Preface

It's hard to believe that only a few years have passed since I wrote the first edition of this book. In that time, the world has changed in ways both inspiring and unsettling. The impacts of climate change are unmistakable: the years 2023 and 2024 were the hottest ever recorded, with unprecedented wildfires across Canada, Europe, and the Mediterranean; severe droughts in the Horn of Africa; and historic floods displacing millions in Brazil and Southeast Asia. Despite record solar and wind deployment, CO²e levels reached a record 57.7 gigatonnes in 2024, still climbing when they must fall by half this decade to preserve a livable planet. Global e-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream, surpassing 60 million metric tonnes annually, even as new policies such as the EU Digital Product Passport and Right-to-Repair Directive aim to reverse the tide.

Yet, amid the anxiety, we've also witnessed remarkable courage, ingenuity, and purpose. In the span of three years, the global renewable electricity capacity has increased by 49%, and solar energy production has more than doubled. Over 77% of global GDP now falls under a national net-zero commitment. Sustainability has moved from the edge of corporate strategy to its core-driven not only by regulators and investors, but by employees, customers, and communities demanding integrity and action.

Yet for IT, progress remains uneven. Hundreds of companies have established sustainable IT programs, GreenOps practices, and responsible AI principles. But many organizations still lack accurate baselines for IT emissions, and most AI deployments overlook lifecycle energy and water impacts or fail to consider whether large language model AI is even necessary at all for the application.

Indeed, the explosion of AI is rapidly transforming how organizations operate, make decisions, and create value. As a lifelong technologist, I have been inspired by AI's potential to accelerate progress on some of the world's hardest problems-from decarbonizing supply chains and optimizing grids to designing sustainable materials and medicines. But I've also seen how quickly innovation can outpace our ability to govern it responsibly.

The corporate AI boom has fueled unprecedented investment in digital infrastructure, but also unprecedented energy demand. The International Energy Agency now projects that global data center electricity consumption could exceed 1,000 TWh annually by 2026, roughly equivalent to Japan's total power use. The same algorithms that help us discover cleaner fuels or monitor deforestation are also driving a surge in emissions from massive AI training clusters and water-cooled data centers. The lesson is clear: technology itself must become sustainable, or its promise will be undermined by its own footprint.

In my previous role as chief information officer at ASSA ABLOY, a manufacturer of physical and digital access products, I established a sustainable IT emissions baseline and our sustainable IT strategy. That's when the idea for this book was born, with the goal of guiding other technology leaders on similar journeys. I hoped to provide a practical framework explaining not just "why," but "what" and "how," with IT sustainability "plays" that readers may choose and adapt to their context.

Since publication of the first edition, I have taken a new role as chief technology officer at Kuehne+Nagel, the world's largest air and sea freight forwarder and one of the largest global third-party logistics companies. My motivation was the greater opportunity for sustainability transformation impact that such a large logistics company represented. There, I am privileged to lead a passionate group of IT professionals committed to sustainable digital transformation.

Over this same period, I have interacted with sustainability leaders across the world and seen the rise of a growing ecosystem of professionals who view IT not only as a driver of digital progress but as a catalyst for planetary stewardship. What strikes me most about these collaborations is the spirit of shared purpose. Chief technology officers, enterprise architects, and engineers who once competed on features or costs are now comparing carbon intensities, renewable power contracts, AI life cycle governance models, and e-waste recovery rates. These are conversations that would have been rare-or even uncomfortable-a few years ago. Now, they are becoming the language of modern IT leadership.

Part of this ecosystem development has been led by SustainableIT.org, a global nonprofit founded in 2022 by sustainability-focused IT executives. SustainableIT has been a tireless engine of awareness and education, peer advisory research, and real-world best practices. That is the reason I asked their research principal, Richard (Rick) Pastore, to co-author the second edition of the book. Rick brings decades of research, communications, and guidance on IT strategy and leadership, and has eagerly embraced our tech sustainability challenges. I'm grateful for all the work he has put into revising the book and leveraging his organization's latest assets to bring it up to date. This edition integrates new insights on AI governance and energy intensity; digital product lifecycle planning; sustainable enterprise architecture; and the ethical, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable IT.

It draws on the collective intelligence of a growing movement-leaders and practitioners across industries and continents who are proving that IT can be high-performing, cost-responsible, and planet-positive.

My own motivation has deepened as well over this period. I no longer think about sustainability only in terms of professional responsibility, but as an intergenerational one. My children, now in school and growing up in a world of climate anxiety and digital wonder, remind me daily that technology is both our inheritance and our legacy. The systems we build today will either burden or empower their generation. That realization keeps me grounded in both urgency and optimism.

As we move into the second half of this decade and close in on our urgent 2030 targets, the IT community is forming a shared understanding: sustainability is no longer a constraint-it is the next frontier of innovation. Today's CIOs, CTOs, and CDOs are not just enablers of business efficiency-they are architects of sustainable transformation. Technology is how humanity solves problems at scale-and sustainability is the defining problem of our time. Our challenge is to bring these forces together, with humility, discipline, and imagination.

Let this book's second edition serve as both a guide and a call to action-for every IT leader who chooses to lead with purpose, accountability, and hope.

Niklas Sundberg

Who this book is for

This book is for executive IT leaders such as CIOs, CDOs, and CTOs dedicated to influencing, inspiring, and engaging businesses, organizations, and individuals to reduce their carbon footprint through Sustainable IT practices. It is also a practical guide for IT leaders of any level with responsibility for IT sustainability transformation.

What this book covers

The second edition of Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders distills insights from more than 60 contributing IT practitioners and sustainability experts, explores 20 new case studies, and presents the perspectives of CTOs/CIOs, chief architects, chief sustainability officers, and CEOs from industries including finance, manufacturing, healthcare, high tech, transportation, utilities, and hospitality. Each chapter includes resources such as benchmarks, frameworks, and principles; vendor score sheets and a master services agreement; a business case template; award-winning use cases, and standardized metrics relevant to every IT impact area. An IT Sustainability Reference Model helps to frame topics chapter by chapter.

Part 1: Why Is Sustainable IT Important?

Chapter 1, Our Most Significant Challenge Ahead, addresses the basics of climate change and the breadth and depth that digitalization and hyperconnectivity have on our planet and society.

Chapter 2, Rise of Sustainable IT, defines sustainable IT and summarizes the main drivers for a sustainable IT agenda. It probes the three aspects of sustainability in IT, sustainability by IT, and IT for society. Finally, it lays out IT's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations.

Part 2: What Are Sustainable IT Practices?

Chapter 3, The Fundamental Building Blocks of a Sustainable IT Practice, is an introduction to the topics explored in depth in Part 2 of the book, which focuses on the main ingredients of a sustainable IT agenda. These include energy, emissions, AI, social impact, talent, metrics, and tech procurement.

Chapter 4, Responsible and Sustainable AI Governance, explores AI's ESG impacts, positive and negative, and provides AI lifecycle governance principles and frameworks for responsible and sustainable scaling.

Chapter 5, Social Sustainability: Accessibility, AI, and the Digital Divide, considers IT system inclusivity and accessibility, how to mitigate the social risks of AI systems, and ways that IT can directly shrink the digital divide.

Chapter 6, Data Centers and the Cloud, tackles the sustainability challenges of...