During Informatica World, there’s already been some discussion around sustainability and environmental, social and governance concerns. But there’s much more to discuss, especially given how data centers aren’t necessarily prepared for the AI wave to come and its impact on ESG.

That’s an area of interest for massive companies such as Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd., which has a huge number of customers and deals with lots of data. The company, which is partnered with Informatica Inc., views the chief data officer as being uniquely positioned to drive sustainability within an organization, according to Meredith Kalman (pictured, left), senior manager of strategy and analytics at Deloitte.

Representatives from Deloitte and Informatica discuss ESG data management capabilities with theCUBE at Informatica World 2024.

“At the end of the day, they’re responsible for the quality of that sustainability data and making sure that the organization has trust in that data,” she said. “If you think about it from the top down, they have the responsibility to really partner with the CEO to set the sustainability strategy, figure out what the priorities are around sustainability for their organization, move on to the chief financial officer.”

Kalman, along with Levent Ergin (right), global chief ESG sustainability strategist and global head of ESG strategic alliance partnerships at Informatica, and Wout Vandegaer (middle), global Informatica lead alliance partner at Deloitte, spoke with theCUBE Research principal analyst Rob Strechay at Informatica World, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how generative AI can be leveraged in ESG data management and other sustainability strategies. (* Disclosure below.)

Navigating sustainability, ESG and data challenges

After the move to the chief financial officer, it’s necessary for CFOs to determine what regulations apply to sustainability for their organization, figure out when they have to comply and map out a roadmap, according to Kalman. Then, there’s the supply chain and operations side.

“The chief data officer needs to figure out, okay, how do I partner with the suppliers to gather the data that’s needed to do all of the sustainability reporting?” she said. “Then at the end, you’ve got the chief information officer. How do I stand up this sustainability data and reporting platform? What’s going to be the roadmap for that and how do I integrate it with the rest of the IT ecosystem?”

Of course, there are data challenges involved here. The biggest challenge with data is managing  the different regulations and regimes that companies need to comply with, according to Kalman.

“Then, there’s also an organizational and change perspective. How do you coordinate all of the people from the business, data governance, IT, who need to put all this data together at the end of the day and curate it so that it can be landed and reported off of?” she said.

The main common foundational element that Informatica provides to Deliotte is the accelerator for a client’s value journey, according to Vandegaer. Of course, no one company can solve this problem by itself.

“You need to bring together an ecosystem that brings the best in-breed capabilities for each of those components of a reference architecture. Informatica is front and center, but think about Workiva, Persefoni, Snowflake or Databricks. You need to build that ecosystem to enable the value for our clients,” he said.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of Informatica World:

(* Disclosure: Informatica Inc. and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Informatica, Deloitte, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE