The Cloud: The Future of Financial Sustainability

For every financial transaction or credit check, there may be associated carbon emissions behind the scenes, as the question remains: How can we reduce the carbon footprint of financial decision-making? 

Around the world, billions of financial transactions happen every day, which means nearly 370 billion purchases, over 1 billion credit card transactions, and nearly 320k new credit originations. Fortunately, green trend adoption is becoming increasingly more essential for the financial services industry, and studies show that roughly 85% of people across the globe have shifted their purchasing behavior in a sustainable direction in the past five years. The cloud plays a large role in this switch to green and renewable energy. According to a 2019 study by the United Nations Global Compact and Accenture, from 2021 to 2024, transitioning to cloud computing is on track to save at least 629 million metric tons of CO2. In addition, according to a 2022 survey by Google Cloud, 36% of respondents said that “their organizations have measurement tools in place to quantify their sustainability efforts.”

The cloud has the ability to enable a circular economy, which prevents technological byproducts, reduces the harmful effects of decommissioned servers, networking equipment, and racks in the landfill. Cloud native technology is the future of energy, and progress is being made quickly. Currently, five Google data centers operate at 90% carbon-free emissions, and in 2020, Google collectively achieved 67% round-the-clock carbon free energy. Bottom line, a cloud powered by green electricity can lead to a dramatic reduction of carbon emissions, meaning a brighter and more sustainable future for companies and consumers worldwide.

How the Cloud Can Help Reduce Carbon Emissions for the Financial Services Industry

Leave a Comment