The News: IBM acquires Envizi, a leading data and analytics provider for environmental performance management, adding to IBM’s portfolio of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) offerings to help organizations understand their impact on the environment. Read the full announcement on the IBM blog here.
IBM Acquires Envizi Adding to its Environmental, Social, and Governance Portfolio
Analyst Take: Over the last few years organizations have received an increase in pressure from consumers, shareholders, and regulators to improve sustainability measures. Corporate social responsibility and ESG initiatives are now top priorities for most businesses. But many still face roadblocks. The problem? While it’s easy to make pledges and promises to improve sustainability measures, it’s difficult for many organizations to prove that the sustainability initiatives are working due to too many disparate data sources.
That’s why IBM’s acquisition of Envizi makes sense. Envizi, an Australian startup, provides a single source of truth to help organizations understand emissions data across the full spectrum of their operations. It also provides sustainability reporting frameworks and easy to understand dashboards to monitor, analyze, and report on a variety of metrics to help organization achieve their sustainability goals.
Envizi’s AI-powered software will integrate with other properties in IBM’s ESG portfolio including IBM Maximo asset management solutions, IBM Sterling supply chain solutions, IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite, IBM Turbonomic, and Red Hat OpenShift capabilities.
IBM’s Focus on AI
In October during IBM’s investor briefing, Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna laid out IBM’s plans to focus more on AI and automation in the coming year. AI gives organizations a competitive advantage, so it’s no surprise that IBM would acquire an AI-driven software company to give companies an edge in sustainability reporting — an area of increasing importance.
Aside from providing AI software that can improve operational efficiencies for their customers, IBM is also using the Envizi software to reach its own sustainability goals such as net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Better Sustainability Reporting for the Future
With this acquisition, IBM is making moves to change how organizations report and prove their sustainability initiatives are working bringing a new level of accountability into the picture — something customers and shareholders, alike will appreciate. I believe this acquisition will pay dividends in the future for IBM’s customers and it will be interesting to watch to see how these organizations use the data they collect to make more informed decisions, drive more innovation, and create a more sustainable world in the process.
Good Equals Progress provides industry research and analysis on the topics of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). These columns are for educational purposes only and should not be considered in any way investment advice.
The original version of this article was first published on Futurum Research.
Image Credit: IBM
