Sustainability-based initiatives are a challenge for most companies: Chakri Gottemukkala, CEO of O9 Solutions

Chennai: While there’s a lot of demand that is being placed on executives to have a sustainability-based initiative, in reality, it’s been a challenge for most companies as understanding the environmental impact of the supply chains and translating that into actions have been difficult, the chief executive of O9 Solutions told ET.

O9, which offers an artificial intelligence-based platform that helps companies in planning and decision-making, said it would leverage its core technology, ‘Digital Brain’, to enable the sustainability transformation of clients and their supply chains. The US-headquartered company has an office in Bengaluru and will be looking to rapidly scale up its India operations as it is an important investment for its global operations.

“Supply chains are the biggest utilisers of the planet’s resources,” said Chakri Gottemukkala, who is also a cofounder of O9 Solutions. “When you’re making stuff, moving stuff across the continents or tracking things, if you make all those decisions better, you cut down the wastages and improve the efficiencies of how resources are used.”

O9 has data from companies across the board which can help analyse the full ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) impact of supply chains, he said. For instance, if there’s a footwear company, O9 has data on how the shoe is being made, where is it being made, what are the materials being used, how much of those materials are being used and so on which can then be extended to draw patterns on what is the impact of, say cotton on the water usage or energy consumption.

“When companies start making decisions, it should not be only based on the profit and loss and financial KPIs (key performance indicator), it should also be based on the impact of environmental KPIs. We are trying to drive this planning process as we don’t see sustainability and supply chain and planning as independent things, we see them merging together.” He added that with customers now demanding more sustainable companies, companies would have to take that into account.

In January, the company received equity investments totalling $295 million from General Atlantic, including BeyondNetZero, its climate investing venture; sustainability investment manager Generation Investment Management and existing investor KKR. This valued the company at $2.7 billion, an increase from the $1 billion valuation that the company had in April 2020 when it raised its first-ever external investment led by KKR. O9 said the recent investment would help it build on its momentum and accelerate growth for its platform across industry verticals and markets.

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