ESG for IT: How CIOs Can Drive Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability has moved from a corporate social responsibility footnote to a board-level mandate with direct implications for IT strategy and operations. TechTarget examines what this shift means for CIOs—and how technology leaders can translate ESG ambitions into measurable outcomes.

DataBank Senior Director of Sustainability Jenny Gerson emphasizes that sustainability must be built into infrastructure planning from the start, not bolted on later. Design choices around power systems, cooling, and construction affect emissions across an entire facility’s lifecycle — and the biggest immediate opportunity, she notes, is renewable power.

“The biggest immediate opportunity is renewable power. Choosing a facility backed by renewable energy can eliminate a large portion of operational emissions right away.”
— Jenny Gerson, Senior Director of Sustainability, DataBank

Gerson also highlights the importance of evaluating vendor sustainability claims rigorously—looking for audited emissions data, renewable energy attestations, and power purchase agreements to distinguish real action from greenwashing.

The article outlines four practical actions CIOs can take: optimizing workloads, managing data lifecycle, modernizing infrastructure, and reducing digital waste. Across all of them, the message is consistent—sustainability performs best when it’s embedded in IT decision-making, not treated as a compliance overlay.

Read the full article at TechTarget.