Hello, Hello. This is Smart Talks with IBM, a podcast from Pushkin Industries, I Heart Radio and IBM about what it means to look at today's most challenging problems in a new way. I'm Maltain Baba. In this episode, we're going to dive into sustainability and specifically how customers and businesses want to decrease their carbon footprint and verify that their efforts are accurately calculated. I'll be digging into this topic with Jason Kelly, General Manager IBM Strategic Partners. It's the data that's in the system. It's the data that's in our partner's capabilities such as SAP, that's from the source all the way to consumption. And where there's more data, which there always will be, there's more insight and there's more progress. You may remember Jason Kelly from his conversations with Nathan Strickland of Tech Stuff in earlier episodes of Smart Talks. Jason is working closely with IBM partners like SAP to think of creative solutions for businesses to measure and offset their environmental impact. I will also be speaking with Mark Rolfe, Senior Vice president, head of Strategic partners partner ecosystem success at SAP people who are making progress from a manufacturing perspective, and our applications and services from from SAP and IBM help make that much more transparent. Prior to his current role, Mark served as global vice president responsible for ecosystem Innovation and once worked as the global account director for IBM. Together, we'll discuss the ways businesses can work together and use technology like blockchain to create more sustainable operations with more certainty about their actual impact and footprint. That's you mentioned your partnership. I'm an outsider to your world. Naively, I would have thought, aren't you guys competitors? Why? What what's going on here? That I would have thought that you two would be at each other's throats, and instead you're you're talking, You're like your old friends. Can you talk a little bit about the role of these kinds of strategic partnerships. So there's a long heritage share of collaboration between the two companies. But but to your question, I think, you know, I think what the realization, at least in our industry is. You know, there's the the the amount of collaboration that needs to exist today. Everyone cannot do everything and you need to focus UM and so s a P. You know, just taking an example of IBM and s a P the collaboration of the biggest part of the collaboration from my perspective is having the ability to run our platform and our application and for specific industries. Like we've been talking about, STEP has a very good technology basis UM for for many industries of our twenty seven industries. But the special sauce comes in from companies like IBM that have the expertise from their services divisions around enhancing and invested class implementations of our technology in those industries. So bringing that know how, bringing that subject matter of expertise and making it very relevant from an industry perspective, and building on top of SAP platforms with that that expertise, it's a it's a huge piece of our business. We will never invest in that type of expertise. We rely on our ecosystem and in this example, IBM and and that's been the basis of of of the success we've had it well over fifty years now between the two organizations. What is that that collaboration look like. I mean, is there literally an office from both organizations where people go together and like we were talking about utilities, are is there a team made up of people from both organizations that are traveling together to see the customer answers. Yes, think of a couple of clients IBM and s a P sitting down around the table actively seeing how do we work with where you are to get to where you want to be and what are the best and best prioritized steps you can take to get there. Yeah. I think that the best way to explain at Malcolm is that you know, we have teams that come together and and look at what the market really needs, what our customers really asking for, and actually working together between IBM and s a P with customers to build solutions number one and then take them to market and go talk to the the larger set of customers in a particular industry or a particular region together. So we actually looked at the whole life cycle between how we innovate together and build new solutions with input from actual customers all the way through to scaling that in in in a global fashion. So it is a very collaborative setting that that we really have and I think that's part of what you know from a technology perspective, Many technology companies are really understand that the ecosystem is the real power out there, you know, working with partners, working and collaborating together to to really advanced goals, whether sustainability or other initiatives. Yeah, Jason, can you talk about how many partnerships in this in the sustainability world does IBM have. So we look across ours, we have up to uh twelve active partnerships across our strategic partners but that would be limiting just to look at our largest clients because within those there are other ecosystem players specific to where they are in the geography and by industry, and so we're only limited to the extent that we can be inclusive to that that that number of players in that ecosystem. So that's why it does demand an open type of platform that allows these players to come together, because you can't do it on one type of technology, you can't do it in one cloud. And this is where you know your your question about don't you compete, It's like, well, of course we do in times, there's things that we that but the opportunity for the tides to rise all boats is bigger than us fighting in what would be perceived as a zero sum game, because it's not. In fact, the the the challenges now, Malcolm are so complex that one company by itself can't solve that problem. So when you hear say, you know, yes, sustainability as a team sport, it's not just because it's a cool way to say it. It's the truth. It requires all of us. We wanted to talk to me about sustainability and I you know, it's a word that gets banded about a lot, and I wanted to start with the two of you telling me what is your definition of that word. I'll jump right in. And when I think of sustainability, I believe that is real trust, in transparency, in making sure that we as humans have a planet that's going to be there now and in the future, by employing methods that can be practiced by everyone in a way that is self sustaining. When I think of sustainability, I think of, you know, organizations trying to make a better place for the for the future generations of our planet. What I think about is how do we make it better now? How do we start progressing towards a better planet and making the world better. When I think of this, is our naive question. But when I think of that word, the first people who come to mind would be, you know, airlines, automakers, people who have obvious large carbon footprints, who are making things that are highly energy intensive that you know, you could we could all give the reasons. Tell me why tech companies