Webinar Recap: Reimagining the Future – How Boards Can Leverage AI for Sustainable Value

October 15, 2025 | Hosted by Boards Impact Forum

Artificial intelligence is transforming the way organizations create value and address sustainability challenges. In Boards Impact Forum’s recent webinar “Reimagining the Future: How Boards Can Leverage AI for Sustainable Value,” board directors and senior executives gathered to explore how AI can be embedded in governance, strategy, and purpose-driven leadership.

Moderated by Liselotte Engstam and Fernanda Torre from Boards Impact Forum, the session featured two leading experts: Professor Robin Teigland, Chalmers University of Technology and co-founder of Peniche Ocean Watch, and Scott Newton, Managing Partner at Thinking Dimensions and Board Director at Strategy Tools.

Together, they offered board members a thought-provoking journey through the opportunities and tensions of AI adoption — from environmental impact and trust to innovation governance and long-term strategic balance.

Table of Contents

AI, Sustainability, and the Dual Role of Innovation

Opening the session, Fernanda Torre highlighted how AI presents both a challenge and an opportunity for sustainable development. AI systems consume vast amounts of energy, water, and materials, creating an environmental footprint that rivals major industries such as aviation. Yet AI also offers tools for solving these very sustainability issues — improving resource efficiency, enabling predictive modeling, and supporting circular innovation.

“This dual role of AI is where boards must focus their attention,” Torre explained. “On one hand, the technology’s environmental impact is undeniable. On the other, AI can help us find new pathways to reduce emissions, restore ecosystems, and strengthen our organizations’ long-term value creation.”

Torre introduced a framework for AI governance developed through ongoing BIF research, emphasizing the board’s responsibility to set the right foundation — competence, structure, and accountability — before supervising AI’s development and deployment. Crucially, boards must assess AI’s sustainability impact through a double materiality lens: how AI affects the business, and how the organization’s use of AI affects society and the planet.

As Torre noted, “When AI and sustainability are connected through the value chain and stakeholder relationships, companies can build innovation that is not only effective but also difficult to replicate.”

The Twin Transition: Technology and Sustainability

Professor Robin Teigland expanded the discussion by situating AI within the broader “twin transition” — the convergence of digitalization and sustainability. Drawing on research and practical examples, she challenged boards to move beyond incremental efficiency improvements toward exploration and systemic transformation.

“Most innovations we see today are process innovations, doing the same things a bit faster or cheaper,” she said. “But to achieve real sustainability, we need exploration, the courage to rethink business models, organizational forms, and even our assumptions about value creation.”

Teigland described how shifts in the “locus of trust” are reshaping economies across industrial revolutions: from interpersonal trust to institutional trust, to today’s emerging procedural and AI-driven trust systems. This transition, she argued, requires new forms of governance, transparency, and ecosystem collaboration.

She illustrated the rise of AI-first organizations — firms that combine one expert with thousands of AI agents — and emerging “ecosystems of agents” that redefine how value is produced and coordinated. “Boards need to recognize these structural changes,” she emphasized. “We are moving toward new organizational logics where ecosystems, not hierarchies, drive innovation.”

Trust, Teigland warned, is a decisive factor for sustainable AI adoption. She urged boards to ensure human oversight, ethical data practices, and security competence throughout their organizations. “If we want AI to enable a more sustainable future, we must design for trust — not just in technology, but in leadership, purpose, and societal contribution.”

Strategic Integration: Aligning Innovation and Long-Term Goals

Picking up on the governance challenge, Scott Newton offered practical frameworks for boards to align AI initiatives with corporate strategy and sustainable value creation. He reminded participants that “not everyone is comfortable with AI,” and that boards must provide direction and reassurance amid uncertainty.

Newton encouraged directors to examine how their organizations distribute innovation efforts across core, growth, and exploratory portfolios, and to adapt performance metrics accordingly. “Boards often make the mistake of evaluating new initiatives with the KPIs of their core business,” he said. “Exploration needs different success criteria and time horizons.”

He invited boards to identify major industry shifts and assess their preparedness to respond. By mapping how powerful external forces are and how ready the organization is to adapt, directors can pinpoint where they are “in trouble,” “strong and stable,” or “ready to lead change.”

Newton also emphasized diversification in innovation pathways. Beyond traditional R&D and M&A, boards should encourage partnerships, co-investments, and accelerator collaborations to strengthen capabilities and access emerging technologies. “The organizations that succeed,” he noted, “will be those that connect innovation ecosystems with strategic intent and governance discipline.”

Board Takeaways

The discussion underscored several critical insights for board directors:

Prioritize trust and transparency. Ensure responsible AI practices, cybersecurity, and inclusive leadership to maintain legitimacy in a fast-changing landscape.actical challenges — from balancing profitability with sustainability in circular economy models, to navigating cross-jurisdictional expectations in multinational boards.

Balance ambition with accountability. Boards must define the organization’s AI purpose and ensure structures for ethical oversight, competence, and value alignment.

Embed sustainability in AI strategy. Use double materiality to evaluate both how AI affects business resilience and how business use of AI impacts society and the environment.

Foster innovation ecosystems. Sustainable advantage increasingly depends on collaboration across value chains and stakeholders, not isolated R&D.

Redesign metrics for exploration. Apply tailored KPIs and governance frameworks for emerging AI opportunities rather than relying on core business benchmarks.

Continuing the Conversation

As AI reshapes industries and sustainability imperatives intensify, boards have a pivotal role in steering both responsibly. The session highlighted that long-term value will come not from technology itself, but from how boards guide its purpose, integration, and impact.

In the words of Robin Teigland, “We need to be curious, collaborate across boundaries, and dare to make a difference.”

Boards Impact Forum will continue facilitating these vital discussions to equip Nordic boards with the insights and frameworks needed to lead through the era of AI-driven sustainable transformation.

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At Boards Impact Forum, we remain committed to supporting NEDs in this evolving landscape, ensuring sustainability and governance go hand in hand.