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CEE’s sustainability pivot 

CEE’s embrace of digital innovation will increase both efficiency and sustainability

March 15, 2023

8 min read

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March 15, 2023

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8 min read

As climate change disrupts critical environmental, economic, and social systems around the world, significant numbers of companies are taking action to reduce their carbon emissions. While for many, transforming operations to reduce corporate carbon footprints appears at first to be a daunting order, digital technology is allowing firms to cut both costs and CO2 at the same time. 

Travel has been one of those areas to see almost universal changes – and rightly so. 

The European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E) found that one per cent of people are responsible for half of all aviation emissions. T&E also found corporate travellers make up roughly 12 per cent of European flight passengers but are responsible for 30 per cent of emissions. 

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, online meetings have increasingly replaced business travel—reducing both travel expenses and carbon emissions. A 2021 Morgan Stanley survey of 138 corporate travel managers found that virtual meetings were projected to replace 44 per cent of travel volume in 2021, 27 per cent in 2022, and 19 per cent in 2023. 

While PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) UK identifies business travel as the company’s largest source of carbon emissions, between 2007 and 2022, it reduced carbon emissions from business travel by 61 per cent while still almost doubling the size of their business. 

‘Two sides of the same coin’ 

Adam Krasoń, CEO of PwC in Central and Eastern Europe, tells Emerging Europe that digital technology and sustainability are mutually reinforcing when organisations get the balance right between these two areas. 

“Implementation of digital can empower organisations to gain real-time data to optimise and automate effective management of resources and enable real-world applications such as precision agriculture and smart electrical grids and manufacturing—among others,” he adds. 

Among those companies leading the green and digital transitions in the region are Organica Water, the CIECH Group, and PKP Energetyka. 

Organica Water, based in Budapest, provides technology and operational support to wastewater treatment facilities around the world. 

Andrea Bolgár, senior engineer for technical innovation and data management at Organica Water, says, “daily data analysis starts with our on-site hardware, which gathers water quality data and sends it to the Azure IoT Hub. From there, it’s processed in the cloud by Azure Stream Analytics and passed to Power BI for the first layer of real-time data visualisation. It is also sent to Azure SQL Database for storage and deeper reporting.” 

This remote system allows Organica to halve site visits and reduce emissions associated with business travel without sacrificing control over data collection. 

The chemical company CIECH Group, with advice from PwC’s data and business intelligence experts, used Microsoft Azure and Power BI to integrate data sources from different business units and build a true data-driven organisation. 

“The goal of the transformation process is to create an organisation in which business decisions are based on effective data analysis, and the area of management reporting focuses not so much on providing data, but on signalling opportunities and risks and presenting dynamic scenarios supporting the decision-making process,” says CIECH chief financial officer Jarosław Romanowski. 

These solutions are also used at the CIECH Group for “production and maintenance management, energy efficiency monitoring”, and key performance indicators “in the field of occupational health and safety”. 

PKP Energetyka supplies energy to the Polish railway network and aims to make the entire rail sector carbon-neutral in coming years. It hopes to source 85 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. 

Fluctuations in sun and wind, however, have forced PKP Energetyka to create a plan to build a network of warehouses “to absorb excess energy and release it when power is needed”. To coordinate the power distribution system and increase efficiency, PKP Energetyka worked with Elitmind, a Microsoft partner, to use Microsoft Azure cloud computing and Power BI to model and predict spikes in demand. 

“Knowing ahead how much power will be needed helps us stabilise the renewable power grid,” says Maciej Rudko, director of the Financial Planning and Analysis Office at PKP Energetyka. “Thanks to Azure, we can collect, manage, process, and analyse data from various sources and review it through a user-friendly Power BI dashboard.” 

Enhancing resilience 

According to Microsoft, business leaders right now are focused on reducing costs, increasing efficiency and enhancing resilience. But that isn’t to say they’re putting long term priorities such as sustainability on the backburner – rather that they’re looking for solutions that can deliver rapid payback both for business and the planet. 

“The question top of mind for many leaders is: which incremental investments can deliver outsized return for both immediate and broader goals?,” says Petra Čiček, CEE Sustainability Lead at Microsoft. 

“Moving to the cloud can transform a company’s ability to gain richer, deeper and timely insights which can empower smarter and faster decision-making. This, in turn, can help firms transform business processes, enhance productivity and become more competitive.” 

Some 65 per cent of financial institutions have a low cloud maturity. 

