Expert article

The Missing Link: What it actually takes to deliver on sustainability

Climate commitments are easy to announce. Verified results are harder to prove.

Companies are stepping back from the climate targets they once set, but the underlying problem never went away. "The planet hasn't changed," Ville Voipio said. "Why would we change the targets?" Credibility now depends on proof, not promises.

Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever and author of Net Positive, sat down with Ville Voipio, Chair of the Board at Vaisala, to talk about that gap. Companies are pulling back from the climate targets they once set. The problem they were meant to solve hasn't gone anywhere. Polman and Voipio worked through three places where credible measurement can still move things forward: energy transition and grids, digital infrastructure and AI, and carbon markets and monitoring.

Recorded at Vaisala’s Nordic Business Forum 2026 side event in Helsinki.

“Laws of nature don't lie, and you can't negotiate with Mother Nature. You have to measure things. You have to do it in a traceable way. You have to do it in a verifiable way.”
Ville Voipio, Chair of the Board, Vaisala

Polman and Voipio walked through three places where that proof is being tested right now: the grid, the data center, and the carbon market.

Energy transition and grids

Clean power is growing faster than the grid can absorb it. Over 2,500 gigawatts of renewable, storage and data center projects are waiting for a connection right now. Polman and Voipio dug into why the bottleneck has moved from generating clean power to connecting it, and how existing grid assets could be used more intelligently instead of just building more.

Building an EV battery, for instance, requires air that's 2,000 times drier than a normal room, a small illustration of the precision hiding behind the energy transition.

Jump to this part of the conversation → Learn more about Vaisala's offering for the power industry

Digital infrastructure and AI

AI can accelerate sustainability work. It also drives up demand for data centers, electricity, cooling, and grid capacity. As AI workloads grow, getting real-time measurement right is what separates responsible operation from waste.

A single degree of temperature measurement error can waste over 8% of data center cooling energy worldwide. AI's growing power demand is also pushing new gas plants online, at exactly the wrong time, though Polman and Voipio see reason for cautious optimism.

Jump to this part of the conversation →Explore data center measurement solutions

Carbon markets and monitoring

Carbon markets can only direct money toward real emissions cuts if buyers trust the numbers. That trust broke once already: the voluntary carbon market lost three-quarters of its value in three years after weak credits flooded in. Continuous monitoring and better verification are how it earns that trust back.

Jump to this part of the conversation →Explore greenhouse gas measurement solutions