Which industries are making the greatest strides in adoption?
Elhannah Adekeye:“ In the financial sector and financial services, we’ re seeing ESG data and climate risk modelling being used as guides to investment decisions. We’ re also seeing companies like Apple and Intel really having a push towards circular IT and how products are designed, which I think is very important in terms of adoption. We are seeing that sustainability is very much top of mind for every sector, but I think particularly the technology sector and the financial sector, we are seeing that integrated at much greater length at the moment.”
Petrina Steele:“ Similar to Elhannah’ s response, I think we’ re seeing adoption across the board. For data centre providers, there’ s a very scrutinised lens on how much power is being consumed by that industry. Yes, big tech is an area that has focus, and we ourselves are very open about our energy consumption and we have very strong objectives to reduce water PUE as well as power PUE.
“ I would say financial customers are definitely looking at that, and mainly the technology sector and those who are heavily dependent on large-scale compute.”
Mark Yeeles:“ Looking at the industries we could learn from might be another way of looking at this. Oil and gas has done a pretty good job.
When you think about the output, there are more challenges there, but it has been thinking about how to optimise for quite some time. A number of industries like life science and food and beverage I feel are ahead of the curve when it comes to thinking about how to drive out operational waste.
“ There are lots of areas and sectors that are almost ahead of the curve, but actually I think there’ s lots of learning to do. Digital twin is something that I’ m seeing more and more of, in particular in data centres. We’ ll see that grow at pace, we’ re all learning how to utilise this technology. If I think about sectors we could all learn from, there’ s a lot to be gained by thinking about this as cross-pollination of different sectors.”
“ There’ s a lot to be gained by thinking about this as crosspollination of different sectors”
MARK YEELES, VICE PRESIDENT, SECURE POWER DIVISION, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC
138 July 2025