Swiss Triple Impact (STI) created a sustainable digital collective to work challenges in the digital sector one year ago. This allowed us and all the STI partners to get to know many experts in this field via dedicated events. For each of these events, the goal was to showcase different aspects of sustainability.
In Zurich, Miro Dietiker, founder of MD Systems, talked about inclusion and Diversity and how accessibility is a sustainable and competitive advantage. Then, Andrew Melck, Director of Platform.sh presented his environmentally friendly hosting solutions. They have established Basic Measurements and Migrating Workloads to Reduce CO2 Footprint.
Three questions to Andrew Melck, Director of Platform.sh
Who are you and what is platform.sh?
Can we do that the other way around? Platform.sh is a PaaS (Platform as a Service) that simplifies and abstracts cloud architectures to accelerate development cycles and innovation while cutting lifetime application costs. And I’m Andrew Melck, Strategic Account Director at Platform.sh. I’m responsible for large customers and partners worldwide, working with developers, digital executives and business owners and helping them to get the most out of our transformative product.
What is the most important information you wanted to share during this event, and why?
Digital businesses have a significant carbon impact. We can measure that and do something about it right now! Moving workloads to cleaner regions is a low-effort task, with major effects of up to 80% less carbon produced per Kilowatt hour.
What are your next challenges?
Exciting ones! I’ll continue supporting customers moving workloads while spreading the word - and accompanying our product teams as they reduce the friction associated with this move.
From events to actions
To make a difference and actually bring the theory from the events into practice, Swiss Triple Impact has a program to make the transformation happen. Its goal is to integrate sustainability into the business models relying on the SDGs. For the challenges of the IT and Communications sector, they developed a specific pathway, where each company can develop their own sustainable business model. On top of that, they can exchange and create collective actions to tackle these challenges.
« There’s a lot to do in the digital sector regarding various aspects of sustainability. We have to reduce social barriers online and start to put inclusiveness and diversity on the agenda there. Our digital footprints grow a lot, and so do our CO2 emissions. Thinking about how we receive electricity and where we locate our servers is therefore crucial. A key takeaway was that, once again, we must consider the social and ecological perspectives of sustainability. For that, the SDGs are a great framework to deal with these different tasks and show us how to combine them », said Sarah Vaclavik, project manager at B Lab Switzerland and co-organiser of this event.
By organising these gatherings, Liip and Swiss Triple Impact aim to create a space for discussion and collaboration among Swiss businesses, thereby fostering the creation of synergies in the field of sustainability. These meetings not only enable the sharing of valuable knowledge, but also facilitate the forging of connections among key stakeholders in the sector, propelling sustainability initiatives to a higher level.
These events are specifically designed for the IT and Communications sector. We want to bring sustainable digital transformation to this sector and ensure all Swiss regions participate. That's why we plan to continue organising the events in our different offices across the country.