Achieving Sustainability in Cloud Computing for Financial Services

Although it doesn’t pop out as the most prominent polluter, all the financial transactions and credit checks done daily can produce carbon emissions. These are small but when there are over 1 billion credit card transactions daily, it adds up. This has led to 52% of banks seeing environmental concerns as a rising risk over the next five years.

One of the major proposed solutions to this is a transition towards cloud computing. This means using hosts held on the internet instead of external storage to create a working network. This will minimize energy consumption, free up space as storage is digitalized, and eliminate waste in general. 

Over the period of 2021 to 2024 this is proposed to save 629 million metric tons of CO2. Within the year a transfer to the cloud could reduce emissions by 59 million metric tons. This is equal to taking 22 million cars off the road, a major reduction. Large physical data centers are at an all time high and a move to the cloud would really help emissions.

Equifax in particular is committed to net-zero emissions by 2040. This comes with a $1.5 billion investment in cloud technology. It’s important for the technology powerhouses of the world to look to reduce their emissions, and the cloud seems to be one of the most effective ways.