Whether it’s eating less meat, taking a vacation by car instead of plane, or simply separating plastic waste; most people are working in one way or another to help the environment a little. Yet people often fail to realize that technology also makes a huge impact.
Think of all the raw materials used in manufacturing or the energy needed to make the products. Think of all the energy required to keep data centers up and running and training AI. For example, it is estimated that by 2027 the AI sector is likely to consume 85 to 134 terawatt hours per year (Source: Bright). This is as much as what the whole of the Netherlands uses in a year. Another example: the ICT sector is responsible for about 1.8% to 2.8% of global greenhouse emissions. This is comparable to the emissions of the aviation industry (2.5%) (Source: Visma).
In short: enough reason to also be sustainable with your technology, and specifically your integrations. In fact, integrations of software and data can positively impact sustainability in several ways. While this may not be immediately obvious, they can play an important role in reducing energy consumption, optimizing processes, and minimizing waste.
Here are some concrete ways in which integrations contribute to sustainability and in which they can be improved to be even more sustainable.
Less data = less energy
Storing and processing data takes an enormous amount of energy, especially when it comes to large volumes. Every file, backup and copy somewhere in a cloud or data center consumes energy. And all those data centers together contribute significantly to global carbon emissions. Well-integrated software helps with this by storing only the data that is truly relevant, the rest is filtered out or shared between systems without getting stuck unnecessarily in multiple databases. The result? Less data, less storage, and therefore less energy.
This process becomes even more sustainable when we put everything in the cloud. Cloud providers are increasingly running on renewable energy and constantly optimizing their energy consumption. They also operate more efficiently than on-premise servers, making cloud-based work truly more sustainable. In fact, a cloud solution can be as much as 93% more energy efficient than on-premise (Source: Solimas). One of the many reasons why we love working with APIs in our integrations. This way, your data integration in the cloud can contribute nicely to a better planet without having to put in too much effort.
Optimizing processes through smart use of data
In the B2B world, logistics is a huge opportunity for sustainability. Whether you supply raw materials, distribute products or transport goods from one warehouse to another, every extra turn a truck makes is wasted time, money and CO₂ emissions. By connecting planning systems with logistics tools, companies can plot more efficient routes and combine deliveries intelligently. This not only saves mileage and fuel, but also reduces CO₂ emissions.
Integrations also make inventory management smarter. Combining data from sales, transportation and inventory software prevents half-empty trucks or unnecessary rush trips. It also streamlines collaboration in the supply chain, preventing duplicate transport or inefficient deliveries.
But it doesn’t stop with logistics; marketing and sales can also benefit from smart processes. When your marketing tools and CRM are well integrated, you avoid sending unnecessary e-mail campaigns to people who are not interested because of smart segmentation. This also ensures that you don’t consume unnecessary server capacity or energy for unnecessary emails.
The result? Lower costs, fewer emissions, and a more sustainable logistics process; profit for business and planet.
Sustainability data: from insight to impact
Collecting the right sustainability data creates a vicious cycle of improvement: more data and up-to-date insights lead to better choices, which in turn generate new and better data. Transparency in the quality and origin of data is crucial here, so that decisions are not just based on assumptions but on hard facts.
Integrations play a major role here. They ensure that data from different systems come together, giving you a complete picture of the sustainability impact in every part of the organization.
By having a good data policy that only encourages the use of relevant, reliable data, organizations can focus on tasks and processes with the greatest sustainability impact.
This creates a data-driven roadmap that identifies quick wins as well as supports long-term structural improvements. Thus, with the right data, sustainability becomes a real possibility for improvement.
Avoid replacing unnecessary parts and major risks
Another strong example is “predictive maintenance”. It may feel a bit like a hopeful future image, but through smart devices, the help of AI and the right data, you can better estimate when maintenance is needed. With the right integration of this, you can monitor the condition of machines and thus predict when maintenance is really needed. This way, you avoid replacing parts unnecessarily prematurely and save not only energy, but also materials.
Perhaps even more importantly, you also know when a part needs to be replaced urgently, before it causes damage to entire systems making maintenance unnecessarily large, resulting in even more waste.
Another bonus of smart integrations: energy management. By integrating IoT (Internet of Things) devices with software platforms, we can monitor devices in real time and, if possible, control them automatically. For example, we can ensure that all lights, computers and equipment in offices turn off as soon as the workday is over, or when they are not being used for a while anyway. This sounds simple, but the energy savings involved certainly add up.
What else can we improve?
While software integrations already make an excellent contribution to sustainability, there is always room for even greener improvements. And this has to do not only with the integrations themselves, but also with the data and software you use to do so. Some examples:
- Smarter integration codes: Not everything needs to be constantly synchronized. By being smart about integrations, for example updating data only when something really changes, energy consumption can be further reduced.
- AI for data reduction: Artificial intelligence can make the integration layer smarter by automatically determining which data is needed and which is not. The result? Less storage and therefore less energy consumption.
- Sustainable development: Green coding, or energy-friendly programming code, is gaining popularity. By making a conscious decision to do so, software development can become more sustainable and integrations can be even more energy efficient (Source: Duurzaam Publiceren).
Not just good for the wallet
Software integrations may be a technical tool, a way to be more efficient with your business processes, or simply a way to save time. But they are also a good way to embed a little more sustainability into your organization. By being smarter about data storage, optimizing workflows, making the best use of hardware, and being energy efficient, companies can significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Indeed, it’s not only a smart choice for the planet, but also for businesses themselves, with smarter processes and lower costs as a bonus.
In short, systems integration is not just a tech solution, but an environmental movement in a new guise.
