A sustainable future: Fiserv is committed to positively impacting our environment
Article
APR 18 2024
Fiserv focuses on sustainable innovation and continuous improvement
When it comes to sustainability, we believe companies can have the biggest impact when they leverage their unique resources and expertise. We aren’t alone in that. Starbucks does this through the ethical sourcing of coffee and the reduction of water waste. Nike creates renewable materials and connects people to opportunities to reuse and recycle products.
At Fiserv, our business approach focuses on innovation and continuous improvement. Our footprint is significant, with more than 40,000 employees and operations in more than 100 countries. We keep this top of mind as we innovate in our production environments, products and services, and real estate footprint.
Our 2023 Corporate Social Responsibility Report highlights the progress we’ve made. A few highlights from the past year are below.
Improving operational efficiency
We continue to look for innovative opportunities to reduce waste and create more sustainable operations within our U.S. production facilities.
For example, in our Output Solutions facility in Nashville, Tennessee, our industrial engineers identified an opportunity to reduce the amount of scrap generated during card production. Through innovative solutions in the production process, our engineers reduced card waste, eliminating an estimated 40,000 pounds of PVC scrap in 2023.
At our Hardware Services facility, our technical repair team reviews and validates the functionality of cables, power packs and screen drivers. If these parts pass the review, we reuse them as starter kits for future refurbished equipment shipments. Not only does this reduce the number of new kits we have to purchase for deployment, it also extends the life of useful equipment.
Because of their role in operations, we believe a continued focus on initiatives like these will continue to help provide benefits to our operations and the environment. Finding ways to reduce the environmental impact of our facilities remains a top priority.
Driving sustainable billing and payments
Our experience in digital payments spans decades. From digital document storage and mobile wallets to electronic billing and payments, our solutions leverage omnichannel delivery to reduce paper transportation and consumption by enabling people to move and manage money digitally.
Physical cards remain necessary, however, and we partner with plastic procurement suppliers to provide our clients with a range of recycled plastic offerings. We now offer three recycled plastic product offerings including recycled PVC, recovered ocean-bound plastic and upcycled post-industrial plastic. These offerings help recover plastic and reuse it for card production.
Managing our real estate footprint
Our real estate strategy includes developing state-of-the-art campus environments in strategic locations. We prioritize green building design principles and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifications, which attest to a building’s sustainability and efficiency.
As of 2023, we have over 500,000 square feet of LEED-certified office space, including our 1 Broadway office in New York City, which is designated LEED Gold, and our New Jersey technology campus, which has achieved LEED Platinum certification. In just the past month, our Dublin, Ireland, office was designated LEED Platinum. We continue to prioritize the incorporation of green building design principles and plan to apply our new Milwaukee, Wisconsin, headquarters for LEED certification.
Data represents an even more significant impact of our business. Storing, managing and protecting large amounts of data is central to everything we do – from facilitating commerce and payments to managing scalable data needs for our clients. Data centers, however, are among the most energy-intensive building types due to their significant electricity requirements, infrastructure redundancies and 24/7 operations.
Relocating, consolidating and eliminating some of our data centers is important to our sustainability strategy. As we consolidate and relocate data centers, we consider the reuse and disposal of equipment. Through our e-waste provider, more than 70,000 assets avoided the landfill, and over 500,000 pounds of materials were recycled, resold or recovered in 2023.
Putting human resources in place
It’s not enough to state publicly that we want to affect change, or that we’ve established a department to run our climate initiatives. The impact we seek requires dedicated expertise and cross-functional collaboration. Our teams are intentionally structured to enable large-scale change across our company.
Our Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Neil H. Wilcox, guides climate-related strategies, reporting directly to the CEO and regularly updating the board and management committee. The CSR team collaborates with C-level leaders, regional heads, business units and functional leaders across Fiserv.
As Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility, I work closely with the Global Head of Facilities, Energy & Sustainability, who reports to the Head of Global Real Estate. They connect regularly with the Head of CSR to coordinate our climate strategy. This collaborative approach allows for a broad contribution of expertise to address the challenges and opportunities associated with sustainability programming.
Our Sustainability Ambassador program extends efforts at the regional and local levels. Ambassadors at nearly 30 locations have received training on our sustainability initiatives to help their fellow associates understand how they can support our sustainability goals.
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What’s next
We are committed to integrating sustainable principles into our operations. We recognize our role in proactively shaping a more sustainable future for our business, stakeholders and planet. Our ongoing efforts in operational efficiency, billing and payments, as well as responsible real estate management reflect a comprehensive approach to environmental stewardship.
Further, we take our responsibility to manage our climate impact seriously. That is why, for the first time, we are implementing a near-term greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal. Our goal is to reduce our absolute scope 1 and scope 2 GHG emissions by 50% by 2030, compared to our 2019 baseline. (For more details and our AB1305 Disclosure, please see our 2023 CSR Report.) We are also targeting having vendors representing 25% of our total vendor spend provide actual GHG emissions data to us by 2030.
Put simply, we will remain thoughtful about how we bring innovation to our clients and their customers.
Learn more about our commitment to corporate citizenship