But what measures can organisations take to source clean energy, increase efficiency and achieve their sustainability goals?
THE CHALLENGE
Across the world, there are over 13 billion internet-connected devices in use. Fast forward a few years and many non-connected products of the past will be connected, driving the number of connected devices to 100 billion by 2025. We’re already seeing this boom in connected devices in the consumer electricals space, with fridges, thermostats, and even smart locks for homes being internet-enabled. Entire industries are adapting too, just look at the megatrends of connectivity and autonomous driving in the automotive sector, or the way we’re increasingly streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime instead of watching terrestrial television. The increase in IoT enabled devices, edge computing and artificial intelligence, in addition to the growth of developing nations, is contributing to a huge need for computing power and driving the growth in the number of data centres being developed. Emissions from data centres are estimated to grow from 3% today, to an estimated 5.5% in 2025, putting significant strain on existing energy supplies, as well as presenting an even bigger challenge to contain global warming. Data centres are changing faster than ever and while many operators have risk management practices in place, the current strain on data centres is pushing their capacity to its limits. As capacity increases, so do costs, cooling requirements and energy consumption and without comprehensive plans, organisations risk significantly impacting global sustainability efforts. Meanwhile, emission and energy consumption are on the rise, so significant developments are needed to address these challenges while maximising savings and speeding up sustainability transformation. Assessing risk, implementing a strategy, developing efficient processes and sourcing clean power will all contribute towards the sustainable growth of data centres in the future.
ASSESS YOUR RISK
In order to start making improvements, organisations must conduct a 360-degree review of their operations, mar-
ket, environmental pressures and regulations to determine their sustainability strategy. A recent paper highlights the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in industries such as global agriculture, transport, energy and water, and demonstrates the impact these technologies can have on reducing worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Using this research, and research similar to this, and applying it to the organisation’s business model will help to determine how to prioritise certain operations over others and whether specific technologies will help the organisation to achieve their sustainability goals. For example, Google has been reviewing its data centre operations and concluded that their energy use was too high. To reduce this, they established advanced temperature management practices to cut facility energy use. Of course, Google’s R&D team has a significant amount of money to invest in data centre infrastructure and experimental technology, but the steps they’ve taken set a good precedent for the industry as a whole.
IMPLEMENT A STRATEGY
Once a thorough review has taken place, organisations can implement a comprehensive strategy that aligns with their sustainability goals. In order to be as effective as possible, it’s important to set aggressive goals that push the organisation to constantly think and revaluate their sustainability plans. Setting high targets demonstrates that the organisation takes sustainability seriously and ensures that they’re always striving to achieve more. When devising a plan, organisations must consider the technology they use, the design of their data centres and whether the option of feeding the data centre with clean power is realistic. IT equipment operating temperatures have increased over the years which has significantly reduced the need for mechanical cooling in many climates. However, through accelerated research, further gains in IT operating temperatures are imperative in order to further reduce cooling energy and allow these efficiency gains to impact more climates globally. Similarly, as data centre design becomes more complex, organisations must evaluate how they manage their data centres. When designing and building a data centre from incepNOVEMBER 2019 | ISSUE 109
65