If the importance of limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius wasn’t already critical, the recent heatwave around the world, together with the urgency of action presented at COP26 has brought it to the fore. And the Financial Services (FS) sector must play its part along with other industries.

At COP26, former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney announced that 450 major banks, asset managers and institutional investors representing up to US$130 trillion in assets have joined the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), with a commitment to align their lending and investment portfolios to Paris Agreement climate goals.

For FS institutions to truly play a part in making change, sustainability must be at the core of digital transformation, and should be a driving force of innovation as opposed to a ‘nice to have’.

Ignorance isn’t always bliss

The pandemic caused a huge shift in the way we live and work. And with the move to remote and hybrid working requiring more digital-first services, many enterprises moved their data to the cloud to allow for agility, flexibility, and portability.

Today’s businesses now store more data than ever. However, only 32% of data ever created is used even though an organisation’s data is projected to increase at a 42.2% annual growth rate; and according to Statista, the global datasphere is estimated to reach 180ZB by 2025.

This will inadvertently have an impact on the environment in terms of power consumption and carbon emissions. So, this begs the question: How much data do FS institutions store in the cloud that they don’t know about?

Being intentional with data management is key

To truly embrace sustainable operations and embark on reducing data’s carbon footprint, banks must be knowledgeable about the data they have, who owns it and how it’s being stored. 

In short, a holistic view of a company’s data is essential to ensure digital operations are sustainable, from the supply chain to end-product or offering.

Doing this sustainably in the cloud is possible but it must be considered from end-to-end and by setting out a defined data management policy that outlines exactly what data needs to be retained, and how it supports the business. Here, upgrading less efficient, legacy technology systems can ensure more effective data management.

Get your partners involved

Third-party suppliers also produce quantities of data, creating a chain of organisations all reliant on each other's data for efficient operations and profitability. As a result, having the technology in place to understand an organisation’s data fabric is key to evaluating its supply chain to introduce more sustainable practice throughout.

Don’t just look sustainable, be sustainable

‘Sustainability’ has been a buzz word and it’s time for bold claims to be backed by hard numbers and results.

Reducing global warming is everyone’s responsibility and the statistics need to show not only commitment, but action being taken to achieve sustainability goals.

FS institutions can play their part by partnering with specialists to deploy sustainable cloud data management as the world goes fully digital. Because not only does efficient data management mean a reduction in costs, but it will also help the sector reach its sustainability goals, while continuing to meet customer expectations.