IBM’s Chief Sustainability Officer on AI, Efficiency, and the Future of Sustainable Business

Artificial intelligence serves as a critical lever for corporate sustainability by optimizing energy efficiency across the entire technology stack, from hardware chips to cloud infrastructure and end-user applications. IBM Chief Sustainability Officer Christina Shim highlights how this "efficiency stack" approach enables significant operational improvements, such as reducing urban heat islands in the UAE and accelerating sustainable product development for companies like L'Oreal. Beyond current AI applications, quantum computing offers transformative potential for complex climate challenges like carbon sequestration and molecular analysis. Successfully leveraging these technologies requires moving sustainability out of isolated departments and embedding it directly into core business decision-making, including finance, legal, and product design. By prioritizing intentional, fit-for-purpose models and data-driven insights, organizations can achieve both environmental resilience and long-term business growth.