Niklas Sundberg is Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at Kuehne+Nagel, where he leads the company’s global digital ecosystem across AI transformation, cloud modernization, data platforms, and responsible technology governance. Over a career spanning more than two decades, he has held senior technology and advisory roles including CIO and enterprise architecture leadership positions at ASSA ABLOY, Managing Partner at Gartner, and Executive Vice President at Connecta. Niklas is a recognized advocate for sustainable IT and responsible digital transformation, author of Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders, and a board member of SustainableIT.org.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with CIO Magazine, Niklas shared insights into his focus on sustainable digital transformation. In the next five years, he sees sustainable IT evolving with constraints on energy, water, and materials, making circularity essential. He also shared his personal hobbies and interests, future plans, words of wisdom, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Niklas. With over 20 years driving change, what sparked your focus on sustainable digital transformation?
I have always had a strong interest in both environmental and social issues. Earlier in my career, I served on the board of a non-profit organisation called From One to Another, which focuses on education and the circle of learning for young women in Africa, particularly in Nigeria. That experience shaped my belief that long-term impact is created where systems, opportunity, and responsibility intersect.
My deeper focus on sustainable digital transformation emerged around 2021, when I was working closely with the Chief Sustainability Officer in my organisation on its broader sustainability agenda and science-based targets. As part of that work, I was responsible for shaping an IT sustainability strategy. When I began researching the topic, I quickly realised there was no clear starting point. There were pockets of good practice across areas like data centers, cloud, software engineering, and procurement, but no coherent playbook that connected strategy, architecture, and execution.
At the time, the topic was also largely absent from mainstream media and executive discourse. That gap motivated me to put a spotlight on sustainable IT, not as a reporting exercise, but as an operating discipline. With my employer’s support, I decided to write Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders in my own time. The ambition was simple: to inspire, educate, and most importantly, help technology leaders take action.
Fast forward a few years, and the conversation has accelerated dramatically. The rise of AI, with its enormous demands on energy, water, land, and critical materials, has made the sustainability implications of digital infrastructure impossible to ignore. At the same time, the sustainable IT community has grown significantly. I’ve had the privilege of serving on the board of SustainableIT.org since 2022, alongside more than a thousand peers globally who are working to advance sustainable technology leadership. The journey has really just begun.
What do you love the most about your current role?
Throughout my career, I’ve been intentional about choosing roles where I can contribute to meaningful, long-term impact at global scale. Working in international environments, across complex value chains and digital platforms, creates a unique opportunity to influence how technology is designed, operated, and scaled across industries and regions.
What I value most is the ability to operate at the intersection of technology, business, and society. When digital decisions are made thoughtfully at scale, they can create durable positive effects far beyond the boundaries of a single organisation. That is where I feel I can contribute most.
How do you see sustainable IT evolving in the next 5 years?
The next five years will be defined by constraints. We are entering a period where the theory of constraint becomes very real for digital infrastructure. By the end of this decade, a significant share of global energy consumption will be attributable to data centers, largely driven by AI. These environments require not only energy, but also water for cooling, high-performance hardware, and access to critical raw materials.
This brings sustainability out of the abstract and into the realm of availability, resilience, and geopolitics. Competition for energy infrastructure and rare earth materials is already shaping global dynamics. Circularity therefore becomes essential, not optional. Extending asset lifecycles, designing for reuse, and recovering materials will be central to maintaining digital growth.
At the same time, sustainable IT will become far more mainstream. As digital infrastructure constraints begin to affect everyday services, sustainability will increasingly be seen as a prerequisite for reliability and access, not just an ethical choice. I expect hyperscalers and platform providers to shift their focus from pure scale to more sustainable architectures, driven by regulation, customer expectations, and physical limits.
AI is here to stay. The toothpaste is out of the tube. The challenge ahead is not whether we use these technologies, but how we build digital infrastructure that is sustainable, resilient, and inclusive. Bridging the digital divide and ensuring access beyond a privileged few will be a defining leadership challenge of the decade.
What’s the future of green supply chains in tech?
