Today we’re talking about…
Recent extreme weather events have reminded us of an uncomfortable truth: just how fragile the infrastructure that supports our daily lives really is, and how ill-prepared we are for what lies ahead. The climate crisis is no longer a future scenario. It is affecting real lives, communities, and environments right now.
From a sector like ours—the technology sector—facing this head-on calls for a moment of reflection. What is our role here? We need to be honest: Technology doesn’t reverse the damage or stop a storm. It’s not a magic solution. But it can help us anticipate, protect against, and mitigate the impact. And that—prevention—is where it makes sense to talk about digitalization and climate.
A climate that no longer recognizes borders
Climate change does not discriminate between countries, but it does manifest differently depending on the region. Two examples we have observed firsthand illustrate this point well.
In Europe, heat waves have pushed public health and energy and water systems to their limits . Cities and infrastructure designed for a different climate are struggling to cope with sustained high temperatures that are no longer the exception, compounded by the risk of wildfires.
In Chile, the pattern is the opposite—and just as severe: extremely heavy rains in a very short period of time that lead to river overflows and flooding, hitting local communities hard. The shift from prolonged droughts to destructive excesses of water forces us to rethink how we inhabit and protect our land.
From Reacting to Preventing
For years, the response to climate change has been primarily reactive: taking action only after a disaster has already occurred. That is no longer enough.
The consensus—both scientific and institutional—points in the same direction: we must prioritize preventive measures to address the climate crisis, from adapting infrastructure to better managing basic resources such as water and energy. Prevention is cheaper than reconstruction, and above all, it saves lives.
What Technology Can Offer (and What It Can’t)
We need to be precise here, because the technology sector as a whole offers very powerful tools, but not all of them fall within our area of expertise or that of most software companies.
On a large scale, there are advances that truly help: early-warning systems that cross-reference historical and meteorological data to predict the behavior of a watershed or the heat stress in a city; sensor networks (IoT) that provide real-time alerts about anomalies before they turn into emergencies; algorithms that help manage peaks in energy demand; or digital twins that simulate how a city would respond to an extreme event.
These are real and encouraging examples. They are also, to a large extent, the result of efforts by public administrations, infrastructure operators, and highly specialized companies.
And in the midst of it all, the people
It’s easy to talk about the climate in terms of infrastructure, networks, or data and forget what’s most important: behind every heat wave, there are real people who suffer the physical effects. And not everyone is affected equally.
Anyone who works in the open—on a construction site, in the fields, in logistics, or in a factory—risks much more than just an uncomfortable afternoon. Heat stress and heatstroke are real occupational hazards that increase every summer and require something as simple as common sense: staying hydrated, taking breaks, adjusting schedules and shifts, monitoring conditions, and taking action before anyone gets seriously ill.
Something similar happens with torrential rains, though in a different way. The water doesn’t always affect people directly: first, it damages infrastructure —roads, communications, and the power grid—and when those systems fail, connectivity breaks down as well. And without connectivity, warnings don’t reach people in time, aid doesn’t arrive, and a response can’t be coordinated. So, one way or another, it’s the people who end up paying the price.
That’s why prevention here is no longer just an abstract idea. It’s simply about taking care of people when things get tough. And that aspect—people’s health and safety —is exactly the area we’ve been focusing on for years.
Our Perspective at Prodity
At Prodity, we don’t manage rivers or power grids. Let’s be clear about that.
What we do see every day is something else entirely: organizations that collect enormous amounts of data on the environment, safety, and sustainability, and then struggle to turn that data into timely decisions. Valuable information that gets stuck in ESG reports, spreadsheets, or manual reviews that come too late.
And in the face of an increasingly unpredictable climate, that ability—knowing what’s happening and being able to act sooner rather than later—is no longer just a reporting formality but has become something much more important. Organizing a company’s environmental data, seeing it clearly, and reacting quickly is, at its core, yet another form of prevention.
That’s where we believe digitization has something genuine to offer. Not in resolving the crisis, but in helping organizations analyze their own data and make better decisions based on it.
