UK IT leaders struggle to meet rising sustainability demands

Most UK IT leaders believe their organisations are falling short of their own sustainability ambitions, despite a growing focus on environmental priorities, according to recent survey findings.

Leadership concerns

The research, conducted among IT decision makers from large UK companies, found that 93% see sustainability as a rising business priority. However, 83% concede that their organisations need to increase efforts around IT sustainability. The gap highlights ongoing challenges as firms prepare for stricter climate reporting rules over the coming years.

Reporting challenges

From 2026, new UK regulations aligned with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) framework will require many companies to significantly increase the transparency of their climate-related disclosures. Listed and large companies will need to provide additional details about climate risks, greenhouse gas emissions, and the energy consumption of IT infrastructure such as data centres and cloud platforms.

The survey points to several barriers impeding progress towards these goals. Chief among them are rising cloud costs, cited by 68% of respondents as a source of financial pressure. Alongside the budget constraints, 48% of IT leaders report feeling overwhelmed by fragmented and voluminous data on technology usage and expenditure, making it difficult to inform clear, effective action toward sustainability targets.

Infrastructure growth

The scale of the challenge is set to increase as demand for digital infrastructure grows. Government projections indicate that UK data centre capacity could increase significantly over the next decade, from 1.6 GW in 2024 to potentially 6.3 GW by 2030, in large part due to greater adoption of artificial intelligence workloads. As a result, achieving and reporting on emissions reductions is likely to become more complex for many organisations as their technology footprint expands.

Data gaps

Many survey respondents said they lack the comprehensive insight required to effectively manage and report on the sustainability of their IT investments. The prevalence of fragmented and siloed data, coupled with growing infrastructure complexity and costs, is hindering the ability to make evidence-led decisions on emissions and resource use.

"Boards are expected to show climate progress in ways that can be proven against reporting standards. Right now, IT leaders are facing rising bills and data that do not add up to a clear story. And until that changes, organisations will find it difficult to deliver the results that regulators, and their own stakeholders, now expect.

"Without full visibility of what their technology estate is costing, consuming and emitting, businesses cannot evidence clearly whether cloud and AI investments are advancing or undermining their climate goals," said Marlon Oliver, Senior Vice President EMEA, Flexera.