such as yours also need to be as mindful of that. Well, I'll tell you, Malcolm. Your question started with you think of people, and then your example went straight to airlines, and I think in there is is part of what we see as important. Is it? It's a B two P type of operation business to people, where people all of us And so that's the first thought as we were trying to make sure that we're taking care of each other, and so if we think of people being the center, you know, we formalized our efforts at IBM in the seventies to say, look, we want to be forward thinking and environmental management for decades to come, and we have. And that's where we see the commitment being made. Is it look if we can do it together and not alone. And that's as I'm here with Mark, I'm proud to say we see it the same way with regards to an ecosystem, and it takes all of us working together because sustainability is truly a team sport. I think what we see from s a p from from our side, we we we are very focused on supporting transactions across most of you know, the enterprise business in the world. Of the world's transactions run through our systems. Those are transactions that support product, the manufacturing of product, and the rollout of product. UM. So if we think about it from that perspective, we're we are very interested in making sure that those manufacturing practices, the design practices around those products are efficient, are transparent, and are ethically progressive in the way that these companies are manufacturing or running their businesses. So so that from our perspective, it does tie back to people. But we take a step back and look at the products that are being manufactured or the services being offered to people and how we can be more transparent around that from a sustainability perspective. Can you give you an example mark of what you're talking about. Yeah, So, if we think about a manufacturing floor UM and all of the data that goes into designing a product, to actually building a product and then actually distributing a product s AP systems along with our partners like IBM, we put together applications and overall systems that monitor that data that allows the companies to build, manufacture, and distribute those systems. So we have visibility into cow companies are actually distributing, manufacturing these products. We can make that much more transparent. We can start to measure the progress they're making against certain sustainability goals and and start to to really drive a conversation around sustainability around a product or a an area. So I think that's key to what we see around whether it's circular economy in terms of understanding green house effect on manufacturing abilities of certain customers of ours, or if we look at overall you know, carbon neutrality goals, etcetera. People who are making progress from a manufacturing perspective, and our applications and services from from SAP and IBM help make that much more transparent. If I'm a a client, a customer of yours, and I'm interested in addressing this issue, one place I might look for guidance would be the kind of data that would come from your software. Is what you're saying, Yeah, if you if you think about the overall like value chain of of what we deal with in and from the customers. There's manufacturers, there's own consumers, etcetera. Where along that value chain can we impact you know, sustainable goals and drive towards more transparencies to improve upon those. So that's really what we're we're looking at from our perspective. Jason, can you talk a little bit about ibm S position in all of this. When does IBM as a company's are thinking seriously about this issue and how big of a transition is it in the priorities of the company. We've been doing this for decades with regards to making sure that we're focused on the environment, the returns that we get, our clients get, and working across that ecosystem. As I said, we formalized in the saying, look, this is a priority for our company, and we just announced our latest commitment, which is that zero greenhouse gas emissions by We did this just at the beginning of this year. So that's the commitment that we've recently made. But you called out something here that's key and Mark echoed it as this thought of data. It's the data that's in the system, It's the data that's in our partners capabilities such as S a P that's from the source all the way to consumption. And where there's more data, which there always will be, there's more insight and there's more progress. And if you think more data, more collaboration, there's even more insight which gets faster progress. And so our position in this is to say, look, can we create open platforms of innovation because and I'll borrow from you, Malcolm, that's where you know innovation comes in in desperate situations. From the David and Goliathe example is that you're desperate, so you reach out and you're saying, look, how can I you know, find that that innovation? And it's through this collaborative technology because also ultimately it is the consumer that is asking for this. We know this because consumers now you know other consumers were purpose driven before the pandemic and now that's fifty and their purpose driven mean companies with a purpose that are driving after things such as sustainability. M HM. Can you talk a little bit more on this in concrete terms? What does a focus on sustainability mean for IBM. You've said it's not a new focus, but is it fair to call it a renewed focus. I would I would say that's fair, Malcolm, and I would say that renewed focus in a new era of capability. And so one place we're spending a lot of time and effort, that's along with our partners of the SAP and Microsoft and others, where we're saying, let's invest in the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, as they pulled together many of our partners, and those are other other clients such is the Dolls, the Nestle Shells of the of the world who are also raising their hand in this renewed as you said, you know, sense of sustainability. And what's really key now is, Okay, if we're going to pay attention to carbon emissions and carbon foot how do we document that, how do we do that with trust and transparency in that ecosystem of value chain? It's not just that linear supply chain, but how do we account for all of that data in that value chain? And so companies like the Shells and and Exxons, the Dows, the b s S of the world are saying, how do I account for that with trust and transparency? And we're investing that with new technologies that are on the edge, such as AI or even blockchain that says, listen, how can I share data with trust? And this is where it comes in. If you can't trust the data, how can you make sure that we're accounting for carbon credits? How do you know those are real credits? How do you know those credits are accountable for IBM or for SAP. So I'm an airline, I want to buy carbon credits to upset my footprint UM, and the question arises, how can I be sure that I am accurately accounting for my own consumption? And i'm and the marketplace is correctly measuring the UM? What the offsite it looks