Gamma 20: The Future of Sustainability

Humanity is at a critical inflection point.

For too long, the fight against climate change has been led by individuals, whether that's Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg or British natural historian and author David Attenborough.

In the next 20 years, governments, businesses and the wider population will need to take up arms in this fight and do their part to ensure our planet's survival.

Sarah Kirton, Gamma's Group Sustainability Director, believes that the key to humanity's success lies in two aspects: education and the perseverance of new generations.

"Younger generations are almost spearheading and pushing that drive towards sustainability. Nowadays, knowledge is at our fingertips and information is available 24/7 - this has certainly contributed to shaping such an environmentally-conscious generation.

"This certainly wasn't the case when I started my career, and that's very clear when we look at the very little progress of the past 20 years."

Climate change and biodiversity

Sustainability is not a new concept. In 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first introduced the concept of 'global warming', predicting the effects of carbon dioxide on the planet's temperature.

Yet, progress in the past 126 years has been slow, mostly because the effect of climate change didn't feel tangible enough for people to care.

Until now. The inextricable link between climate change and biodiversity is evident, especially as it affects all species - humans included.

"In the next 20 years, I think the focus might start to shift slightly from simply talking about climate change to talking about biodiversity. Protecting our natural resources has become an increasingly hot topic in the last 12 months. We're all becoming a lot more conscious of it because we're now ultimately on the brink in terms of what we can do to tackle the issue and the timeframes remaining to do that effectively," explains Sarah.

"We've moved away from just trying to protect habitats and animals, now it's clearly about protecting ourselves. The numerous climate change-induced disasters of the past five to ten years have impacted a huge amount of people. As these phenomena increase, people will have to migrate because the areas in which they live will become more inhospitable and inhabitable."

Driving sustainability with new technologies

Sarah believes we all have a responsibility to build resilience against this with new policies, practices, but also technology, which has always been a big player in the sustainability field.

Solar panels and wind turbines have historically been at the centre of the fight against climate change, but next-generation technology, such as Unified Communications as a Service, is becoming more widely used to identify threats and overcome them.

"Our UCaaS products enable people to work remotely. They help people avoid flying and driving to meet face-to-face, facilitating high-quality remote meetings and conferences across the globe.

Employees want more

And if businesses still have any doubt about engaging in sustainability practices, Sarah suggests they look at their own workforce. The importance of considering sustainability practice as part of the employee experience cannot be underestimated if businesses are to attract and retain the best talent, she explains.

As a matter of fact, health Insurance company Bupa found that 64% of 18 to 22 years old consider it important for their employers to act on environmental issues, with a lack of action affecting the mental wellbeing of two in five (43%).

"There's certainly a 'people angle' to the way businesses approach sustainability. Those companies that don't act now will see employees leave their workforce and customers turn away. They'll both proactively choose to work elsewhere or choose products from companies that are more sustainable," continues Sarah.

"At Gamma, we're certainly seeing greater engagement on this topic from our own employees. We've also worked with schools and a lot of school-age students are really, really interested in green economy. They're interested in climate-relevant roles, which again were not around 20-30 years ago."

Gamma: the next 20 years of sustainability

Talking about Gamma, Sarah makes one thing clear - she believes that climate change is a fight that must be fought together, and one that she's hoping to tackle with the company's customers, partners, and suppliers.

"I'm endeavouring our next 20 years to be more than we've already done in terms of sustainability. We need to identify and work with our business colleagues to implement initiatives that could help us reduce our impact on the planet. Working more closely and collaboratively with our customers and suppliers will help us to share knowledge, to understand what they're doing and also demonstrate our good environmental practice, while learning from others."

Gamma has been a CarbonNeutral® certified company since 2006 when it started to offset carbon emissions by supporting projects around the world that either remove carbon from the atmosphere or prevent carbon from entering the atmosphere.

Twelve months ago, the company announced its intention to reach Net Zero by 2042, an ambitious, yet necessary move.

Sarah explains: "We've outlined a plan that requires us to reduce emissions across five, four-year periods. We have ideas of how we'll achieve this, and a detailed carbon reduction plan will be formed over the next 12 months. We'll then continue to measure and monitor our emissions, repeat the planning exercise and revisit those plans to make sure that they are achieving what we hoped.

"One thing that's already very clear is that a small team can't make it happen alone. We need everybody across the company to understand what we're trying to do and help us to identify the opportunities and mitigate any drawbacks. Achieving Net Zero won't be easy, but it's the only way forward if we want to preserve our planet."

Learn more about Gamma's ESG plans here.