With environmental sustainability becoming increasingly critical, more IT pros need to understand how to get sign-off for enterprise technology projects that support it.
While some corporate support for sustainability is widespread, getting project approval usually requires a justification other than environmental impact. In other words, using sustainability as a technology project justification is almost never enough to get a project approved.
That's why it's important that CIOs, IT leaders and other stakeholders use other goals -- such as cost savings -- to gain approval.
Andover Intel gained real-life insight on ways CIOs and other leaders are getting those approvals through our internal research. Of 448 enterprise leaders who offered views on policy to Andover Intel in 2024, 408 had explicit sustainability policies, and 314 of respondents said that sustainability was a factor in IT project approval.
Here are some steps to consider based on that research.
Learn corporate ESG goals
IT leaders agree unanimously on one point: Sustainable IT approval starts with knowing what sustainability commitments and requirements your company has made. To do that, it helps to start with internal stakeholders who can offer guidance.
Leaders recommend turning to these internal sources for guidance:
The CFO for explicit business case guidance.
The public relations (PR) and investor relations (IR) groups to learn about public and financial-industry commitments.
The office of corporate counsel to get a summary of applicable government regulations.
Before submitting a project for approval, it's important to include any comment, commitment or requirement provided by all these sources on a project description.
In cases where environmental sustainability is a prime component of the justification, getting a sign-off by the appropriate stakeholders is a good idea.
Use financial project justifications
A sustainability-related IT project business case -- whether for a straightforward green IT project or for business tech used to create innovation -- will also have more success if it's based not just on lowering negative environmental impact but also on expected ROI.
Unless the project's IT sustainability goals are a response to a legal mandate, a project will have to meet the company's financial policies for approval. Of the 314 enterprises Andover Intel surveyed, a total of nine projects were reportedly approved with sustainability as the justification. Of these, seven were "close" to meeting company policies on ROI.
Sustainability payoffs might help an IT project get approval, but that justification is unlikely to carry much weight (except in the legal mandate case). Your job, then, is to find enough justification to boost the chances of approvals on the basis of non-sustainability-related ROI.
Finding other justifications for a sustainability-related IT project requires looking to the other benefits of such a project.
Most sustainability goals involve reducing energy usage or emissions that come from fossil fuel consumption to reduce negative environmental impacts. Since energy use also costs money, sustainability initiatives typically can also be expected to lower energy costs.
Sustainability programs could also target waste and waste disposal, pollution of water and damage to land. These may all be related to activities that are currently managed inefficiently. Technology projects that address these activities could reduce costs as well.
In other words, your primary goal in gaining sustainability approval is to identify process improvements that lower costs and are consistent with your company's sustainability targets.
Emission reduction or "carbon zero" is the most common sustainability target explicitly adopted internally or mandated by regulations. While electric vehicle use is often cited as the best strategy here, wholesale replacement of a fleet may be financially difficult even if comparable electric vehicles are available, which often they are not.
Yet even with existing vehicles, enterprise technology can offer improved fleet management. IT can help reduce vehicle fuel costs, emissions and service costs, even without the use of real-time IoT and edge computing.
Centralized IT projects that more efficiently dispatch and route fleet vehicles save an average of 29% in fuel costs, roughly the same in repairs/maintenance, 25% in insurance, and 18% in Capex, according to the Andover research. Emission reductions are comparable to fuel reductions. Adding edge computing to manage dispatching, routing, and loading and unloading increases these averages to 34%, 27% and 20% respectively. In both the centralized and edge computing examples, these savings were more than what was needed to get project approval. In these instances, materials and finished goods movement was more efficient, and the staff was more productive.
When CIOs or others are attempting to secure buy-in on the basis of sustainability as the primary project driver, it's essential to get enthusiastic buy-in from PR, IR groups and corporate counsel.
Looking to these kinds of improvements makes getting sustainability project approval far easier.
Energy savings not related to vehicle operations are almost certain to require real-time process automation and edge computing. Gas and oil for heating can be saved with smart facilities. An average savings of 19% was reported in this area, but savings varied from 9% to almost 60% and roughly a quarter of projects could not meet business ROI targets. However, a third of this group was able to get an exception granted because of the sustainability impact, so overall, 83% of projects were approved.
Savings in electrical power is often more difficult to link to a sustainability benefit because the environmental impact of power generation varies, and respondents reported a wider variation in the savings obtained through smart facilities. The average savings reported is 21%, but it varies from 4% to 68% depending on the measures taken in power saving in the past, the type of facility -- for example, office or manufacturing facility -- and the hours of operation.
You can see from these examples that sustainability goals related to the consumption of something, whether energy or even materials, can usually be met with projects that also generate real savings, and contribute to meeting corporate financial targets. To assure that these projects also deliver sustainability benefits, and to enlist their aid in using sustainability to boost a marginal business case, CIOs recommend liaising with PR, IR groups and corporate counsel to get project plan endorsement before sending it along for approval.
Add weight to sustainability justifications
Promoting an IT project on sustainability alone is very difficult without a regulatory driver.
For example, 302 of the 314 enterprise leaders said they'd had at least one temporary or permanent objection raised to a sustainable approach in an IT project.
When CIOs or others are attempting to secure buy-in on the basis of sustainability as the primary project driver, it's essential to get enthusiastic buy-in from PR, IR groups and corporate counsel. Ask PR and IR personnel to assist in developing a list of examples in their respective areas, competitors being the most powerful. Corporate counsel can advise on the progress of sustainability regulations. In particular, counsel can urge action ahead of imminent regulations, and that basis can be included in PR and to the financial community.
Even in these sustainability-driven instances, don't give up on making a business case. Environmental sustainability goals that also have potential to meet company ROI targets by even halfway have a five-times-greater chance of gaining approval. And almost every sustainability goal can create ROI at the business level. Get the two together, and your projects will have a much better chance of getting approval.
Tom Nolle is founder and principal analyst at Andover Intel, a consulting and analysis firm that looks at evolving technologies and applications first from the perspective of the buyer and the buyer's needs. By background, Nolle is a programmer, software architect, and manager of software and network products, and he has provided consulting services and technology analysis for decades.