like? How what, how it's priced, how whatever it is. What you're saying is someone has to do that kind of has to produce that data, verify that data, um exchange that data. And that's what that's what you guys are thinking about. Is that a fair at summary? That's that's exactly That's exactly it. I think that's a very important point. A lot of what what I hear out in the marketplaces, it's about goals, right, sustainability goals in the future. I think there's it needs to be a kind of a shift in mentality that we can do this now. We are doing this now, we have applications that are you know, tracking this data. You mentioned the airline industry. If you think about the airline industry and the supplier side of that, or the procurement side of that, companies need to start putting together procurement goals related to stain sustainability and have applications and systems that track progress against those procurement goals. They were able to mod or measure that progress. So that's that's happening today, and that will get much stronger, as Jason mentioned, when when you bring in smart technologies like AI and other technologies that will make that even more progressive. So it's it is happening today. So I would say goals are important, but we can actually start doing something today, which I think is even more important. Can you give me an example, concrete example. I'm interested instead of the nuts and bolts, so this is actually kind of fascinating question. Can you pick a kind of particularly either hard or interesting case study and tell me about what are some of the challenges from your end in providing this kind of data, coming up with it, verifying it, providing it well, I think from ourselves. Give one example, if you think about a utility company and their legacy way of you know, managing their suppliers versus where they need to be a very very much a siloed view from from providing information to it from suppliers, a closed system that does not allow much transparency or even accuracy, and what they're able to actually provide to measure a goal. There's nothing in place that has done that before, right, so now we're putting out applications that actually you know, take a look at those suppliers, understand where things are coming from, have they been ethically manufactured, you know, and be able to again to trace that through the value chain that that Jason and I have been talking about, and be able to understand every step of the way and be able to track that data and track that process throughout that entire value chain. And I think that's something very concrete especially and enables the purchasing teams um and the supplier is quite honestly to improve on efficiency and visibility around the procurement supply chain operations and serves the foundation for those procurement goals. So kind of it's a new way of driving transparency for these utility companies that have tons of suppliers for their their manufacturing plans, for their their energy plants, etcetera, and be able to report publicly that that those are sustainable practices, that they're leveraging to improve the overall operations, overall supply chain capabilities, etcetera. Against that, that sounds like a really complex problem. Somebody's got a power plant which might be fifty years old. I'm making that up, but conceived of and built in an era when we weren't thinking about computers on every in everyone's pocket. You've got hundreds of thousands of customers you've got, I mean, I don't even know what kind of on the other end of it, the number of suppliers they're going to have in every corner of the world. Someone who's been an entire life trying to figure it out that problems some have, Right, That's that's exactly it. That's the power of what I think a technology company, application technology company, an innovation company like SAP and IBM bring to the table the expertise around an industry like utilities that an IBM brings the table um. You know, it's something that we are trying to reinvent business models based on new technology and take those fifty year old plants, those fifty year old systems and modernize them. And I think that all starts with leveraging things that we didn't have and and applying technology to that to have much more of a transparent and and overall view of the data of the systems, of how that thing is built of those parts. And again that's what what companies like I V M, S A P. And others are trying to do in these in these very old industries that need to have a reinvention. Yeah, and Malcolm, I was gonna hit on your your example there, because you you ask for something concrete. You know, there's cities upon cities. You can point at US or international. You can look at the Chattanooga and in the US dirtiest cities nineteen nine and then all the way. You know, twenty years later it was a cleanest city. Okay, so it can happen, but how does it happen at scale? And we think concrete we give one one one example. So we're starting to see the other side of a pandemic. And here we had a challenge across industries of just coming up with something we can address it with a vaccine and trying to figure out how could we how could we do it quicker, better, faster in any way that we've ever done before. And it took a lot of time and effort to sit down and say with with the likes of fives are along with SAP on the back end, by the way working with IVY, and how do you how do you change the way this is going to be developed and pushed through the supply chain. We had the challenge of then going through multiple levels of them. We'll stick with the US federal, state, local governments to get dispersed, and then we had the challenges saying who's tested and who's received a shot? And how do you prove that you've received a shot? In that example, I crossed industries, I've crossed multiple lines of private public situations, and that was to keep people alive. Now we're talking carbon credits. Does anyone does anyone have a sense of urgency that they would with a vaccine? Some do, some don't. But if it's that challenging with a vaccine and a global pandemic, how do we do it with something that's called sustainability? Well, It starts with data. What are we seeing with the data? Data tells us this, what do we address? We address it with the carbon credits and carbon emissions and then who's who's accountable for what based on trusted data. Yeah, those two examples you're talking about one COVID vaccine, two utilities. Utilities is harder problem from your end, Like you know, it's not a technology forward industry. You've got state regulators that's the dealing with. You've got fifty some different rate depending on which state you and you have a whole different maze you've got to work through. I mean with the vaccine, you're talking about three multinational you know, twenty one century companies using a brand new, the best platform known demand versus seventy year old or whatever you know, in fifty different states, chasing an elusive gold that they may not even be on board on Bingo. Not only is it behind the times in many cases and in need of diversification as well as modernization, is it now you