The News: IBM acquires Envizi, a leading data and analytics provider for environmental performance management, adding to IBM’s portfolio of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) offerings to help organizations understand their impact on the environment. Read the full announcement on the IBM blog here.
IBM Acquires Envizi Adding to its Environmental, Social, and Governance Portfolio
Analyst Take: Over the last few years organizations have received an increase in pressure from consumers, shareholders, and regulators to improve sustainability measures. Corporate social responsibility and ESG initiatives are now top priorities for most businesses. But many still face roadblocks. The problem? While it’s easy to make pledges and promises to improve sustainability measures, it’s difficult for many organizations to prove that the sustainability initiatives are working due to too many disparate data sources.
That’s why IBM’s acquisition of Envizi makes sense. Envizi, an Australian startup, provides a single source of truth to help organizations understand emissions data across the full spectrum of their operations. It also provides sustainability reporting frameworks and easy to understand dashboards to monitor, analyze, and report on a variety of metrics to help organization achieve their sustainability goals.
Envizi’s AI-powered software will integrate with other properties in IBM’s ESG portfolio including IBM Maximo asset management solutions, IBM Sterling supply chain solutions, IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite, IBM Turbonomic, and Red Hat OpenShift capabilities.
IBM’s Focus on AI
In October during IBM’s investor briefing, Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna laid out IBM’s plans to focus more on AI and automation in the coming year. AI gives organizations a competitive advantage, so it’s no surprise that IBM would acquire an AI-driven software company to give companies an edge in sustainability reporting — an area of increasing importance.
Aside from providing AI software that can improve operational efficiencies for their customers, IBM is also using the Envizi software to reach its own sustainability goals such as net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Better Sustainability Reporting for the Future
With this acquisition, IBM is making moves to change how organizations report and prove their sustainability initiatives are working bringing a new level of accountability into the picture — something customers and shareholders, alike will appreciate. I believe this acquisition will pay dividends in the future for IBM’s customers and it will be interesting to watch to see how these organizations use the data they collect to make more informed decisions, drive more innovation, and create a more sustainable world in the process.
Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
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Image Credit: IBM
Author Information
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years' experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging development, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly's coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
