Celebrate excellence at our Inspirational awards night. This prestigious event is dedicated to honoring exceptional leaders and their organizations who have made remarkable strides in the domains of environmental, societal, and governance (ESG) sustainability.

• Environmental Award focuses on areas ranging from energy consumption and emissions across technology infrastructure to sustainable sourcing.
• Social Award focuses on champions of diversity, equity, and inclusion within IT, and significant contributions to community relations and sustainable jobs.
• Governance Award celebrates institutions sustainability woven into their decision-making processes, emphasizing leadership, training, data privacy, and tangible business value.

3rd Floor, Congressional Ballroom

Ron Guerrier shares insights on technology and social sustainability from his personal journey from son of Haitian immigrants to private sector Hall of Fame CIO to CTO of nonprofit Save the Children.

Jens Wandel, deeply engaged & key contributor of the UN's new Digital Compact, will share the UN's perspective on IT's pivotal role in achieving global sustainability and how the Digital COmpact can guide sustainable technology deployment, including AI.

3rd Floor, Congressional Ballroom

IT leadership must ensure that Generative AI will scale to be an effective, transformative technology for business employees and customers, while also avoiding and mitigating the technology’s potential environmental and social harm. SustainableIT members and experts will share insights and tools to implement responsible AI governance ASAP.

3rd Floor, Congressional Ballroom

When companies work in isolation, there is little chance for lasting sustainability impact. Only by partnering across the value-chain with vendors, industry peers, and public and private influencers can companies ensure a sustainable future for planet, people and progress. This rapid-fire series of successful partnership profiles will inspire and inform ways to amplify IT’s impact.

3rd Floor, Congressional Ballroom

SustainableIT Impact Award honorees from acclaimed organizations will share their best practices and lessons learned in leading technology-enabled sustainability. Topics addressed will include mobilization, funding and performance management; driving decarbonization through data and GenAI; leveling up vendor collaboration, and what happens if transformation falls short of goals. Attendees will also have an opportunity during the event for small-group interactions with honorees for a more intimate Q&A exchange.

3rd Floor, Congressional Ballroom

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, technology leaders are under increasing pressure to align their strategies with both sustainability goals and business value. This session, featuring industry luminaries Kim Jenkins and Ralph Loura, will delve into the intersection of sustainability in technology and the critical cost/value conversations that technology leaders must navigate with their business counterparts.

Kim and Ralph will explore how sustainable practices in IT are not just environmentally and socially responsible but also economically savvy. They will discuss how aligning IT sustainability initiatives with Technology Business Management (TBM) principles can drive significant value, enhance operational efficiency, and support long-term business objectives.

This session will provide actionable insights on how to communicate the value of sustainability initiatives to stakeholders, demonstrate ROI, and integrate sustainability into the core fabric of IT strategy. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of why SustainableIT isn't just the right thing to do—it's the smart, high-value choice that aligns directly with modern business imperatives.

3rd Floor, Congressional Ballroom

In the era of digital transformation and the rise of generative AI, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the IT sector have become a growing concern. At NTT DATA, we are committed to reducing our GHG emissions through ambitious targets.. This session will showcase our initiatives to reduce GHG e missions within our operations and across society.

Our efforts encompass monitoring worldwide trends and regulations while collaborating with the Green Software Foundation to set standards for software emissions calculation (SCI - ISO/IEC 21031:2024) and develop open-source solutions for emission reduction. We are also investing in R&D with tools such as the CO2/SCI Calculator and Carbon Aware Kubernetes to minimize IT emissions. As a major Data Center operator, we are integrating these technologies within our operations to decrease our GHG footprint.

Join us to learn how these initiatives are paving the way for a more sustainable IT landscape and contributing to a greener future.

Location: Iris Room

SustainableIT and its alliance partner and member Deloitte will debut a new jointly developed resource for assessing and comparing the sustainability maturity of the IT organization, specifically the characteristics and capabilities that matter most to ESG transformation success. Program leaders will share results of an extensive analysis, including the KPIs recommended for tracking and elevating sustainable IT maturity.

Location: Indigo Room

Most IT sustainability efforts start as well-meaning but ad hoc or isolated projects. Real progress comes when these initiatives are synchronized to specific goals and strategy, fueled by ongoing resources and skill sets. We’ll dive into a live case study of how Stanford Health Care staffed and mobilized its IT sustainability team and earned its place as a valued player in its enterprise’s ESG transformation. Several members of the Impact Award-winning team will join us in a candid discussion on roles, organization model, partnering, performance management, and more. Bring your questions for this high-performance team!

Location: Indigo Room

As organizations strive to meet their environmental and social impact goals, finding actionable and cost-effective solutions is crucial. Join UCLA health and Human-I-T.org to explore how your organization can address “low-hanging fruit” e-waste challenges to drive measurable environmental and social equity outcomes. This session will detail how to set realistic goals, steps in the process, challenges of scale, common misconceptions, and measuring and reporting results. 

Location: Iris Room

Jody Elliott, Head of IT Risk and Sustainability at National Grid, and Poonam Kripalani, Senior Director, Digital Technology Asset & Supplier Business Management at ServiceNow, will discuss best practices in sustainability data management and demonstrate use of SustainableIT.org’s standards within ServiceNow’s ESG management platform. Working with a centralized data management platform for essential ESG data has emerged as a best practice in IT-enabled enterprise sustainability. Experienced practitioners and experts also stress the benefits of using tools or platforms with which users are already familiar. Elliott and Kripalani will emphasize the importance of having accurate, consistent, and standards-aligned data for use in goal setting, performance monitoring, compliance audits, and investment decisions.

Location: Iris Room

Climate disclosure rules and due diligence reporting requirements have become law on multiple continents, compelling companies to measure and disclose both their current states and their mitigation plans and actions. IT is being called on to identify, collect, and distribute auditable data to facilitate compliance reporting globally. Find out what companies in the vanguard are doing to meet these demands and get ahead of evolving regulations in their regions and industries.

Location: Indigo Room