Green supply chains in tech are moving from compliance to competitive advantage. Historically, sustainability was largely about risk mitigation, reporting, and avoiding regulatory penalties. Going forward, it will increasingly differentiate brands, influence customer loyalty, and shape access to capital.
Procurement and supplier management are already changing. Environmental, social, and governance metrics are becoming as critical as cost and quality in supplier selection. Expectations for transparency are expanding beyond tier-one suppliers to full value-chain visibility, driven by regulation and customer demand.
Digital technologies will play a central role. Real-time data, AI-driven optimisation, and digital product passports will enable lifecycle emissions tracking, traceability, and more informed decision-making. Circular economy principles will become operational norms rather than pilot initiatives, with reuse, refurbishment, and reverse logistics embedded into core planning processes.
Finance will accelerate this shift. Sustainability-linked financing, internal carbon pricing, and investor scrutiny of Scope 3 emissions will increasingly influence strategic decisions. Ultimately, leading organisations will treat green supply chains as digitally native, data-driven, collaborative ecosystems that are tightly linked to both market positioning and long-term resilience.
What led you to write “Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders”?
While working on sustainable IT strategy at ASSA ABLOY, I noticed a recurring pattern. There was plenty of discussion about why sustainability matters, and a growing list of initiatives describing what organizations should consider. What was missing was guidance on how to actually operationalize sustainable IT.
The book was designed to bridge that gap. It starts with the “why,” establishing why sustainable IT matters from a business, environmental, and societal perspective. It then addresses the “what” across areas such as AI governance, data centers and cloud, applications and architecture, data, hardware lifecycle management, energy use, and procurement.
Most importantly, it moves to the “how.” How do you get started today? How do you set realistic goals, assess maturity, quantify impact, and establish an emissions baseline for IT? The intention was to provide technology leaders with a practical, action-oriented resource they could apply in their own environments to drive measurable change.
Can you share a book or resource that inspires you and why?
Two books stand out for me in the sustainability space. Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster provides a clear, pragmatic view of the scale of the challenge and the role technology must play. Paul Polman’s Net Positive, co-authored with Andrew Winston, is equally influential in showing how courageous companies can thrive by giving more to society than they take. Together, they balance realism with optimism and reinforce the idea that leadership matters.
What are some of your passions outside of work? What do you like to do in your time off?
While I spend much of my professional life working in global contexts, I believe strongly in staying grounded in the local community. Outside of work, I’m actively involved in my local football club, where I coach my son’s team and will soon be coaching my second son as well.
It’s a powerful way to give back and to engage with people from very different backgrounds than those I encounter professionally. Youth sports create a unique environment for teaching leadership, teamwork, perseverance, and mutual respect. I firmly believe that athletics, alongside academics, provides a strong foundation for developing confident, responsible individuals.
What is your biggest goal? Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?
I don’t think about the future primarily in terms of titles or roles. For me, it’s about impact. It’s about leaving systems, organizations, and communities in a better state than we found them for future generations.
That impact exists on multiple levels. On one hand, contributing to large-scale change through global digital platforms and supply chains. On the other, staying connected to local communities where impact is immediate and personal, such as volunteering as a youth coach. These two dimensions balance each other. Global work provides scale and leverage, while local engagement provides perspective and meaning.
Ultimately, it’s not about personal milestones. It’s about what we can achieve together by using our skills, platforms, and influence responsibly.
What advice would you give tech leaders starting their sustainable IT journey?
Treat sustainable IT as a core way of running technology, not as a side initiative or reporting requirement. The most durable impact comes from early architectural and decision-making choices, so focus there.
Don’t wait for perfect data. Start with directional insights, make trade-offs explicit, and build learning into the system. Embed sustainability into how technology is designed, procured, and operated. Otherwise, it will always lose to speed and cost.
The timing is right. Regulation, customer expectations, and technology maturity are converging. The next five years will likely see more progress than the previous five. This is the moment to lean in, not only to do the right thing, but to position yourself as a technology leader in an area that will matter enormously going forward.