“On average, digital leaders in the financial industry achieve 19 per cent higher profits than those who have not yet migrated to the cloud. They also report three times fewer critical infrastructure breakdowns,” says PwC CEE cloud and digital leader Mariusz Chudy. “Cloud computing pays off, but you need to exceed the minimum threshold of 40 per cent of systems moved to the cloud.” 

According to a study of Microsoft Cloud’s carbon footprint, businesses that shift to the Microsoft Cloud instead of running their own on-premises physical servers can improve energy efficiency by up to 93 per cent and reduce carbon emissions by up to 98 per cent. Accenture found that moving to the public cloud can deliver Total Cost of Ownership savings of up to 30 to 40 per cent. 

“Sustainability and business strategy are two sides to the same coin,” Microsoft’s Čiček tells Emerging Europe. “Digitisation is the key for both”. 

Closing the digital gap 

While all of Europe is moving towards digitisation, there is a ‘digital gap’ between the levels already achieved by Western Europe and those of Central and Eastern Europe. In 2016, only 50 of Europe’s 400 Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH) – one-stop shops that offer companies access to technology-testing, financing advice, market intelligence and networking opportunities – were in CEE. While half of companies in Finland and Denmark report a high or very high level of digital intensity, 55 per cent of companies in Bulgaria, Romania, and Latvia had low investment in digital technologies. PwC worked with the European Commission to identify ways of how to bridge this digital gap. 

One identified solution was to bring more organisations to join the Digital Innovation Hubs. PwC recommended 34 CEE based research institutes and innovation hubs to be added to the DIH network which will help them access relevant advice and mentoring programmes and build a stronger digital and innovation ecosystem in the region.  

“National and regional innovation strategies should recognise innovation centres as key entities in the area of digital transformation. Cooperation between regulators, businesses and hubs is necessary at the stage of creating incentives, programmes and regulations, which would strengthen the subsequent exchange of benefits and lead to reducing the digital gap,” says Agnieszka Gajewska, PwC global government and public sector leader, about this initiative with the European Commission. 

PwC also partnered with city and national governments to improve access to digital public services. It has worked to implement a full-scale customer relationship management system for the Wrocław City Hall with web-portals, a map tracking the location of incidents, and a platform for phone requests to integrate data gathered by the public administration into one place. PwC also partnered with a digital leader in the region – the government of Estonia – to standardise and streamline existing e-services. 

“The goal of this project was to increase the quality of business processes of the existing public services and help with planning new customer-friendly services,” says Janek Rozov of Estonia’s Ministry of Interior. “The state lacked an accurate overview of where, what kind and at what level and quality services the state and local agencies offer and what channels were used in order to provide services.” 

Now, thousands of companies can input their data directly into their company file, and a building permit can be acquired online via one process rather than five separate ones. 

Emerging Europe’s digital and green transitions will be iterative processes of continual refining and improving. But there is good reason to be hopeful. Today in Estonia, 99 per cent of public services -including voting and filing taxes – are available online.

Devin Haas

Devin Haas

Devin Haas is an analyst and reporter at Emerging Europe/Reinvantage.

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Case study: Global technology company

1. The Client

A global technology company operating across EMEA, with a regional HQ in Istanbul. The company manages 20+ markets, handling everything from brand campaigns to strategic partnerships.

Role we worked with: The EMEA Head of Marketing (supported by two regional managers).

2. The Challenge

Despite strong products and a respected global brand, the regional team was struggling with:

  • Misaligned strategy across markets → campaigns executed with inconsistent narratives.
  • Slowed growth → lead generation plateaued despite increasing spend.
  • Internal friction → marketing, sales, and product teams disagreed on KPIs and priorities.

Traditional fixes (more meetings, more reporting) only created more noise.

3. The Sprint

We ran a 10-day Remote Reinvention Sprint with the regional HQ team.

  • Day 1–3: Intake → Reviewed decks, campaign data, and plans.
  • Day 4: Sprint Session (90 mins) → Breakthroughs:
    • Sales and marketing had different definitions of “qualified lead.”
    • 40% of spend was going into low-potential markets.
    • The team assumed the problem was lack of budget, but it was actually lack of alignment.
  • Day 5–10: Synthesis → Insights distilled into a Clarity Brief + Insight Canvas.
4. The Breakthrough

The Sprint uncovered that the issue wasn’t budget, but fragmentation.
Three sharp insights unlocked a way forward:

  1. Unified KPIs bridging marketing + sales.
  2. Market prioritisation → shifting budget to 5 high-potential markets.
  3. Simplified narrative → one EMEA core story, locally adaptable.
By just realigning resources and focus, the client could unlock an estimated £250,000 in efficiency gains within the next 12 months — far exceeding the Sprint’s value guarantee. The path to higher returns was already inside the business, hidden by misalignment.
5. From Sprint to Action (4 Pillars Applied)

With clarity secured, Reinvantage didn’t suggest “more projects.”