have? You also have competing platforms saying how do I leap frogs some things that are old or new? And we're we're ready to celebrate a fifty year relationship with SAP. Why it's because SAP continues to evolve, and that's what in your example, Malcolm, you know, how else to evolve and get to where you're going then with with trusted partners, that and that this part now, I do like it's a commercial, but I know that it takes more than just the SAPs and ibm s. It takes the others in the ecosystem to make that leap frog from where they are to where they have to go. And I think it's not just about the companies we're talking about here, It's it's the technologies that are allowing this and enabling this because you know, if you if you really, I mean the pace of innovation that's happening out of there with things like AI and machine learning and all of that are enabling a lot of things that that we couldn't do five years ago. So I think I think that the technology piece of this, and it's a much longer discussion, but you can't understate that it's a huge enabler that wasn't there, you know, five years ago, as I said, and just it's gonna continue to increase the innovation pace here and unlock opportunities in the very complex industries, like like you mentioned around utilities. I mean, you're actually right, it's a tough one. Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about UM, blockchain and AI, and it's rolled in all of this UM. What do we what? What do those two particular technologies bring to the table here? Blockchain the bottom line, it's a trusted platform to share data amongst many players in real time. That's it, share data in a trusted way. And if you can do that in this this thought of whose carbon credit is it and where does it sit on the ledger of carbon credits? Now you can do that. So that's it AI the insight. So we started thinking about augmented intelligence or as some like to call it, artificial intelligence. Now you can use that to process and look at all of this data that we couldn't before. It took a lot of time and effort, so it was just too high or hurdle to jump over. Not only that, but now we can sense and predict ahead of time before something happens. So if you put those two together, trusted data which is the fuel for AI and doing it at scale, that's when you say, okay, we are in a new place to play. And you have someplace you can pull that data from. If you could just have someone that was touching those those companies from the source all the way to consumption. So it sounds to be though that what you're saying is this kind of thing you're envisioning now would have been all but impossible, Uh five or six years ago. I mean you're you're nodding, Mark, Yeah, No, that's what I mentioned before. I mean again, going back to the utilities industry, we couldn't do this five or six years ago. And I think that's why I think technology is enabler and things like blockchain, like AI, like machine learning, this is all changing the landscape of they are of the possibility. If we don't transform what we're doing by leveraging these technologies as enablers, we're not gonna make it. I mean so, so I think that's the key thing here is that And that's where I come from a technology background, where these things are real, they're happening now, they weren't here five years ago, and they are making a big difference. So if we really want to accelerate this, we need to go past the the vision of goals setting and really start to implement and see change in some of these things because it is possible today, and you're absolutely right, it wasn't around five years ago. It wasn't possible five years ago. And I just think in another five years, what is this really going to advance into? So I mean, I think there's a huge opportunity here. Yeah, So looking ahead five years, I give you a magic wand you can change one thing to make your life easier. What would it be. What's the biggest impediment that you could, in a perfect world, would remove. I don't. I mean I think from my respective and Jason love to hear your side, I mean it's not the technology. I mean, I think we know where the technology is going to lead us. It's people. How can people open up and be more open mind to think differently because even in some of these industries, and again we talked a lot about utilities, they're not thinking differently. They're just trying to operate their busines. This isn't the way they have been for for years. We need it's culture and it's people to change. And I guess that brings us back to the game of our conversation. This really is about people and making sure that people changing the way people think about these things and seeing the opportunity. And I would agree it's the trust and culture change. It would be like you trying to head out from where wherever you are today, Malcolm and saying I'm going to get a ride share, but you call a dispatcher. It's like, are you kidding me? You know you you don't use it, You just click on your phone. So it's changing the process and and and doing it with trust. Yeah. On the flip side, what's been unexpectedly the easiest part of this campaign, if you want to call it that is anything easy? Wow, that was a loaded question. The easiest. The easiest part is acknowledging that there's a challenge I think, um in bringing together the different players that have to play. I don't know for my and if it's if the easiest part, but the most exciting part is to see the passion behind this. I mean, you know, at least an organization I know and IBM because it's very very similar in the way we think about this. There's so much passion behind this, and people that understand what these technologies can do are are really pushing the envelope. So that I think that's you you don't have to convince anything that anybody's the right thing to do. They see that they are of the possibility, and I think that's that's a very strong opportunity. Well, thank you so much. This has been like so many of these conversations I've had with IBM and IBM and friends, which is basically what this has been. This has been fascinating and um and I really thank you for your time. All right, Well, thanks a lout Malcolm and and always Mark, thank you both. It was a great conversation. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you again, did Auson, Kelly and Mark Rolfe for joining me. It feels promising to hear about these efforts from IBM and s A P and how these partnerships create a larger industry shift towards sustainability. Smart Talks with IBM is produced by Emily ross Dak with Carly Migliore and Katherine Gurrodo, Edited by Karen Shakerge, mixed and mastered by Jason Gambrel. Music by Granmascope. Special thanks to Molly Sosha, Andy Kelly Meal, La Belle, Jacob Weisberg, had a fane, Eric Sandler Maggie Taylor and the teams at eight Bar and IBM. Smart Talks with IBM is a production of Pushkin Industries and I Heart Radio. This is a paid advertisement from IBM. You can find more episodes at IBM dot com slash smart Talks. You'll find more Pushkin podcasts on the iHeart Radio app, Apple pod guests, or wherever you like to listen. I'm Malcolm Bladwell, See you next time. M

