How To Use Technology To Enhance Sustainability In Ecommerce

Sustainability has never been for the faint of heart. It will only get harder if we don’t apply the same data strategies and AI investments that other CxOs are adopting.   AI has jumped from talking point to your colleagues' budget: 72% of organizations have implemented AI in at least one business function (McKinsey 2024).    When done right, CSOs’ use of AI can create a flywheel effect that integrates sustainability data into CxOs’ tools, what-if scenarios, and business cases —driving sustainable decision making.   To get there, they need to deploy AI solutions that automate resource-intensive tasks, like: 🔷 Sourcing: Screening suppliers for attributes that contribute to your KPIs and capture those to build towards annual goals. 🔷 Product claims: Transferring those attributes from suppliers to product claims, extracting data from sustainability declarations and analyzing images— reducing errors and ensuring supply chain compliance. 🔷 Carbon footprints: Expediting data collection by mapping emission factors— SAP's Sustainability Footprint Management customers report up to 80% reduction in manual effort and time. 🔷 Reporting: Aggregating those KPIs into auditable, public reports in minutes— freeing their team to focus on strategy and execution.   The tools exist and the data is there. Sustainability leaders need the same level of access to AI that their colleagues have to meet their mandate. #SAPSustainability #AI #Sustainability #BusinessAI

Global email usage alone generates as much CO2 as 7 million extra cars on the road. Here’s 7 (out of 29) UX tips to make your site's web performance better AND more sustainable. 1. Assess and research visitor needs. - Create user personas to represent your ideal customers and their goals. - Map user journeys to identify pain points and opportunities to streamline interactions. - Consider device constraints, connection speeds, language barriers, and accessibility. 2.Avoid unnecessary assets. - Use decorative elements only when they add value. - Reduce HTTP requests with fewer fonts. - Opt for CSS/SVG sprites for static images. - Saves energy in rendering, improves page load speed, & boosts conversions. 3.Take a more sustainable approach to media assets. - Assess your media - only use when they add value to the user experience. - Compress and format depending on visitor needs. - Implement lazy loading for data-heavy elements. - Reduces bandwidth usage and storage costs while improving user experience. 4.Incorporate performance testing. - Measure performance with each release cycle. - Identify and resolve code and infrastructure bottlenecks. - Write clean, efficient code to reduce resource usage. - Streamline data transfer to improve loading times. - Lowers energy consumption and hosting costs. 5.Provide useful notifications. - Justify and reduce non-essential notifications. - Give visitors control over messaging preferences. - Provide clear, helpful prompts and error messages. - Cuts down on data transfer and improves user engagement. - 6.Document and share project outputs. - Produce reusable, well-documented deliverables. - Ensure code is understandable and transferable. - Use formats that are easily accessible and editable. - Minimizes duplicate work and encourages collaboration — saving energy and development costs. 7.Avoid manipulative patterns. - Avoid dark patterns and deceptive design techniques, such as making it difficult and confusing to cancel a service or remove a pop-up. - This can include hiding buttons, forcing users to take unnecessary steps, and manipulative language. - Use ethical, clearly identified advertisements. - Avoid excessive data tracking and prioritize user consent. - Reduces user frustration (and wasted energy) while building long-term brand trust. Carbon emissions from digital products & services are a lot more than you think and tackling digital GHG emissions is a broad task — but sustainable UX practices are an easy way to benefit the planet and your business. --- ↻ Repost to share it with someone who might need it.

What if one of the biggest barriers to scaling a more circular business model wasn't the sustainable product, but the checkout process itself? For #PlasticFreeJuly, it's the perfect time to highlight how we at Google are helping partners like LUSH solve this exact challenge and make sustainability a core part of their customer experience. Lush's iconic "naked" (packaging-free) products are commendable, but they create a bottleneck at the checkout. How do you scan a bath bomb? The answer: You use AI. I'm proud that our Google Cloud AI, built with Gemini on the Vertex AI platform, is now powering Lush tills. An in-store camera instantly identifies any product, solving a major hurdle that came from their commitment to ditching packaging. The results are about more than just "going plastic free: - Lush has seen: 🟢 Dramatically shorter queues for customers. 🟢 A saving of 440,000 liters of water from fewer in-store demos. 🟢 Faster, more inclusive onboarding for employees. This is what it's all about: using innovation not just for its own sake, but to build a more sustainable and circular future for retail. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gkKEiEDg #Circularity #AIforGood #Sustainability #GoogleCloud #RetailTech #PlasticFreeJuly