Interact team | Feb. 28, 2025

Interact Managing Director, Rich Kenny, has been selected as Co-Chair of the Planetary Impact Working Group for the UK Government Sustainability Alliance (GDSA).



The GDSA brings together leading experts from digital and data suppliers to the UK Government, working to develop sustainable solutions in technology, reporting, and policy frameworks.

The Planetary Impact Working Group is developing concise and effective reference materials to highlight the planetary impacts of hardware, software, cloud services, and consulting. The next step is to collaborate with government stakeholders to integrate the assessment of planetary impacts from ICT into procurement decisions. The long-term goal is to establish a framework that incorporates best practices for assessing and reducing planetary impacts within government ICT operations.

For the GDSA long term success is all about actual reductions in real carbon emissions. Immediate impacts can be difficult to measure because emissions figures may rise in the short term as the quality of data, methodology and reporting improves. These are necessary adjustments to the baseline figures which are required if we want to establish baselines and reduction strategies.

In the short term, success will not necessarily be to see the numbers coming down, it will be to see the quality of reporting going up and the establishment of carbon reduction plans that are linked to trustworthy data. Longer term success is to see those downward trends happening with figures that are credible and set an example to the wider public and private sector of what is possible.