CEOs identify sustainability perception gap in tech sector

Most technology company chiefs identify a ‘perception gap’ between how important they believe sustainability to be and the progress of their companies, a new report from thought leadership agency iResearch Services says.

In total, 80% of chief executives surveyed in the How Sustainable is the Technology Sector? report, say sustainability is important to them personally. However, just 65% are content with the overall level of sustainability at their companies.

It’s a similar story with company directors, with 88% saying sustainability is personally important and 71% happy with their business’ response, a 17% difference. Altogether, 550 business leaders took part in the report.

Gurpreet Purewal, Vice President of Sales at thought leadership company iResearch Services, which conducted the research, says: “Our report shows a sizeable ‘perception gap’ between the importance C-suite executives give to sustainability and how content they are with the overall level of sustainability at their companies.”

Interestingly, middle managers take the opposite view and consider their companies to be more sustainable than the importance they personally assign to sustainability.

Operations managers have the lowest opinion about the need for sustainability at 55%, compared to their perception of how sustainable their companies are, at 60% – this appears to be reflective of the vast number of challenges and competing priorities weighing on the minds of operations leaders. 

Core program managers have a similar view about the personal importance of sustainability at 56%, but their perception of the level of sustainability in their companies is higher at 74%.

Heads of development place higher personal importance on sustainability at 71%, versus the perceived sustainability of their company at 79%. 

Heads of sustainability, who are experts in the field, are equally balanced in their opinion of the importance of sustainability and the level of sustainability within their organisation, with both scoring 59%.

It’s clear that no one company or department is going to tackle the sustainability challenge alone. The best way for tech companies to bring about positive change in sustainability is through partnerships.

On average, 86% of technology professionals surveyed believe it is important that their business partners are following sustainable practices. This rises to 94% in China, Japan and Germany and falls to 72% of respondents in India.

These partnerships are mostly with fellow tech companies (85%) and in the United States, the figure is even higher at 96%.

Gurpreet says: “Businesses can achieve more together than on their own and tech companies are much happier to partner within the industry, with like-minded companies that share a similar vision and outlook.”