Considerations for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Factors at the Center of a Modern Data Governance Program.

We have all seen the exponential growth of data production since 2020, and how it is projected to continue to grow daily in the future. Estimates are that businesses will generate 79 zettabytes of data globally by 2025.

Right now, industries are developing metrics to measure their impact on the environment and sustainability. Investor support, business reputation, and market share increasingly depend on the ability to provide verifiable data on environmental impact. Best practices for the metrics are not clearly defined and regulatory agencies are watching to leverage current practices into regulatory demands. 

The environmental impact of data is often overlooked in sustainability and ESG efforts, and we contend that data governance needs to be their foundation - not only in governance of the metric data but in actionable governance to reduce the environmental impact of data. We will provide guidance on how data governance can support ESG through robust retention policies, data harmonization, and automation of governance to encourage compliance. We will discuss specific environmental impacts of daily data growth, such as:

• Use of “Green” data centers for ongoing storage. The European Union is already putting regulatory guidance in place to encourage “Green” data centers, but what does “Green” mean and what will that look like globally?
• Growing production of electronic waste generated by outdated infrastructure to keep up with daily data growth,
• Growing demand for limited resources to build modern data components to keep up with daily data growth,
• Ecosystem disruption, stormwater impact, industrial noise impact of installing new data centers to keep up with daily data growth.

Speaker: Erin Olshefski

Principal Consultant, ERM

Erin is an accomplished data management specialist with 8+ years of experience as a leader, leveraging technical and subject matter expertise in environmental, health, and safety data consulting. Erin has focused on leading the development of field data collection tools, implementation of data management systems, and development of data governance and management plans. Erin has also held roles governing data with local and regional government agencies and in real estate development. This broad range of experience has given Erin a unique point of view that lends well to supporting organizations in their data governance and strategy journeys, particularly those with complex stakeholder networks.

Speaker: Lee Kurzhal

Principal Consultant, ERM

Lee has more than 25 years of experience in applying data governance principles and practice to the fields of health care, occupational health, and environmental data in the global arena. She specializes in governance through developing data-driven best practices and business processes. She has been applying exceptionally strong analytic, operations, process, and program development skills to areas such as data governance design and implementation, optimization analysis, quality assurance, and regulatory review. Her problem-solving skills have led to efficiency in project management, communication, and data collection/management.