January 10, 2022

Companies and individuals are waking-up to the reality of the need for better sustainability initiatives in many aspects of business and industry, in order to do their part to prevent and hopefully reverse global weather change and a warming planet. It turns out that the data center industry has been working pretty hard for “greener” solutions.

This really isn’t that hard to fathom when you consider that computer technology, IT networking, Cloud storage, binary code and all of the essentials of IT today were maverick ideas once upon a time and clearly focused on the future of society in a benevolent direction. Sustainability in IT and data centers simply makes a lot of sense in a world beginning to suffer the repercussions of global warming.

As reported by Data Center Frontier in December of 2021, “Data center customers are driving change within the industry in meaningful ways. While large cloud computing companies led the charge for greener data centers early on, they are not alone. An S&P 500 report found that 86 percent of companies published sustainability reports in 2018. As more companies from all sectors adopt their own goals for sustainability, they naturally look to their supply chain for partners that can help them succeed. As most companies have an IT demand, data centers represent an important element of their energy footprint and supply chain…. The data center industry’s path toward sustainability has been a steady march that began in 2007, when the largest data center operators, from Google to Facebook to Amazon, started to improve the efficiency of their equipment and data center facilities. Others began to take notice as that relentless focus on efficiency yielded huge savings in electricity and slashed the carbon impact of these businesses. These were early examples of reducing carbon and costs, clearly making the business case for sustainability.”

 As we’ve been searching the Web for articles on sustainability in data centers recently, we’ve read of some impressive and really encouraging efforts by IT firms to reduce their carbon footprints, diminish their water use, and even devise natural ways of keeping their data centers cool without over-burdening the electrical grid. Check-out these remarkable achievements that data centers are actualizing all over the world as reported by Data Centre Dynamics, and then ask yourself what role your company can play in greening the Data Center industry.

  • In West Africa, “Orange signed an EaaS (Energy as a Service) contract with Engie to convert the GOS (Groupement Orange Services) to solar power by installing a solar plant on rooftops and solar carports, for a total installed capacity of 355 kWp. The commissioning is scheduled for the second half of 2022.” Read the full coverage here.
  • In Australia, “A new Blockchain firm aims to deploy containerized data centers at a number of solar farms across Australia, as well as at its planned community developments for people with disabilities. Phaeton Technology this week said it plans to deploy eight modular data centers at its sister company Phaeton Energy’s microgrid solar farms across Australia.” Read complete coverage here.
  • In the USA, “Data center and storage provider Iron Mountain will be tracking its energy usage and carbon emissions hour-by-hour, as a step towards going 100 percent carbon free….The company is using the ClearTrace energy and carbon accounting platform to gather hourly energy and carbon analysis in its US data centers. ClearTrace will provide digital infrastructure for the analysis, which will be traceable and verifiable for carbon reporting, and will help Iron Mountain work with suppliers to procure renewables that match its current hourly shortfalls, so it can go fully zero-carbon.” Learn more via this link.
  • In Wales, “Gibraltar telco firm Gibtelecom has planted over 600 native British trees at Pantpurlais farm, Llandrindod Wells, Wales. In conjunction with the charity Protect Earth, Gibtelecom has now planted 12 species of native saplings, including 100 Silver Birch, 50 Common Alder, 25 Bird Cherry, and five Holly at the company’s plot on the farm, named Mount Pleasant after Gibtelecom’s Gibraltar data center premises.” See the complete reporting.

These efforts and more are happening with increased frequency in the 21st century, as company owners, their boards and their customers begin to demand or expect the responsible use of land, resources and energy from the data centers with whom they do their business. Don’t miss-out on valuable new business opportunities from companies who are aware of their role in preventing and mitigating global warming. And don’t miss-out on your opportunity to improve the efficiencies and sustainability of your data center facilities. Altus data center consultants can help! Please reach-out to us today and let’s discuss your needs.

Thanks to both Data Center Frontier and Data Centre Dynamics for their stellar reporting on this subject. Please read the complete DCF article on data center sustainability in 2022 here.