Instead, we used the Sprint findings to create laser-focused next steps — drawing only from the areas that would deliver the most impact:

  • Readiness → Alignment workshops for sales + marketing teams. New playbooks clarified “qualified lead” definitions and reduced internal disputes.
  • Foresight → A market-opportunity scan identified which 5 countries would deliver the highest ROI, removing the guesswork from allocation.
  • Growth → Guided the reallocation of €2M budget and designed a phased rollout strategy that protected risk while maximising return.
  • Positioning → Built a messaging framework balancing global consistency with local nuance, ensuring campaigns spoke with one clear voice.

Because the Sprint had stripped away noise, these actions weren’t generic consulting ideas — they were directly tied to the breakthroughs.

6. The Results
  • +28% increase in qualified leads across the region.
  • 30% faster campaign rollout due to streamlined approvals.
  • Budget efficiency gains → €2M redirected from low-return to high-potential markets.
  • Internal cohesion → marketing + sales now use a single shared dashboard.
The client came in believing they needed more budget.
The Sprint revealed that what they really needed was clarity and alignment.

With that clarity, the four pillars became not theory, but practical tools to deliver measurable impact.

The Sprint guaranteed at least £20,000 in value — but in this case, it helped unlock more than 10x that within six months.
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Case study: Regional VC fund & accelerator

1. The Client

A regional venture capital fund and accelerator focused on early-stage tech start-ups in the Baltics and Central Europe.

The fund had raised a new round and was under pressure to deliver stronger returns while also building its reputation as the go-to platform for founders.

Role we worked with: Managing Partner, supported by the Head of Portfolio Development.

2. The Challenge

Despite a promising portfolio, results were uneven.

Key issues:

  • Scattered portfolio support → no consistent playbook for start-ups, every partner did things differently.
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  • Stretched team → too many small bets, not enough clarity on which companies to double down on.

The leadership team knew something was off, but disagreed on whether the issue was pipeline quality, market conditions, or internal capacity.

3. The Sprint

We ran a 10-day Remote Reinvention Sprint with the partners and portfolio team.

  • Day 1–3: Intake → Reviewed pitch decks, pipeline funnel data, and start-up performance reports.
  • Day 4: Sprint Session (90 mins) → Breakthroughs:
    • No shared definition of a “high-potential founder.”
    • Support resources were spread too thin across the portfolio.
    • The fund’s positioning was more reactive than proactive — it didn’t own a distinctive narrative in the market.
  • Day 5–10: Synthesis → Insights consolidated into a Clarity Brief + Insight Canvas.
4. The Breakthrough

The Sprint revealed that the challenge wasn’t pipeline quality — it was lack of focus and positioning.

Three core insights provided the turning point:

  1. Portfolio Prioritisation Framework → defined clear criteria for where to double down.
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  3. Differentiated Narrative → repositioned the fund as “the accelerator of reinvention-ready founders.”
These shifts alone gave the fund a path to add an estimated £2M+ in portfolio value over the following 18 months, by concentrating capital and resources where they could move the needle most.
5. From Sprint to Action (4 Pillars Applied)

With clarity from the Sprint, Reinvantage created a tailored support plan:

  • Readiness → Coached partners on using the new prioritisation framework and trained the team on deploying the Founder Success Playbook.
  • Foresight → Ran scenario analysis on regional tech trends, helping the fund anticipate where capital would flow next.
  • Growth → Guided resource reallocation across the portfolio and supported new co-investor pitches for top-performing start-ups.
  • Positioning → Crafted a sharper brand story for the fund, positioning it as the reinvention partner for globally minded founders.
6. The Results
  • 10 portfolio companies onboarded to the new Playbook → greater consistency of support.
  • Raised follow-on capital for 3 top start-ups with the new prioritisation framework.
  • +26% increase in inbound deal flow from founders citing the fund’s new positioning.
  • Stronger internal cohesion → partners aligned on where to focus resources.
The client thought the problem was pipeline quality.
The Sprint showed it was actually lack of clarity and focus inside the firm.

By applying the four pillars, Reinvantage helped turn scattered effort into concentrated value creation.

The Sprint guaranteed at least £20,000 in value; here it set the stage for multi-million-pound upside in portfolio growth.
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1. The Client

A large international impact organisation focused on entrepreneurship and economic empowerment.
The organisation runs multi-country programmes across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, often in partnership with global donors and corporate sponsors.

