Reducing Your Data Centre Carbon Footprint Best Practise No. 4

“Carbon-neutral energy sources and energy-efficient digital technologies are available today, and it’s through appropriate methodologies, industry commitment and policy enforcement that broad adoption can be driven,” said Benoit Revaz, Swiss Federal Office of Energy. “We welcome projects such as the Swiss Data centre Efficiency Label, which can help to lessen the negative climate impact of one of the digital backbones of our society. We encourage and support organizations and nations worldwide to undertake similar efforts.”

Considering the exponential growth of data volumes and data traffic projected in the next few years, methodologies for measuring and managing data centre efficiency are needed to significantly reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption.

In the last decade, global internet traffi­c increased tenfold and data centre storage capacity increased by a factor of 25. To grow capacity sustainability, green data centres and cloud operators are making incredible advancements in energy effi­ciency. They are deploying state-of-the-art hyper-effic­ient equipment and cooling technology, generating renewable energy onsite, and pursuing other innovations like building data centres underground and underwater, developing artificial intelligence that can predict environmental conditions and optimize operations, and reusing waste heat to cool nearby homes and buildings.