In this episode of Software Made Human, host Garrett Sheridan is joined by Louise French, sustainability consultant and Enterprise Ireland approved service provider. Louise spends her days sitting down with businesses and working out where they actually start with sustainability, and that turns out to be the real story. Most companies aren't resisting. They just don't know what the first step looks like. Louise makes the case that sustainability is better understood as responsibility, and that where we've landed now, the word we really need is regeneration. She walks through Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics and the problem with treating growth as the goal in itself, and is refreshingly honest about her own Celtic Tiger years along the way. The conversation also gets into the energy and water side of AI and data centres, including the Codema district heating project in Tallaght, where waste heat from an AWS data centre is being piped into public services, and why software companies have sustainability challenges that are less visible, but arguably harder to control, than a manufacturer's. In this episode: Why "sustainability" has been diluted, and what it should actually mean in practiceDoughnut Economics, planetary boundaries, and growth for growth's sakeWhat's really blocking businesses, and the grants that exist to unblock themHow to make the case to a board, and why there's no one-size-fits-all strategyWhere software differs from manufacturing, governance, data, trust, and automationWhether Ireland's government is doing enough, given what it has to work withWhy getting ahead of regulation is leadership, and complying with it isn't Plus a quick-fire round covering Doughnut Economics, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Climate Cocktail Club, staying curious as a leadership trait, and never saying no to an invite. You'll find Louise French on LinkedIn. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
