The data story behind sustainability
Together, digital maturity and connected data empower organizations to embed sustainability into engineering, manufacturing and supply chains
Sustainability in your go-to-market strategy:
A burden or untapped advantage?
Real sustainability in your organization isn’t about what you say. It’s about what you do. But how your market sees it still determines whether it strengthens or weakens your go-to-market strategy.
In our sustainability insights survey, nearly one in four companies said their sustainability efforts are driven by external demands like customer expectations.
And while other studies show that over 70 percent of consumers prefer sustainable products, most are still reluctant to pay more for them.
Charlotte Hansen Møller
International Marketing Manager, 9altitudes
This creates both a challenge and an opportunity. It shows that if you want to turn sustainability into a true market advantage, it can’t live in side projects or CSR reports alone - it must be built into how you operate.
When sustainability becomes part of how you design, price, and deliver your products, you open up opportunities to rethink processes and materials - for instance, discovering an alternative material that’s both more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly, yet just as strong and durable.
To make this shift, you both need awareness, commitment, and data.
Trustworthy data is crucial – for your business development and your credibility
It’s not just about collecting more data, but instead how you connect it - across design, production, supply chain, and sales. Because you can’t improve what you can’t measure, and you can’t prove what you can’t trace. The same digital thread that drives operational efficiency also enables transparency and smarter decisions. It helps you identify overlooked opportunities to optimize energy efficiency, reduce waste, or similar.
When your sustainability data is accurate and connected, it doesn’t just strengthen your ESG reporting - it sharpens your market positioning, helps sales teams tell a stronger story, and builds customer trust.
Credibility in the market is everything
Customers, partners, and regulators are increasingly scrutinizing sustainability claims. If your data is incomplete or disconnected, you risk being accused of greenwashing - undermining both trust and growth.
Digital Product Passports will soon be a legal requirement in many markets. As that happens, compliance alone will no longer set you apart.
The real advantage comes from how you use the underlying data: to optimize materials, reduce emissions, and deliver products - and messages - that resonate with customers and open new market opportunities, all while protecting margins.
In other words, a connected digital thread doesn’t just ensure compliance. It uncovers opportunities, strengthens your market position, and turns sustainability into a tangible, measurable business driver rather than a box to tick.
The companies that will win in this new era are the ones that don’t stop at compliance. By connecting data across design, production, supply chain, and sales, and applying AI-driven insights, you can uncover opportunities that were previously invisible: cheaper, lower-impact materials, more efficient processes, and product innovations that align with both sustainability and customer expectations.
This isn’t about sacrificing margins for the sake of sustainability. It’s about identifying synergies that make your business stronger on multiple fronts economically, environmentally, and strategically.
When sustainability is embedded into your operations and your digital thread, it becomes a lever for growth, market positioning, and trust.
"When sustainability is embedded into your operations and your digital thread, it becomes a lever for growth, market positioning, and trust"
Charlotte Hansen Møller - International Marketing Manager, 9altitudes
The choice is clear
Companies can treat sustainability as a cost, or they can make it a source of competitive advantage. With the right data, technology, and mindset, the latter is entirely within reach..
Sustainability insights survey
The survey provided insights into the pressures organizations face to supply sustainability data. The results indicate that more than 75% either feel this pressure or anticipate experiencing it in the future. Comparing this with the level of preparation and support from digital business applications, the data suggests that many companies are not yet prepared or do not collect data in a structured manner using such tools. Given these findings, organizations may need to begin focusing on developing data capturing, collection, and reporting practices related to sustainability.