete cities we’ve built are not the ideal habitat for them. And so, normal life is without an awareness of nature or the intricate connections that make it thrive, and that provide the ecosystem services humans need to survive.
Science indicates that for each generation, there is less biodiversity, less insects, less birds, less marine life. Similarly, on the current trajectory, each generation will experience hotter temperatures as a norm. Yet without connecting the losses between generations we miss the full picture of what’s happening and how alarming it really is.
What’s not there, what we don’t see, becomes the new normal. Industries go on with business – believing that growth is necessary, resources are guaranteed, it’s just the price that’ll fluctuate. Scarcity is even seen as an economic opportunity rather than a risk, especially if you own what is scarce.
Meanwhile, risks get downplayed. We’ve had this information for decades, we’ve just believed it’ll never get that bad. Now it is, and businesses are waking up to the fact that we can’t AI ourselves out of this problem. Systems are flawed. We need a new measure of success before we add AI to the mix.
What to measure to deliver positive impact
Despite the intentions of business to do good, profitability remains the yard stick for business success. Equally, despite its flaws, GDP remains the measure of economic success. Yet neither of these measures have delivered what we actually need – sustainable business and a sustainable quality of life.
We depend on the resources that nature provides and it’s becoming increasingly proven that businesses have underestimated the role that ecosystems and biodiversity play. Once absent, the protective role is exposed. The increase in catastrophic floods and wildfires in the past year illustrate this clearly.
If we’re going to measure anything, consider the value of net positive impact – counting ways businesses regenerate ecosystem services and reduce negative impacts, ensuring there’s a positive gain, not mitigating a status quo.
The AI dilemma – for good, be aware of the bad
Most AI applications rely on LLM’s which bring with them environmental impacts. The water and electricity usage for data centres is mind blowing. Not to mention the rare earth minerals used for building the computing power. It’s common knowledge, but often downplayed.
For the values driven business intent on making a positive impact, this poses a dilemma. AI is changing the pace and landscape of business. It has potential for good. It also has potential to add to the negative impacts. Avoiding or ignoring AI isn’t an option. The question is can specific use of AI tip the scales towards positive impact and how will this be measured? More importantly what could this look like?
An approach could be to collectively align values, while evaluating operations and seeking to understand the dynamics of local economies. This includes socio-economic complexities impacting the workforce. By evaluating business systems, one can identify bottlenecks, flaws and wastage, as well as key operational areas that could benefit from automation.
With those insights, AI can be brought into the mix to help impact businesses scale, become more efficient, and more effective. It isn’t the standard use case for AI because it’s not just about speed and scale, it’s about impact – positive impact.
What needs to be different?
Using AI to tip the scales towards positive impact is rooted in measurement. Applying AI in this way takes courage, and requires education, accountability and different business values. Not business for profit’s sake. Not market share at all costs. But focusing on delivering human-centred value where inputs and impact are measured and businesses work with nature instead of exploiting it.
We can build a world with different memories and greater connection with nature. It may seem that we only have a little to rebuild with, but we have all we need. The knowledge, the technology, the science. Collectively, how we apply and measure it will be the difference. It all hinges on how we define positive impact, and whether we can bring businesses to be values driven, collectively.
