SUSTAINABILITY t ’ s no secret that the world is in the midst of a climate crisis . From heat waves , forest fires , and catastrophic floods to water scarcity and species loss , it seems that new climate crises are emerging weekly . Being as data centres function as the ‘ supercomputers ’ upon which much of the world ’ s industry relies , they are central to our economy and society at large . Yet , conversely , they ’ re also some of the biggest energy , water , and fossil fuel gluttons .
Since 2017 , there ’ s been a 266 % increase in DC servers ’ overall power consumption due to the proliferation of digitisation and smart tech . Increased power consumption means that not only is more energy required to generate the capacity needed , but more heat energy is being produced , too , which in turn means larger volumes of water for cooling .
Add to this the fact that many data centres are made up of concrete , cement , steel , and glass – formed by carbon-intensive processes , though beneficial in other ways – and it ’ s not hard to understand why data centres are the focus of much political scrutiny when it comes to improving sustainability metrics .
“ Data centre operators play a dual role in addressing the challenge of sustainability . On the one hand , they are a major contributor to the problem , consuming significant amounts of energy . On the other hand , they also lead in implementing technologies , such as cloud computing , that can help deliver sustainable solutions ,” explains Terry Storrar , Managing Director at Leaseweb UK .
To get a grip on sustainability , many data centre providers are turning to ‘ diversified data ’ to evaluate current measures ,
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