UK- grounded banking major Barclays has partnered with climate technology company ExpectAI to launch a new action aimed at helping small and medium- sized enterprises( SMEs) ameliorate profitability by using AI- driven sustainability perceptivity. The collaboration reflects a growing recognition that sustainability data, when used strategically, can unleash palpable business value for SMEs navigating rising costs, nonsupervisory pressures, and climate transition challenges. Crucial focus areas in this action include SME sustainability, AI- driven perceptivity, carbon footmark operation, energy effectiveness, and sustainable finance.
The cooperation will see Barclays test ExpectAI’s flagship AI platform, Una, beginning in early 2026. The airman will estimate how advanced analytics and public sustainability data can be restated into practicable strategies that ameliorate productivity, reduce functional costs, and strengthen competitiveness for UK- grounded SMEs. By integrating climate tech, profit growth, emigrations reduction, AI sustainability tools, and SME transition finance into core decision- timber, the collaboration aims to demonstrate that sustainability can be a motorist of fiscal performance rather than a compliance burden.
Bridging Sustainability and Business Performance
SMEs form the backbone of the UK frugality but frequently warrant the coffers and moxie to interpret sustainability data or invest in emigrations reduction strategies. While large corporates decreasingly calculate on sophisticated ESG brigades and digital tools, lower businesses constantly struggle to identify where sustainability investments can deliver the loftiest returns. Barclays and ExpectAI’s collaboration seeks to address this gap by furnishing accessible, data- driven perceptivity that align environmental action with marketable issues.
Through AI- powered analysis, SMEs will be suitable to understand how their operations impact emigrations, energy use, and costs, while also relating openings for effectiveness earnings. The action positions sustainability not as an abstract thing, but as a practical pathway to bettered perimeters, adaptability, and long- term growth.
ExpectAI’s Una Platform and Its Capabilities
innovated in 2021 and headquartered in London, ExpectAI specializes in applying artificial intelligence and public datasets to help SMEs grow gains while reducing emigrations. The company lately launched Una, an AI- powered platform designed to give businesses with a clear view of their carbon footmark alongside a acclimatized climate action plan.
Una offers customized energy- effectiveness recommendations grounded on a company’s functional profile and sector. Beyond diagnostics, the platform connects druggies with vindicated result providers and backing mates, helping businesses move from sapience to perpetration. This end- to- end approach is intended to remove common walls SMEs face, similar as limited access to trusted merchandisers or query around backing sustainability upgrades.
The company is chaired by former bp CEO Bernard Looney, emphasizing its ambition to operate at the crossroad of climate leadership and marketable pragmatism.
Barclays’ part in Supporting SME Transition
Barclays has a long- standing focus on SME banking and has decreasingly deposited itself as a leader in sustainable and transition finance. By testing ExpectAI’s Una platform, the bank aims to assess how AI- driven sustainability tools can enhance the support it offers to business guests.
The airman will explore whether sustainability perceptivity can be directly linked to measurable advancements in productivity, cost effectiveness, and competitiveness. For Barclays, the collaboration also represents an occasion to support the growth of an arising UK climate tech company while buttressing its broader sustainability strategy.
Daniel Hanna, Group Head of Sustainable and Transition Finance at Barclays, emphasized the strategic significance of AI platforms in helping businesses make informed sustainability opinions. He noted that the action aligns with the bank’s ambition to help guests more understand the connection between sustainability enterprise and long- term value creation.
Leadership Perspectives on the Collaboration
Anand Verma, Author and CEO of ExpectAI, described the cooperation as a significant step toward the company’s charge of helping SMEs come more profitable, productive, and sustainable. He stressed Barclays’ deep engagement with the SME sector and its commitment to supporting guests through the climate transition as crucial reasons the collaboration holds strong eventuality.
According to Verma, the action is designed to demonstrate how AI and sustainability data can induce real, measurable value for UK businesses, moving the discussion beyond environmental responsibility toward profitable occasion.
Counteraccusations for the UK SME Ecosystem
Still, the Barclays- ExpectAI collaboration could serve as a model for how fiscal institutions and climate tech enterprises work together to accelerate SME decarbonization while strengthening business performance, If successful. As nonsupervisory prospects and investor scrutiny around sustainability increase, SMEs that can integrate data- driven climate strategies into their operations may gain a competitive edge.
By aligning sustainability perceptivity with profitability pretensions, the action signals a shift in how the transition to a low- carbon frugality is communicated to lower businesses. Rather than being framed solely as a cost or obligation, sustainability is decreasingly deposited as a strategic switch for effectiveness, invention, and growth.
As the airman begins in 2026, its issues will be nearly watched by both the banking and climate tech sectors, with the eventuality to reshape how SMEs engage with sustainability in the times ahead.
