A journey to sustainability

Last year at Agile Testing Days, Jutta Eckstein’s Keynote lit a fire in my head. Sustainability – People, Planet and Profit. In a nice coincidence, just a few weeks later, we decided to place much more strategic focus as a company on this topic. Some aspects were definitely not new to us, but really writing it on our values and taking concrete action was a new phase. But of course it’s a journey! And it’s a journey that all people in the company need to be taken on. What does it mean for developers (will I spend the rest of my life just optimising loops?), what quality attributes are relevant for sustainability? What does it mean in terms of agile teams, cross-team work and the role of the company in society? How does diversity and inclusion link to sustainability, and what happens to the bottom line when we make sustainability a priority? It’s a big topic, and one that every area of the company can be involved in. But it shouldn’t just become lip-service, and we don’t want to green-wash. In this talk I’ll share our journey up to now – the problems and hurdles we encountered, the activities and decisions from the CEOs through to each team, and what we’ve learned along the way.