Hello, Hello. This is Smart Talks with IBM, a podcast from Pushkin Industries, I Heart Radio and IBM about what it means to look at today's most challenging problems in a new way. I'm Maltain Baba. In this episode, we're going to dive into sustainability and specifically how customers and businesses want to decrease their carbon footprint and verify that their efforts are accurately calculated. I'll be digging into this topic with Jason Kelly, General Manager IBM Strategic Partners. It's the data that's in the system. It's the data that's in our partner's capabilities such as SAP, that's from the source all the way to consumption. And where there's more data, which there always will be, there's more insight and there's more progress. You may remember Jason Kelly from his conversations with Nathan Strickland of Tech Stuff in earlier episodes of Smart Talks. Jason is working closely with IBM partners like SAP to think of creative solutions for businesses to measure and offset their environmental impact. I will also be speaking with Mark Rolfe, Senior Vice president, head of Strategic partners partner ecosystem success at SAP people who are making progress from a manufacturing perspective, and our applications and services from from SAP and IBM help make that much more transparent. Prior to his current role, Mark served as global vice president responsible for ecosystem Innovation and once worked as the global account director for IBM. Together, we'll discuss the ways businesses can work together and use technology like blockchain to create more sustainable operations with more certainty about their actual impact and footprint. That's you mentioned your partnership. I'm an outsider to your world. Naively, I would have thought, aren't you guys competitors? Why? What what's going on here? That I would have thought that you two would be at each other's throats, and instead you're you're talking, You're like your old friends. Can you talk a little bit about the role of these kinds of strategic partnerships. So there's a long heritage share of collaboration between the two companies. But but to your question, I think, you know, I think what the realization, at least in our industry is. You know, there's the the the amount of collaboration that needs to exist today. Everyone cannot do everything and you need to focus UM and so s a P. You know, just taking an example of IBM and s a P the collaboration of the biggest part of the collaboration from my perspective is having the ability to run our platform and our application and for specific industries. Like we've been talking about, STEP has a very good technology basis UM for for many industries of our twenty seven industries. But the special sauce comes in from companies like IBM that have the expertise from their services divisions around enhancing and invested class implementations of our technology in those industries. So bringing that know how, bringing that subject matter of expertise and making it very relevant from an industry perspective, and building on top of SAP platforms with that that expertise, it's a it's a huge piece of our business. We will never invest in that type of expertise. We rely on our ecosystem and in this example, IBM and and that's been the basis of of of the success we've had it well over fifty years now between the two organizations. What is that that collaboration look like. I mean, is there literally an office from both organizations where people go together and like we were talking about utilities, are is there a team made up of people from both organizations that are traveling together to see the customer answers. Yes, think of a couple of clients IBM and s a P sitting down around the table actively seeing how do we work with where you are to get to where you want to be and what are the best and best prioritized steps you can take to get there. Yeah. I think that the best way to explain at Malcolm is that you know, we have teams that come together and and look at what the market really needs, what our customers really asking for, and actually working together between IBM and s a P with customers to build solutions number one and then take them to market and go talk to the the larger set of customers in a particular industry or a particular region together. So we actually looked at the whole life cycle between how we innovate together and build new solutions with input from actual customers all the way through to scaling that in in in a global fashion. So it is a very collaborative setting that that we really have and I think that's part of what you know from a technology perspective, Many technology companies are really understand that the ecosystem is the real power out there, you know, working with partners, working and collaborating together to to really advanced goals, whether sustainability or other initiatives. Yeah, Jason, can you talk about how many partnerships in this in the sustainability world does IBM have. So we look across ours, we have up to uh twelve active partnerships across our strategic partners but that would be limiting just to look at our largest clients because within those there are other ecosystem players specific to where they are in the geography and by industry, and so we're only limited to the extent that we can be inclusive to that that that number of players in that ecosystem. So that's why it does demand an open type of platform that allows these players to come together, because you can't do it on one type of technology, you can't do it in one cloud. And this is where you know your your question about don't you compete, It's like, well, of course we do in times, there's things that we that but the opportunity for the tides to rise all boats is bigger than us fighting in what would be perceived as a zero sum game, because it's not. In fact, the the the challenges now, Malcolm are so complex that one company by itself can't solve that problem. So when you hear say, you know, yes, sustainability as a team sport, it's not just because it's a cool way to say it. It's the truth. It requires all of us. We wanted to talk to me about sustainability and I you know, it's a word that gets banded about a lot, and I wanted to start with the two of you telling me what is your definition of that word. I'll jump right in. And when I think of sustainability, I believe that is real trust, in transparency, in making sure that we as humans have a planet that's going to be there now and in the future, by employing methods that can be practiced by everyone in a way that is self sustaining. When I think of sustainability, I think of, you know, organizations trying to make a better place for the for the future generations of our planet. What I think about is how do we make it better now? How do we start progressing towards a better planet and making the world better. When I think of this, is our naive question. But when I think of that word, the first people who come to mind would be, you know, airlines, automakers, people who have obvious large carbon footprints, who are making things that are highly energy intensive that you know, you could we could all give the reasons. Tell me why tech companies