Role we worked with: Senior Programme Director, responsible for regional coordination.

2. The Challenge

The organisation had launched a flagship regional initiative supporting women entrepreneurs, but the programme was underperforming.

Key issues:

  • Fragmented delivery → each country office interpreted the programme differently.
  • Donor frustration → reporting lacked consistency and clear impact metrics.
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3. The Sprint

We ran a 10-day Remote Reinvention Sprint with the regional leadership team and representatives from two country offices.

  • Day 1–3: Intake → Reviewed donor reports, programme KPIs, and field feedback.
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    • The initiative lacked a clear theory of change — everyone described its purpose differently.
  • Day 5–10: Synthesis → Insights distilled into a Clarity Brief + Insight Canvas.
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The Sprint revealed that the issue wasn’t donor pressure or programme design — it was a lack of shared framework and alignment.

Three critical insights reshaped the path forward:

  1. One Unified Theory of Change → agreed narrative for why the programme exists.
  2. Core Impact Metrics → clear, comparable KPIs across all countries.
  3. Smart Resource Sharing → digital hub to stop duplication and accelerate knowledge flow.
By eliminating duplicated reporting and clarifying what success looks like, the client saw they could save the equivalent of £100,000 in staff time annually — while also unlocking stronger donor confidence and follow-on funding opportunities.
5. From Sprint to Action (4 Pillars Applied)

Armed with Sprint clarity, Reinvantage proposed a laser-focused support plan:

  • Readiness → Trained programme leads on using the new metrics and integrated them into existing workflows.
  • Foresight → Analysed donor trends and expectations, aligning the initiative with the next funding cycle.
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  • Positioning → Crafted a regional success narrative and storytelling toolkit, helping them showcase results consistently across markets.
6. The Results
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The client thought it needed better donor management.
The Sprint revealed it needed a shared foundation across its teams.

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1. The Client

A national digital development agency tasked with driving the government’s digital transformation agenda, including e-services, citizen portals, and smart city pilots.

Role we worked with: Director of Digital Transformation, supported by IT and service delivery leads from three ministries.

2. The Challenge

The agency had strong political backing but faced hurdles in implementation.

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  • Funding pressure → international partners demanded clearer impact in the short term.

The agency wanted to accelerate momentum but struggled to get alignment across ministries.

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We ran a 14-day Immersive Reinvention Sprint with the agency’s leadership and digital focal points from three ministries.

  • Day 1–3: Intake → Reviewed strategy docs, donor reports, and citizen feedback data.
  • Day 4: Immersive Sprint Session (half-day) → Breakthroughs:
    • Each ministry had different definitions of “digital service.”
    • 20% of budget was going into overlapping pilot projects.
    • Citizens’ top frustrations were known — but not prioritised.
  • Day 5–14: Synthesis → Insights consolidated into a Clarity Brief + Insight Canvas.
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The Sprint revealed that the biggest blocker wasn’t lack of funding, but lack of shared priorities.

Three practical insights stood out:

  1. One Definition of Digital Service → agreed across ministries.
  2. Quick-Win Prioritisation → focus on top 3 citizen pain points (ID renewal, business registration, healthcare booking).
  3. Shared Resource Map → pool budgets to eliminate duplication.
These changes alone allowed the agency to unlock £75,000 in immediate savings and deliver 2–3 visible improvements in the next quarter — meeting donor expectations and building citizen trust.
5. From Sprint to Action (4 Pillars Applied)

Based on the Sprint clarity, Reinvantage proposed a modest, targeted package of support:

  • Readiness → Facilitated inter-ministerial workshops to embed the “one digital service” definition.
  • Foresight → Analysed citizen feedback trends to shape the quick-win roadmap.
  • Growth → Supported the reallocation of funds to joint projects, reducing overlap.
  • Positioning → Crafted a communication plan highlighting early digital wins to donors and citizens.
6. The Results
  • 2 pilot services integrated into the central portal (ID renewal + healthcare booking).
  • Budget savings of £75,000 from eliminating overlapping projects.
  • Citizen satisfaction up modestly → call centre complaints on digital services dropped by 12%.
  • Donor confidence improved → short-term impact report received positive feedback.
The client thought it needed more funding and bigger projects.
The Sprint revealed it first needed clarity and alignment.

By applying the four pillars to a targeted scope, Reinvantage helped deliver visible results within a single quarter — proving progress to citizens and donors and laying the groundwork for deeper transformation.