New research from semiconductor giant Intel found that the CTO role is evolving to incorporate an environmental sustainability focus, which enables those executives to be "the most pivotal sustainability influencers" in enterprise C-suites, Intel CTO Greg Lavender said. Although powering the world's computing is inarguably a significant contributor to carbon emissions and environmental impact, that technology "also holds the key to the solution," Intel Corporate VP of Digital Transformation Motti Finkelstein told SDxCentral.

The survey polled more than 2,000 CTOs, CEOs and chief sustainability officers (CSOs) from 22 markets and found a global consensus that CTOs are crucial for success in terms of business and environmental aspirations. The survey found 81% of CEOs and CSOs believe tech leaders "must now be sustainability leaders" and 82% believe the CTO role is crucial to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Intel reported CTOs' "longer term view of what technology can do for their organizations" is integral to aligning business strategies and technology investments with material sustainability issues like e-waste and carbon emissions from IT energy consumption.

Another 70% of senior IT leaders agree they cannot reach net-zero emissions without support and environmentally-focused actions from IT teams, and 79% of respondents hope to become sustainability-focused leaders themselves. "If the C-suite, including CTOs and CIOs, rally in support of a tech-positive approach, technological transformation can propel us toward a future that is greener, fairer and smarter," Finkelstein argued.

To that point, energy efficient hardware (62%), renewable energy sources (57%) and new green technology (54%) are the top three investment areas aimed at reducing IT emissions. And half of respondents report investing in artificial intelligence (AI), IoT and robotics for reducing IT emissions. In addition, 84% of IT leaders agree technology has a pivotal (53%) or important (31%) role in developing sustainable business strategies.

Finkelstein noted, however, that only 23% of respondents are prioritizing "using AI and IoT today, let alone looking at advanced tech innovation." That "shows we all need to focus on speed and scale and how to demonstrate the business value of a sustainable digital transformation."

Other priorities cited by respondents include leading the sustainable transformation of the IT function (38%), improving productivity through digital transformation (22%), improving security and cybersecurity defenses (22%), upskilling IT teams on sustainability and technology (21%) and maximizing the value and benefits of cloud computing like flexibility and scalability (20%).

Intel's survey also revealed that close collaboration between CTO and CSO roles is key to successful and sustainable business transformations. Senior IT leaders agree the disjointed nature of an organization's sustainability and technology strategy is a key barrier to sustainable transformation, and 81% noted the CTO and CSO should "act in partnership" to achieve business targets.

In addition, Intel found 80% of CEOs believe CTOs have growing sustainability responsibilities that will eventually make these executives more influential than CSOs.