AI Journey discusses role of AI in solving practical ESG business problems

A panel session titled "AI and ESG: Solutions for Business" has concluded at Artificial Intelligence Journey, Sber's international online conference on artificial intelligence (AI). The speakers focused on practical applications of AI in the implementation of sustainability strategies for companies and their clients.

Participating in the discussion were the following experts: Daniel Zhou, Eurasia Region president at Huawei, Ralph Haupter, president of EMEA at Microsoft, Olga Uskova, CEO of Cognitive Pilot, and Anton Kosach, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). ElinaTikhonova moderated the discussion.

It was noted at the conference that AI is an end-to-end technology for a wide range of ESG tasks. It can be used to monitor product quality, reduce energy consumption, create workforce management systems to comply with health and safety standards, and combat discrimination. According to recent studies, 80% of Russian companies have set emission reduction targets, and a number of them have already integrated ESG metrics into their overall company strategy.

However, it is not only industrial production that needs to reduce its carbon footprint. Sber has announced plans to reach carbon neutrality in its operations by 2030. Last year alone, the bank reduced its paper consumption by 3.7 million kilograms by transitioning to electronic workflow Three million bank cards were recycled, and the recycled raw materials will be used to produce plastic window profiles in the future.

What is the main challenge in implementing AI in the business sector today? The audience's answers were the following: the immaturity of corporate culture (27.6%), difficulty defining business objectives (20.7%), lack of qualified personnel (20.7%), insufficient data or issues with data quality (17.2%), and technical infrastructure issues (13.8%). Similar figures were reflected in an international survey of 1,500 companies from various industries.

Kosach explained that many companies today have already revised their ESG targets, shortening their deadlines and making bigger commitments. However, only a few have already achieved real results. Challenges are related to the complexity of accurate carbon footprint measurements and the need for manual calculations. Automated AI-powered solutions are now being actively developed in order to analyze the vast amount of data impacting a company's carbon footprint in real time, as well as to improve companies' energy efficiency. This will not only help protect the environment, but also reduce costs.

According to Haupter, Microsoft is already working on a platform that helps clients reduce their carbon footprint. Zhou shared the example of the Smart Airport system at Shenzhen airport, which automatically directs planes to the right exits, emphasizing that the same concept could be used to control traffic and congestion and thereby reduce the carbon footprint.

Uskova noted the greater role of agriculture globally. Agriculture needs to not only meet the requirements of the ESG agenda, but also to satisfy the ever-increasing appetite of the world's population. Right now, 800 million people are starving and suffering from food insecurity, and the transition to new technology, including AI-powered technology, is first and foremost a means of survival, and not a technocratic fad.

Olga Uskova, CEO, Cognitive Pilot:

"We will only be able to survive if we move from frantic farming to smart farming. 2021 is the first year we have implemented our agribots on a large scale. The robot ploughs along optimal trajectories at optimal speeds, ensuring a significant reduction in fuel consumption. This both replenishes the farmer's pocket and reduces the carbon footprint. Additionally, humans are physically incapable of working in all climates, while robots can, regardless of the conditions. Soil fertility is reduced after tractors have covered the ground; it is important to calculate the exact trajectory to minimize how much of that fertile layer of land is damaged. Finally, grainsabsorbsignificantlymoregreenhousegasesthanforests.

There are two worlds: the reporting world and the real people world. Unfortunately, ESG is still in the reporting world. People either do not believe or do not understand. Businessmen can sometimes be derisive about it. The more real practice there is, the faster this attitude will change. Trust is key. After all, taking care of the land, of nature, effectively addressing environmental issues, this ultimately brings profit. The better and more precisely the field is cultivated, the more the farmer earns. This lays the foundation for a society of people who will bring new ESG policies to life."

The first day of the conference was dedicated to ESG and sustainable development. A panel discussion was held on "The Strategic Role and Economic Potential of Technology Companies in Solving ESG and Sustainable Development Tasks," moderated by Deputy Chairman of the Sberbank Executive Board Alexander Vedyakhin. There were presentations on "Technology Companies and ESG" by keynote speakers including Ambarish Mitra, co-founder of Greyparrot and founder and chief product officer at Blippar, Patrice Amann, regional leader of FSI EMEA at Microsoft, and Andrey Alekseenko, VP Nordics, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic at Teradata.

The Business and ESG thematic block consisted of a session on "AI and ESG: Solutions for Business" and keynote speakers, who included: Sergei Dutov, director of business development and industrial partners at the Skolkovo Foundation, and Sergey Zaborov, partner and head of ESG for resource companies in Russia and the CIS at McKinsey.

Also speaking at the panel on "Promoting the Comprehensive Development of Human Civilization" were Seth Dobrin, global chief AI officer at IBM, Mark Kroese, general manager for Sustainability Solutions at Microsoft, Alexey Melnik, founder of the online platform SOL, and Hanan Salam, researcher and co-founder of Women in AI.

The ESG agenda will also be integrated into the AI Journey Junior conference for school students on the third day of the event.

AI Journey is one of the key events of the Year of Science and Technology in Russia. The event will feature Sber AI product announcements and awards ceremonies for the winners and runners-up of AI Journey Contest, an international online competition on data analysis and AI for adults, AI International Junior Contest, the international artificial intelligence contest for children organized by Sber and the Artificial Intelligence Alliance, as well as AI Journey Junior, the conference for middle and high school students interested in data analysis and AI.

The Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (AIRI) will also present the initial results of its projects. Jürgen Schmidhuber, chief scientific advisor at AIRI and scientific director at the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA) (Switzerland), will speak at AI Journey, as usual.

The online conference will bring together global AI experts from academic institutions, international organizations, and the business sector, including: Mikhail Burtsev, PhD, scientific director at AIRI and head of the Neural Networks and Deep Learning Lab at MIPT (Russia), Evgeny Burnaev, associate professor and head of the ADASE research group at Skoltech (Russia), Marc Hamilton, vice president at NVIDIA (USA), Ben Goertzel, CEO and chief scientist of SingularityNET, Stephen Brobst, CTO at Teradata (USA), Michael Bronstein, professor at Imperial College London and USI Lugano and head of Graph ML at Twitter (UK), and more.

Last year's AI Journey was the world's largest AI and DS event, with around 30,000 specialists from over 100 countries taking part in the conference. The conference featured 225 speakers, and their presentations garnered over 30 million views.

Register on the conference website to watch.

Contact the organizers at: [email protected].

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