Green IT: Part of the problem and the solution for ESG in finance

The finance sector deals in constant and intensive data flows, meaning IT is its beating heart. This creates a complex scenario, in which IT is both an issue and a major solution in pursuing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aims in financial services firms.

IT is responsible for a significant percentage of financial organizations’ direct emissions, which must reduce to meet net-zero targets. Simultaneously, however, IT is vital in the digitization needed to replace physical processes with less carbon-intensive digital processes, sector-wide.

The (increasing) need for IT is unavoidable — but its carbon footprint must decline at the same time. The solution? Enhancing the finance sector’s IT energy efficiency and shifting to renewable sources

Below, we’ll discuss two factors at play: Implementing green IT for ESG data management and why the process is less costly than you might think.

How to implement green IT for ESG data management

Given we’re a global IT company, at DXC we’re driven to lessen both our own and our customers’ environmental impact. We’ve reduced our direct emissions by 41% since 2019, via initiatives including rationalizing applications, reducing data, and modernizing data centers.

We utilize the same tactics to support customers to green their IT, across their data centers, hardware, networking, infrastructure management, applications, and data itself. We support customers to manageably and systematically reduce emissions throughout their IT stack, and also to enhance their specific ESG data and analytics and ESG data management capabilities.

Cloud’s contribution to sustainability goals is a prime example of the potential here. Our research shows customers who modernized applications in migrating from on-premises infrastructure to cloud or hybrid IT achieved an average of 37% lower carbon emissions.

Greening ESG data management: Less expensive than it appears

Greening IT in the finance sector, and greening ESG data management as part of this wider process, is often viewed as very costly. But think again. Streamlining and deleting unstructured data (including the fresh data firms require for evolving ESG data and analytics), improving infrastructure management, and rationalizing applications actually save money.

It’s logical: If we’re storing and processing data as efficiently as possible (including ESG data itself), we’re reducing costs and carbon emissions in parallel. The difference can be remarkable, with our research showing that adaptation to the most effective cloud or hybrid IT model reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) by 34%

Green IT, enhance progress on ESG

To read more on tackling the ESG challenge in the financial services sector, download our whitepaper.