The financial services sector faces new and evolving challenges as it seeks to navigate the new energy landscape. A decade ago, energy did not typically feature on the boardroom agendas of many financial services businesses. Today, however, leadership teams are challenged by rising and volatile energy costs; the need to decarbonise; managing bills and payments for complex and evolving estates, as well as regulatory change.

For financial institutions with extensive branch networks such as retail banks, forecasting demand has never been more challenging. For those with a minimal or decreasing physical network, the carbon cost per click is just as crucial. Achieving transformational change across the entire financial system is a huge undertaking. Nonetheless, there are many ways that these institutions can achieve change in the short to medium term.

This paper focuses on strategies for decarbonising financial services firms’ physical estates in order to:

• Reduce carbon emissions
• Increase profitability
• Enhance operational resilience
• Support a dynamic grid system