A 21 December 2021 article in Finance Monthly described that ahead of the United Nations COP26 conference in Glasgow, “Microsoft published an academic study in partnership with Dr. Chris Brauer, Goldsmiths, University of London, that painted a picture of the UK’s current sustainability climate and a blueprint to accelerate action.”
According to Finance Monthly: “For the majority, financial organisations are failing to set out policies that enact their sustainability strategies, for example, (*their) research found that only 29% of UK financial organisations currently apply environmental standards in their supply chain. Second to that was a lack of in-house skills and expertise in sustainable practices, followed by a struggle to shift their corporate thinking towards more sustainable business operations.”
The article cites some organisations engaging in “sustainable practices,” such as “NatWest,” which, because of a collaboration “with Microsoft,” is “helping UK businesses better understand their carbon footprint through innovative measurement tools and tailored action plans to reduce their carbon emissions.” With data and applications from Microsoft, and with best practices implemented within NatWest, the financial organization set an example by reducing its “own carbon footprint by helping (*its’) customers, a prime example of the ripple effect that financial services institutions can have on the UK economy by placing sustainability high on their priority list.”
READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE ON THE FINANCE MONTHLY WEBSITE BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK
Chiara James, Director, Queue Associates Worldwide, UK, Limited, a Microsoft Dynamics Gold-certified Partner, further described the impact of Microsoft on sustainability: “Microsoft is helping the many UK and European organisations, in the financial services and in other industry spaces, to create better efforts to realise sustainability strategies and milestones with a set of modern, cloud-based tools for data modeling. These tools, including the Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 suites, among others offered by the tech giant, are also cloud-based, which can create options for many UK enterprises to work without deep carbon footprints.” Ms. James continued: “By centralising applications and eliminating on premises (“onprem”) datacentres and systems, which have often been environmentally inefficient, and enabling such paradigms as work-from-home, Microsoft modernises operations while extending business reach.”
Contact Queue Associates UK, Ltd.
Please contact Queue Associates, UK, Ltd. (a Microsoft Dynamics Gold Partner) to learn more about our work for our clients, in direct collaboration with Microsoft, on sustainability. You can reach us by completing the FORM ON OUR CONTACT PAGE (please include “Sustainability Efforts” in the comments), or by calling us at +44 020 7549 1606.