This article discusses the false antagonism between sustainable development and corporate performance amalgamated with the search for innovation, intensive use of technologies, and global awareness, during the COVID-19 pandemic scenario and the transformations imposed on society, together with the effects of the necessary insertion of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. The study highlights the interaction between elements of a technological revolution that imposes profound changes in society, organizations, and, at the same time, unprecedented health and environmental crisis that put at risk the capacity of human resilience to build the future, and opportunities to reconcile socio-economic advances and sustainability practices.

Surfactants represent a class of compounds used in large-scale household sanitizers, the Linear Alkylbenzene Sulfonate being the most used. However, there is concern about these compounds’ environmental aspects and impacts. This work aims to analyze the life cycle inventory of the production of Linear Alkylbenzene Sulfonate from cradle to gate for the Brazilian context aiming to propose improvements regarding cumulative energy demand and global warming potential. The total energy demand of the base case scenario was 59 MJ-Eq and a carbon footprint of 1.71 kg CO2-eq. A scenario considering the switch in heat and electricity supply to renewable sources was proposed, and a global reduction of Global Warming Potential in 100 years of 15.73% was realized, reducing the carbon footprint of the heat supply chain by 73.07% and the electricity supply chain by 98.90%.

This article discusses the false antagonism between sustainable development and corporate performance amalgamated with the search for innovation, intensive use of technologies, and global awareness, during the COVID-19 pandemic scenario and the transformations imposed on society, together with the effects of the necessary insertion of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. The study highlights the interaction between elements of a technological revolution that imposes profound changes in society, organizations, and, at the same time, unprecedented health and environmental crisis that put at risk the capacity of human resilience to build the future, and opportunities to reconcile socio-economic advances and sustainability practices.