Future of Work
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
H ow AI is require the construction of large, energy-intensive data centres that draw heavily on electricity, water and other finite resources to sustain their continuous operations. On the other, there are high hopes that one day AI will help us make the right calculations to defeat climate change. But what does AI itself think about sustainability? We like to imagine a world where AI sits alongside us, grappling with the challenges of sustainability and helping to identify solutions. For all the hype, a key question remains. Can AI ‘grasp’ the developed and deployed will determine whether it advances or undermines sustainability. On the one hand, the global race for AI capacity will complexities of sustainability and be trusted to make suggestions That is not entirely AI’s fault. Humans are partly to blame, as I discovered during my research with Lutz Preuss of Kedge Business School in France, Priyanka Chhaparia at the Indian School of Development Management in Noida in India, and Bimal Arora, Director of the Centre for Responsible Business. The problem is the diverging perspectives on sustainability held by different groups of people. Most people agree that it is the grand challenge of our age. However, no-one can quite agree on what sustainability actually is. that truly reflect human values and perspectives? Unfortunately, the answer is: no, not yet.
Drawing on our research, we compared the sustainability priorities among stakeholders in India with those expressed by generative AI (GenAI). Our findings were published in the magazine of the Chartered Institute for IT in 2024. Stakeholders from the private and public sectors, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and education participated in the survey to rank 23 sustainability concepts. These ranged from the interconnection of environmental, economic, and social issues to sustainability indicators. We then used the same questions as prompts for four prominent GenAI chatbots: ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Claude. Among human participants in the business sector, we found that climate change, gender equality, and education were top priorities. However, public sector participants were more likely to focus on water and healthy ecosystems (though climate change was still seen as important) and NGO workers were more concerned about environmental interconnection, healthy ecosystems, gender equality, and consumption. There was a degree of alignment with the rankings created by our chatbots, but there were also discrepancies. For example, only Gemini recognised climate change as an important issue for those in the public sector. This underscores the necessity for further refinement when training AI. However, it also shows that fully replicating human reasoning on sustainability may remain elusive while human perspectives on the subject continue to differ significantly. In another paper, published in the Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal in summer 2025,
my colleagues and I reviewed the framing of sustainability by different stakeholders in India. What we found was a clear distinction between the interpretation of sustainability compared with that of corporate social responsibility (CSR). It became apparent in our study that Indian stakeholders believe that the corporate sector should focus on environmental issues as their sustainability agenda, while CSR activities, framed as synonymous with social welfare programmes, should be the responsibility of the government. Due to Indian legislation, the way CSR encroaches on the corporate sector in India is still largely confined to philanthropy. This is different from the Western concept of CSR, which includes stakeholder pressure, environmental concerns and integration into the core business. “On the other [hand], there are high hopes that one day AI will help us make the right calculations to defeat climate change” In follow-up research, we observed that most operators on the Indian scene tended to stick to their own lane: businesses focused on environmental issues while governments and NGOs addressed social issues.
Only a few stakeholders, predominantly NGOs, emphasised the interconnections between CSR and sustainability, arguing for more systemic and integrated approaches to sustainability challenges. Perhaps this might justify a shift away from a globally dominant understanding of the term ‘sustainability’ – driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – to more culturally relevant ones. All in all, our research shows that the cognitive maps with which different stakeholder groups approach the concept of sustainability tend to be linear and self-contained rather than interconnected. My own view is that we need to take a more holistic, integrated approach and hold in check the bias where sustainability is predominantly associated with environmental concerns. Businesses should be encouraged to incorporate social inclusivity and belonging into their sustainability strategies. This would promote goals such as educational opportunities for all and workplace equality. After all, companies that integrate environmental and social sustainability are likely to experience enhanced brand reputation, customer loyalty, and operational efficiencies. Whether or not AI can capture this nuance remains to be seen. While GenAI tools are good at replicating patterns to generate text, fully replicating human reasoning is a different ball game.
GREEN MACHINE
Drive AI-led transformation with the AI Leadership Programme at WBS.
Can AI think sustainably?
Sustainable Development Goals
by Isabel Fischer
Warwick Business School | wbs.ac.uk
wbs.ac.uk | Warwick Business School
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