such as yours also need to be as mindful of that. Well, I'll tell you, Malcolm. Your question started with you think of people, and then your example went straight to airlines, and I think in there is is part of what we see as important. Is it? It's a B two P type of operation business to people, where people all of us And so that's the first thought as we were trying to make sure that we're taking care of each other, and so if we think of people being the center, you know, we formalized our efforts at IBM in the seventies to say, look, we want to be forward thinking and environmental management for decades to come, and we have. And that's where we see the commitment being made. Is it look if we can do it together and not alone. And that's as I'm here with Mark, I'm proud to say we see it the same way with regards to an ecosystem, and it takes all of us working together because sustainability is truly a team sport. I think what we see from s a p from from our side, we we we are very focused on supporting transactions across most of you know, the enterprise business in the world. Of the world's transactions run through our systems. Those are transactions that support product, the manufacturing of product, and the rollout of product. UM. So if we think about it from that perspective, we're we are very interested in making sure that those manufacturing practices, the design practices around those products are efficient, are transparent, and are ethically progressive in the way that these companies are manufacturing or running their businesses. So so that from our perspective, it does tie back to people. But we take a step back and look at the products that are being manufactured or the services being offered to people and how we can be more transparent around that from a sustainability perspective. Can you give you an example mark of what you're talking about. Yeah, So, if we think about a manufacturing floor UM and all of the data that goes into designing a product, to actually building a product and then actually distributing a product s AP systems along with our partners like IBM, we put together applications and overall systems that monitor that data that allows the companies to build, manufacture, and distribute those systems. So we have visibility into cow companies are actually distributing, manufacturing these products. We can make that much more transparent. We can start to measure the progress they're making against certain sustainability goals and and start to to really drive a conversation around sustainability around a product or a an area. So I think that's key to what we see around whether it's circular economy in terms of understanding green house effect on manufacturing abilities of certain customers of ours, or if we look at overall you know, carbon neutrality goals, etcetera. People who are making progress from a manufacturing perspective, and our applications and services from from SAP and IBM help make that much more transparent. If I'm a a client, a customer of yours, and I'm interested in addressing this issue, one place I might look for guidance would be the kind of data that would come from your software. Is what you're saying, Yeah, if you if you think about the overall like value chain of of what we deal with in and from the customers. There's manufacturers, there's own consumers, etcetera. Where along that value chain can we impact you know, sustainable goals and drive towards more transparencies to improve upon those. So that's really what we're we're looking at from our perspective. Jason, can you talk a little bit about ibm S position in all of this. When does IBM as a company's are thinking seriously about this issue and how big of a transition is it in the priorities of the company. We've been doing this for decades with regards to making sure that we're focused on the environment, the returns that we get, our clients get, and working across that ecosystem. As I said, we formalized in the saying, look, this is a priority for our company, and we just announced our latest commitment, which is that zero greenhouse gas emissions by We did this just at the beginning of this year. So that's the commitment that we've recently made. But you called out something here that's key and Mark echoed it as this thought of data. It's the data that's in the system, It's the data that's in our partners capabilities such as S a P that's from the source all the way to consumption. And where there's more data, which there always will be, there's more insight and there's more progress. And if you think more data, more collaboration, there's even more insight which gets faster progress. And so our position in this is to say, look, can we create open platforms of innovation because and I'll borrow from you, Malcolm, that's where you know innovation comes in in desperate situations. From the David and Goliathe example is that you're desperate, so you reach out and you're saying, look, how can I you know, find that that innovation? And it's through this collaborative technology because also ultimately it is the consumer that is asking for this. We know this because consumers now you know other consumers were purpose driven before the pandemic and now that's fifty and their purpose driven mean companies with a purpose that are driving after things such as sustainability. M HM. Can you talk a little bit more on this in concrete terms? What does a focus on sustainability mean for IBM. You've said it's not a new focus, but is it fair to call it a renewed focus. I would I would say that's fair, Malcolm, and I would say that renewed focus in a new era of capability. And so one place we're spending a lot of time and effort, that's along with our partners of the SAP and Microsoft and others, where we're saying, let's invest in the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, as they pulled together many of our partners, and those are other other clients such is the Dolls, the Nestle Shells of the of the world who are also raising their hand in this renewed as you said, you know, sense of sustainability. And what's really key now is, Okay, if we're going to pay attention to carbon emissions and carbon foot how do we document that, how do we do that with trust and transparency in that ecosystem of value chain? It's not just that linear supply chain, but how do we account for all of that data in that value chain? And so companies like the Shells and and Exxons, the Dows, the b s S of the world are saying, how do I account for that with trust and transparency? And we're investing that with new technologies that are on the edge, such as AI or even blockchain that says, listen, how can I share data with trust? And this is where it comes in. If you can't trust the data, how can you make sure that we're accounting for carbon credits? How do you know those are real credits? How do you know those credits are accountable for IBM or for SAP. So I'm an airline, I want to buy carbon credits to upset my footprint UM, and the question arises, how can I be sure that I am accurately accounting for my own consumption? And i'm and the marketplace is correctly measuring the UM? What the offsite it looks