NAME : THE CLIMATE NEUTRAL DATA CENTRE PACT

AGE : THREE MONTHS , LONG OVERDUE

APPEARANCE : THE FUTURE IS GREEN ?

What ’ s the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact ? Easily the most sweeping piece of sustainability reform in the history of the data centre industry , signed by pretty much every major data centre and cloud player you can think of .

So , Equinix ? Yep .

Digital Realty ? Uh huh .

Microsoft ? You bet- look , just go read the list .

So , the data centre industry needs sustainability reform ? Like Tom Hanks needed a better friend than a volleyball . Data centres generate about 2 % of the world ’ s greenhouse gas emissions and , with demand only expected to go up , data centres could soon be bigger polluters than the airline and automotive industries combined .

And the Pact is going to fix it ? Well , it ’ s a really good step in the right direction .

How , exactly ? By forcing the signatories to adopt some of the most aggressive emissions reduction strategies we ’ ve seen outside of some of the green data centre leaders like Google . There ’ s a series of specific steps they need to take , but it boils down to purchasing 100 % renewable energy , conserving water , and promoting a circular economy , all to make their data centres carbon neutral by 2030 .

What happens if they don ’ t ? I ’ ll write mean stuff about them on Twitter .

� EMERGING MARKETS In Europe , secondary markets are going to account for a large portion of future growth , as established hubs like Amsterdam , London and Dublin face pushback on issues ranging from environmental impact to real estate prices .

� LOW EARTH ORBIT BROADBAND SpaceX , Amazon , Telesat and OneWeb are all forging ahead with plans to deliver high speed connectivity from constellations of satellites in orbit above the Earth . . � CARBON EMISSIONS More and more operators and cloud providers are going green as the demand for decarbonisation from both customers and regulators continues to grow .

� LABOUR POOL The data centre industry is going to add more than 300,000 new jobs by 2025 . Hiring managers are already struggling to fill existing demand for trained professionals . retirement age .