Gaps and opportunities for improvement  

While research highlights environmental consequences of new technologies, gaps remain in how these consequences can be communicated to business owners, and how business leaders can in turn mitigate problems further down the line.

Many recognise the need to embrace deep tech innovation and integrate AI into their operations, but don’t yet know how to cut emissions and improve efficiency. In fact, research by Salesforce found that the most pressing challenge for sustainability professionals is a knowledge gap around AI and sustainability, while research from EY found that existing frameworks and legislation “often fall short” in guiding companies on AI-related sustainability.

This knowledge gap remains a pressing challenge for businesses, highlighting an area that must be addressed through appropriate intervention.  

Business leaders are currently sitting on a breadth of opportunities to lead the way integrating and applying deep tech innovation while simultaneously decarbonising their operations. At Digital Catapult, we partner with businesses to achieve this, supporting organisations across major sectors and improving industrial supply chain resilience in the process. Research found that businesses that can effectively embrace energy-efficient solutions, leverage AI-optimised datacentres and achieve circularity in their e-waste systems, can reduce energy consumption and the costs that ensue by 40-60% without compromising on performance. This highlights the value of working creatively to solve systemic challenges while also pursuing growth.   

The progress being made to drive decarbonisation  

One of the best parts of my job is seeing progress across the board on AI offerings, applied by a range of innovative startups in clean energy, decarbonisation, and environmental monitoring. 

These startups address a variety of innovation gaps and are helping to advance deep tech innovation that can be applied to solve a range of environmental challenges. Digital Catapult builds partnerships across the innovation ecosystem to enable deep tech companies to scale, bridging the gap between industry, government, academia and the startup community.

Through our programmes, we are seeing genuine progress being made in the application of deep tech innovation to build a future-ready UK economy, one that is built on clean energy and net zero emissions.  

An interesting and cross-cutting area of decarbonisation efforts is the supply chain, with startups developing new solutions to improve UK industrial supply chain resilience across a range of sectors.

This includes startups considering how Scope 3 emissions can be tracked and monitored using AI, as well as others considering new ways to make supply chains more transparent, cut carbon emissions and reduce energy consumption and costs, informing and empowering decision-making amongst business leaders. These solutions have been underpinned by pushing the boundaries of deep tech innovation and practically applying it in industry.   

The value of convening capabilities  

One initiative that’s shaping conversations in the sustainability space is the AI for Decarbonisation Virtual Centre for Excellence (ADViCE). This initiative looks to develop AI offerings to support the transition to net-zero and has seen Digital Catapult, alongside Energy Systems Catapult and the Alan Turing Institute, partner for progress with over 40 policy, industry and startup thought leaders, including Octopus, SSE and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

ADViCE exists to bring together an ecosystem of AI companies, industrial adopters, policy makers and investors to support, promote, and coordinate the adoption and diffusion of AI decarbonisation applications.​ 

A recent webinar on sustainable AI, which can be found on the ADViCE Knowledge Base, is just one example of ADViCE’s work in IT sustainability and exemplifies the range of fascinating innovations taking place in the IT sustainability community as a whole.  

As we look ahead, driving decarbonisation will rely on our collective ability to close the remaining knowledge and capability gaps.

Deep tech innovation offers a powerful pathway forward, not only to reduce emissions, but to reshape how industries operate, collaborate, and innovate. By continuing to convene capabilities, accelerate practical adoption and empower businesses with the tools and understanding they need, we can ensure progress doesn’t stall. With the right interventions and partnerships, the UK is well-positioned to lead the way. 

Any readers interested in learning more about the ADViCE initiative, can learn more here.