Sustainable IT Inspiration Day

I am the Director of the Belgian Institute for Sustainable IT, sister of the French INR.

Together with our international community of 170+ members, we continuously create and improve tools, guides and training to help organisations move towards a more sustainable IT as part of their digital transformation. In 2021, we published the WeNR report. I also took part in 2019 in the study Environmental footprint of the digital world and in the iNum study in 2020.

20+ years’ experience in international companies like JPMorgan, Euroclear and Ingenico. As IT Director, I have led technical teams in Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong in financial and payment systems’ telecommunications, as well as in IT operations, infrastructure and application development.

I am the director of our leasing portfolio at Econocom and member of the Board of Directors at Association Belge de Leasing / Belgische Lease Vereniging (ABLV).

At Econocom we focus on walking the talk about green IT : "the longer a laptop or smartphone can be used, the less new ones need to be manufactured and therefore the less electronic waste is produced".

We focus on 2 main aspects about green IT :

• we buy used or even broken ICT devices (laptops, smartphones, desktops, tablets) from companies
• we refurbish these devices and sell them back on the second-hand market

Financial institutions have a key role to play in reaching the Green Deal targets set by the EU. True to its purpose “Meaningful & Inspiring for Belgian Society. Together.”, Belfius has stepped up to the plate to be a driving force in the transition towards a sustainable Belgian economy and society.

We want to put our clients in the driver’s seat to realize their ambitions in tackling societal challenges and sustainable transition, by providing them with advice, guidance and a range of meaningful bank and insurance solutions. We also endeavour to “walk the talk” in our own internal operations, as we have done for some years now, steadily reducing our own carbon emissions for instance. Having decided to work on the ESG topics that are in the scope of the Technology department, Belfius was one of the founding members of ISIT-BE.

To better initiate and co-ordinate the activities this entails, I took up the role of Sustainable Technology Manager. I have been working in the bank for quite some time (during which ‘technology’ was part of the job in some way or other) and I consider myself lucky to be able to contribute to a diverse but highly relevant topic.

I am one of the first 30 experts acknowledged by the network of Institutes for Sustainable IT and founder of Aeonics, a deeptech software company.

After my PhD in AI along with 10 years of experience in IT architecture for international institutions and large companies, I decided to focus on system efficiency and designed a middleware deeply rooted in sustainable IT principles. Aeonics is the result of 8 years of R&D with multiple success stories. Simple, Accessible, Sustainable, Efficient.

I strongly believe that technological sovereignty is a key factor for long term autonomy, independence and resilience for companies. The right tool to deploy eco-designed digital services is the ultimate way to empower IT services to build our digital future.

The ecological transition presents the digital sector with a double challenge.

It is gradually forcing it to become aware of its impact on our ecosystems and to reduce its effects.

But it also provides it with the opportunity to demonstrate its full potential to support the transitions that are coming (energy, industry, mobility, agri-food, etc.). 

The purpose of responsible digital is to support this movement of meeting between the ecological transition and the digital transition.

It is our duty at IBA to participate actively to the green it transition. It is time to align the corporate story with the social issues. Companies must strive to generate less negative impact on the environment and biodiversity, more social justice, and a fair, sustainable economy.