For ESG and sustainability, AI will make things clearer

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If you’re like most business leaders, you’ve been playing on ChatGPT, Bard or Bing and inventing weird pictures on Midjourney. The opportunities fizzle in these generative AI space and CEO’s have teams dedicated to cracking open those benefits. You’re probably thinking about customer service chatbots, hyper-optimised ad targeting, and the endless options for automation. You might even have thought about how it fits into your sustainability plans – by analysing your supply chain, or helping out with ESG reporting.

But, did you ask the chat-bots about your brand? Because others are.

Your consumers search ability just got supercharged. Which means when they look up information on your business – your carbon footprint, how much you pay workers in your supply chain, your green (or not) investments – they will find it, at the speed of AI.

AI tools for sustainability and ESG transparency are multiplying before our eyes. ChatIPCC can converse about climate science, using the latest and most authoritative scientific papers as its data input. ClarityAI digs around in companies’ sustainability data and shares back simple graphics and reports. GreenwatchAI compares companies’ green claims against their actual carbon emissions. And ClimateBert fact checks climate-related claims and can be used by governments to detect greenwashing.

Then there’s the extraordinary tool of Climate TRACE which generated the world’s first global emissions inventory, by detecting and tracking companies’ emissions in real time. It’s might have more accurate idea of your business’s environmental impact than you do – all openly available for any passing consumer, regulator or prospective employee to check.

It’s enough to put even the steeliest of CEOs a little on edge. Your company might have already opted to be fully transparent – or, like most companies, you might have good transparency intentions that aren’t yet met. But wherever you are on your journey to being more open, the truth is that you no longer have a choice. Generative AI now mean that any customer can …