From aspiration to regulation? IT sustainability’s 2025

As 2025 concludes, IT sustainability has transitioned from voluntary best practices to regulatory mandates, demanding companies integrate compliance into their operational and strategic frameworks amid evolving standards and standards enforcement.

As 2025 closes, IT sustainability has decisively moved from the domain of aspiration into the realm of obligation. What began the year as a set of voluntary best practices increasingly resembles a regulated, auditable discipline embedded in boardroom risk registers and financial reporting cycles. That shift reflects a convergence of tightening standards, new disclosure rules and a hard commercial reckoning with the energy and material demands of modern computing. ^{[1][2][3][5][6]}

Executives now treat environmental performance as a component of business continuity and fiduciary duty rather than optional ESG window‑dressing. Regulatory frameworks such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) have sharpened timelines and disclosure expectations for companies operating in and with the European Union, while the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is transforming net‑zero pledges into structured, enforceable standards. Together these forces have pushed sustainability onto executive committee agendas because failure to comply carries measurable legal and financial consequences. According to guidance compiled by sustainability advisers, firms must plan for phased reporting and increasing Scope 3 scrutiny across different company sizes and jurisdictions. ^[1][4][3]

For the chief information officer the implications are immediate and operational. Energy efficiency is no longer merely an operating expense optimisation; it is a quantifiable line item in total cost of ownership and, increasingly, an auditable metric in disclosures. At the same time the rapid adoption of generative AI has introduced a new and concentrated demand for high‑performance compute that must be justified against “return on compute” as well as traditional ROI. Without governance that ties model selection, inference strategy and decommissioning to carbon and cost metrics, AI programmes risk producing an “energy debt” that erodes other sustainability gains. ^[1][2]

Against this backdrop, 2025 did deliver practical progress in a few operational areas that offer partial blueprints for scaling net‑zero pathways. Hyperscale cloud providers continued to close the gap on renewable procurement and accelerated deployment of advanced cooling technologies; some enterprises began to optimise workloads for low‑carbon regions and serverless patterns to decouple cloud growth from proportional emissions rises. Managed Device‑as‑a‑Service (MDaaS) models gained traction as a circular IT enabler by formalising refurbishment and reverse logistics, although third‑party verification of these circular chains remains uneven. And the formal emergence of green software engineering , measuring and optimising code for energy consumption , advanced visibly with sector initiatives such as the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines Draft Note providing practical web‑focused guidance. ^[1][2]

Despite these advances, two systemic gaps threaten to stall credible progress. First, Scope 3 measurement remains a chasm: most companies still rely on aggregated, spend‑based or activity‑based supplier estimates that are not auditable at the granularity regulators will demand. The missing element is ubiquitous, vendor‑level product carbon footprints (PCFs) and primary supplier data; without it targets risk being numeric facades rather than verifiable reductions. Second, the governance of AI compute is embryonic; many deployments prioritise early ROI over lifecycle emissions, and few organisations have mandated policies on model efficiency, inference budgets or resource retirement. Both gaps expose companies to credibility and compliance risks as standards harden. ^[1][4]

The SBTi’s draft Corporate Net‑Zero Standard Version 2.0 crystallises much of what is changing in practice. The draft shifts the initiative from a principles‑based approach to a prescriptive standard by introducing scope‑specific target setting, greater emphasis on Scope 3 actions and new expectations for supplier engagement and primary data use. It also proposes timebound requirements such as the public disclosure of transition plans and the categorisation of companies according to their responsibilities and reporting obligations. The draft is under consultation now, with transition arrangements allowing legacy targets to remain in place until a defined cutoff, and the expectation that the new framework will become the default for new targets once finalised. According to legal and sustainability advisers, firms should be preparing governance, data collection and supplier engagement plans now to meet the forthcoming validation cadence. ^[3][5][6][7]

What emerges for corporate IT is a clear three‑part agenda: harden data governance across assets and suppliers to make Scope 3 auditable; institutionalise responsible compute policies that bind AI programmes to energy and emissions guardrails; and accelerate circular procurement and verification to reduce material throughput. Industry guidance and draft standards provide a roadmap, but implementation will demand new cross‑functional authority and investment. Where IT lacks the levers to mandate supplier disclosure or redesign business processes, progress will remain patchy. ^[1][4][3]

If 2025 marks the year sustainability shed its “nice to have” skin, the coming period will test whether organisations can convert regulatory pressure into durable operational capability. The choice is stark: embed sustainability as part of enterprise risk and product design, or face mounting disclosure obligations, supplier complexity and an AI‑driven energy load that imperils net‑zero claims. The practical work of measurement, governance and verified circularity now defines where credibility and compliance converge. ^[1][2][3][4]

##Reference Map:

• ^[1] (Computer Weekly) – Paragraph 1, Paragraph 2, Paragraph 3, Paragraph 4, Paragraph 5, Paragraph 7, Paragraph 8
• ^[2] (Computer Weekly summary) – Paragraph 1, Paragraph 3, Paragraph 4, Paragraph 7
• ^[3] (Latham & Watkins / law firm summary of SBTi draft) – Paragraph 2, Paragraph 6, Paragraph 7
• ^[4] (Sustainability.com Scope 3 strategy document) – Paragraph 2, Paragraph 5, Paragraph 7
• ^[5] (Anthesis Group) – Paragraph 6
• ^[6] (Jones Day) – Paragraph 6
• ^[7] (Carbonmaps blog) – Paragraph 6

Source: Fuse Wire Services