ESG Conference 2021

Responsible innovation: reconsidering emerging tech to meet ESG credentials

Chris explores the topic surrounding organisation leaders needing to reconsider how their use of emerging technology such as AI and autonomous systems are deployed to process personal data so that they can innovate responsibly, as it impacts their ESG credentials.

Digital is fundamentally about data. The Big Tech firms understood the power and value of data. Transformative technology that enables insights from data to be harnessed at scale has evolved to the point where they are accessible by organisations. This has driven digital transformations over the recent years, enabling established organisations to aspire to be digital-first organisations. Technology alone is not enough, hence studies have found that around 70% of digital transformations fail.

Equally, the ever-increasing reports of adverse outcomes from the use of AI and autonomous systems have demonstrated that organisations deploying these systems into the real world have not managed and mitigated their downside risks. Privacy-related issues have also manifested themselves in these outcomes.

Trading off the pace of innovation with the need to ensure that innovation is executed responsibly is a reflection of the organisation’s culture.