Reports suggest 8 million data centres are active today, and we’ll see billions of devices connected in the very near future. When also factoring in the millions of people who travel to and from their workplaces every day, in the tech industry and beyond, it’s fair to say the growth of digital technology is having an unprecedented impact on the environment.
Those of us in the technology industry must be prepared to address this issue. Climate change is already causing a 1° C rise in global temperature. With no time to lose, the technology industry must increasingly prioritise thinking about how we can reduce carbon emissions, improve sustainability and embrace greener practices by default.
As I’ve been working through my PhD addressing this very topic, I’ve identified three initial clear steps that organisations can take to begin building a more sustainable IT ecosystem.
Transition from On-Prem to Hyperscale Hosted Cloud Environments
Organisations should review their existing infrastructure and evaluate their efficiency. Many will realise they can cut their impact on the environment by transitioning workloads from less efficient and potentially unsustainable on-premises data centres and migrating to hyperscale hosted cloud services.
As exponential demand for technological innovation continues, hyperscale service providers are increasingly turning to renewable energy to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and create a sustainable approach to data centre computing.
As an example, Google achieved its 100 percent renewable energy pledge in 2017, acquiring more clean energy (3GW) than it had consumed that year (2.6GW). To achieve this, Google used power purchase agreements (PPAs) to buy and distribute renewable energy that sufficiently covered consumption of location-based electricity.
Alongside such “offsetting”, hyperscale hosted cloud services are typically more efficient than traditional on-premises data-centres — as well as being powered by more sustainable energy than the national grid.
Ditch the Legacy End-User Devices
Many older end-user devices (traditional laptops, for example) use a significantly higher amount of computing power than necessary to perform everyday tasks. While this might seem like a small issue, when you consider the number of knowledge workers using legacy laptops and docking stations for 40-50 hours each week across the country, we’re suddenly looking at a substantial amount of unnecessary kW hours consumed.
Adopting a thin-client approach — in which the computing power is performed centrally in the cloud, such as with Chromebooks — reduces reliance on the device for performance, enabling a more efficient and less energy-intensive way of working.
Embrace a More Flexible Working Culture
Making this change will likely have the most far-reaching consequences, in terms of an altered working culture, more efficient and happier teams, and a reduced negative impact on the environment.
According to the TUC, drivers spend an average of 52 minutes on the road to work and back, with commuting time on the rise. Rail commuters face the longest journeys, the union says — taking over two hours on average every day. All of this time adds to our overall emissions, as well as potentially reducing our productivity.
Adopting a culture where your team can work anywhere, any time reduces this strain on the environment and also removes the onus of lengthy commutes each day.
We firmly believe that work is something you do, not somewhere you go. By embracing this kind of approach — underpinned by the cloud and in tandem with light, energy-efficient devices — you can reduce your carbon footprint, while benefiting from happier staff and improved productivity.
