Citizens Bank – Isabelle Wohlin – 2025
Summary
Isabelle Wohlin leveraged geographic information system (GIS) technology to analyze energy and climate hazard exposure data for Citizens’ operational footprint.
Goals
Citizens manages a large and diverse real estate portfolio for its operations across the US. The bank brought on Isabelle to visualize energy use intensity (EUI) to understand regional trends. Isabelle was also asked to assess climate hazard exposure and historical weather impacts on the bank’s operational locations, aligning internal stakeholders through interactive data visualizations. Citizens was interested in understanding how this analysis could inform and bolster their current decisions and practices.
Solutions
Isabelle developed an EUI dashboard to compare energy efficiency across Citizens’ sites. Patterns affirmed the value of their energy conservation measures to track and manage energy consumption. Isabelle looked at flooding exposure for the bank. She authored a white paper assessing public flooding datasets from Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and National Risk Index (NRI) and analyzed the exposure of current sites to flooding. Isabelle shared her findings with numerous internal teams, securing leadership endorsement and identifying additional use cases. The third output focused on severe weather-related events across Citizens’ sites and their resultant financial costs. Isabelle developed a multi-year side-by-side geographical view of these events and expenses to evaluate any hotspot sites and regional trends.
Potential Impact
Isabelle’s work led to a renewed focus on consistency of site-level data across teams and systems. Her work on flooding will be integrated into future site assessments to inform stakeholders of any risks up-front and be reflected in subsequent investment decisions. The remediation cost analysis will be further refined to determine if the business can take proactive action to reduce ad hoc expenses. Historical costs will inform investment and maintenance for specific sites. These findings will inform real estate processes to improve operational resilience across Citizens.