like? How what, how it's priced, how whatever it is. What you're saying is someone has to do that kind of has to produce that data, verify that data, um exchange that data. And that's what that's what you guys are thinking about. Is that a fair at summary? That's that's exactly That's exactly it. I think that's a very important point. A lot of what what I hear out in the marketplaces, it's about goals, right, sustainability goals in the future. I think there's it needs to be a kind of a shift in mentality that we can do this now. We are doing this now, we have applications that are you know, tracking this data. You mentioned the airline industry. If you think about the airline industry and the supplier side of that, or the procurement side of that, companies need to start putting together procurement goals related to stain sustainability and have applications and systems that track progress against those procurement goals. They were able to mod or measure that progress. So that's that's happening today, and that will get much stronger, as Jason mentioned, when when you bring in smart technologies like AI and other technologies that will make that even more progressive. So it's it is happening today. So I would say goals are important, but we can actually start doing something today, which I think is even more important. Can you give me an example, concrete example. I'm interested instead of the nuts and bolts, so this is actually kind of fascinating question. Can you pick a kind of particularly either hard or interesting case study and tell me about what are some of the challenges from your end in providing this kind of data, coming up with it, verifying it, providing it well, I think from ourselves. Give one example, if you think about a utility company and their legacy way of you know, managing their suppliers versus where they need to be a very very much a siloed view from from providing information to it from suppliers, a closed system that does not allow much transparency or even accuracy, and what they're able to actually provide to measure a goal. There's nothing in place that has done that before, right, so now we're putting out applications that actually you know, take a look at those suppliers, understand where things are coming from, have they been ethically manufactured, you know, and be able to again to trace that through the value chain that that Jason and I have been talking about, and be able to understand every step of the way and be able to track that data and track that process throughout that entire value chain. And I think that's something very concrete especially and enables the purchasing teams um and the supplier is quite honestly to improve on efficiency and visibility around the procurement supply chain operations and serves the foundation for those procurement goals. So kind of it's a new way of driving transparency for these utility companies that have tons of suppliers for their their manufacturing plans, for their their energy plants, etcetera, and be able to report publicly that that those are sustainable practices, that they're leveraging to improve the overall operations, overall supply chain capabilities, etcetera. Against that, that sounds like a really complex problem. Somebody's got a power plant which might be fifty years old. I'm making that up, but conceived of and built in an era when we weren't thinking about computers on every in everyone's pocket. You've got hundreds of thousands of customers you've got, I mean, I don't even know what kind of on the other end of it, the number of suppliers they're going to have in every corner of the world. Someone who's been an entire life trying to figure it out that problems some have, Right, That's that's exactly it. That's the power of what I think a technology company, application technology company, an innovation company like SAP and IBM bring to the table the expertise around an industry like utilities that an IBM brings the table um. You know, it's something that we are trying to reinvent business models based on new technology and take those fifty year old plants, those fifty year old systems and modernize them. And I think that all starts with leveraging things that we didn't have and and applying technology to that to have much more of a transparent and and overall view of the data of the systems, of how that thing is built of those parts. And again that's what what companies like I V M, S A P. And others are trying to do in these in these very old industries that need to have a reinvention. Yeah, and Malcolm, I was gonna hit on your your example there, because you you ask for something concrete. You know, there's cities upon cities. You can point at US or international. You can look at the Chattanooga and in the US dirtiest cities nineteen nine and then all the way. You know, twenty years later it was a cleanest city. Okay, so it can happen, but how does it happen at scale? And we think concrete we give one one one example. So we're starting to see the other side of a pandemic. And here we had a challenge across industries of just coming up with something we can address it with a vaccine and trying to figure out how could we how could we do it quicker, better, faster in any way that we've ever done before. And it took a lot of time and effort to sit down and say with with the likes of fives are along with SAP on the back end, by the way working with IVY, and how do you how do you change the way this is going to be developed and pushed through the supply chain. We had the challenge of then going through multiple levels of them. We'll stick with the US federal, state, local governments to get dispersed, and then we had the challenges saying who's tested and who's received a shot? And how do you prove that you've received a shot? In that example, I crossed industries, I've crossed multiple lines of private public situations, and that was to keep people alive. Now we're talking carbon credits. Does anyone does anyone have a sense of urgency that they would with a vaccine? Some do, some don't. But if it's that challenging with a vaccine and a global pandemic, how do we do it with something that's called sustainability? Well, It starts with data. What are we seeing with the data? Data tells us this, what do we address? We address it with the carbon credits and carbon emissions and then who's who's accountable for what based on trusted data. Yeah, those two examples you're talking about one COVID vaccine, two utilities. Utilities is harder problem from your end, Like you know, it's not a technology forward industry. You've got state regulators that's the dealing with. You've got fifty some different rate depending on which state you and you have a whole different maze you've got to work through. I mean with the vaccine, you're talking about three multinational you know, twenty one century companies using a brand new, the best platform known demand versus seventy year old or whatever you know, in fifty different states, chasing an elusive gold that they may not even be on board on Bingo. Not only is it behind the times in many cases and in need of diversification as well as modernization, is it now you have? You also have competing platforms saying how do I leap frogs some things that are old or new? And we're we're ready to celebrate a fifty year relationship with SAP. Why it's because SAP continues to evolve, and that's what in your example, Malcolm, you know, how else to evolve and get to where you're going then with with trusted partners, that and that this part now, I do like it's a commercial, but I know that it takes more than just the SAPs and ibm s. It takes the others in the ecosystem to make that leap frog from where they are to where they have to go. And I think it's not just about the companies we're talking about here, It's it's the technologies that are allowing this and enabling this because you know, if you if you really, I mean the pace of innovation that's happening out of there with things like AI and machine learning and all of that are enabling a lot of things that that we couldn't do five years ago. So I think I think that the technology piece of this, and it's a much longer discussion, but you can't understate that it's a huge enabler that wasn't there, you know, five years ago, as I said, and just it's gonna continue to increase the innovation pace here and unlock opportunities in the very complex industries, like like you mentioned around utilities. I mean, you're actually right, it's a tough one. Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about UM, blockchain and AI, and it's rolled in all of this UM. What do we what? What do those two particular technologies bring to the table here? Blockchain the bottom line, it's a trusted platform to share data amongst many players in real time. That's it, share data in a trusted way. And if you can do that in this this thought of whose carbon credit is it and where does it sit on the ledger of carbon credits? Now you can do that. So that's it AI the insight. So we started thinking about augmented intelligence or as some like to call it, artificial intelligence. Now you can use that to process and look at all of this data that we couldn't before. It took a lot of time and effort, so it was just too high or hurdle to jump over. Not only that, but now we can sense and predict ahead of time before something happens. So if you put those two together, trusted data which is the fuel for AI and doing it at scale, that's when you say, okay, we are in a new place to play. And you have someplace you can pull that data from. If you could just have someone that was touching those those companies from the source all the way to consumption. So it sounds to be though that what you're saying is this kind of thing you're envisioning now would have been all but impossible, Uh five or six years ago. I mean you're you're nodding, Mark, Yeah, No, that's what I mentioned before. I mean again, going back to the utilities industry, we couldn't do this five or six years ago. And I think that's why I think technology is enabler and things like blockchain, like AI, like machine learning, this is all changing the landscape of they are of the possibility. If we don't transform what we're doing by leveraging these technologies as enablers, we're not gonna make it. I mean so, so I think that's the key thing here is that And that's where I come from a technology background, where these things are real, they're happening now, they weren't here five years ago, and they are making a big difference. So if we really want to accelerate this, we need to go past the the vision of goals setting and really start to implement and see change in some of these things because it is possible today, and you're absolutely right, it wasn't around five years ago. It wasn't possible five years ago. And I just think in another five years, what is this really going to advance into? So I mean, I think there's a huge opportunity here. Yeah, So looking ahead five years, I give you a magic wand you can change one thing to make your life easier. What would it be. What's the biggest impediment that you could, in a perfect world, would remove. I don't. I mean I think from my respective and Jason love to hear your side, I mean it's not the technology. I mean, I think we know where the technology is going to lead us. It's people. How can people open up and be more open mind to think differently because even in some of these industries, and again we talked a lot about utilities, they're not thinking differently. They're just trying to operate their busines. This isn't the way they have been for for years. We need it's culture and it's people to change. And I guess that brings us back to the game of our conversation. This really is about people and making sure that people changing the way people think about these things and seeing the opportunity. And I would agree it's the trust and culture change. It would be like you trying to head out from where wherever you are today, Malcolm and saying I'm going to get a ride share, but you call a dispatcher. It's like, are you kidding me? You know you you don't use it, You just click on your phone. So it's changing the process and and and doing it with trust. Yeah. On the flip side, what's been unexpectedly the easiest part of this campaign, if you want to call it that is anything easy? Wow, that was a loaded question. The easiest. The easiest part is acknowledging that there's a challenge I think, um in bringing together the different players that have to play. I don't know for my and if it's if the easiest part, but the most exciting part is to see the passion behind this. I mean, you know, at least an organization I know and IBM because it's very very similar in the way we think about this. There's so much passion behind this, and people that understand what these technologies can do are are really pushing the envelope. So that I think that's you you don't have to convince anything that anybody's the right thing to do. They see that they are of the possibility, and I think that's that's a very strong opportunity. Well, thank you so much. This has been like so many of these conversations I've had with IBM and IBM and friends, which is basically what this has been. This has been fascinating and um and I really thank you for your time. All right, Well, thanks a lout Malcolm and and always Mark, thank you both. It was a great conversation. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you again, did Auson, Kelly and Mark Rolfe for joining me. It feels promising to hear about these efforts from IBM and s A P and how these partnerships create a larger industry shift towards sustainability. Smart Talks with IBM is produced by Emily ross Dak with Carly Migliore and Katherine Gurrodo, Edited by Karen Shakerge, mixed and mastered by Jason Gambrel. Music by Granmascope. Special thanks to Molly Sosha, Andy Kelly Meal, La Belle, Jacob Weisberg, had a fane, Eric Sandler Maggie Taylor and the teams at eight Bar and IBM. Smart Talks with IBM is a production of Pushkin Industries and I Heart Radio. This is a paid advertisement from IBM. You can find more episodes at IBM dot com slash smart Talks. You'll find more Pushkin podcasts on the iHeart Radio app, Apple pod guests, or wherever you like to listen. I'm Malcolm Bladwell, See you next time. M