Colt DCS has cut its greenhouse gas emissions across Scope 1, 2, and 3 categories by 27% since 2019 as part of its efforts to decarbonize the design, development, and operation of its data centers.

The firm’s 2025 Sustainability Report reveals it achieved 100% renewable electricity for Scope 2 emissions and a 90% renewable share of its total energy consumption across Scopes 1, 2 and 3.

"We are proud of the progress made in reducing absolute emissions in 2025 as we continue advancing towards our 2045 net zero target. Whole life carbon assessments are helping customers and partners identify key sources of value-chain emissions and understand the impact of design and procurement decisions," said Anthea van Scherpenzeel, the company's head of environmental sustainability.

"Through close collaboration with suppliers and industry partners, we are confident we can continue delivering projects at speed and scale while making steady progress towards our SBTi targets.”

Last year, the company expanded its Global Reference Design (GRD), developing a standardized blueprint it said is flexible enough to adapt to local requirements while keeping consistent core principles.

The GRD sees energy-efficient systems, lower embodied carbon materials and near-zero wastewater cooling technologies incorporated into all new data center designs.

According to Colt, the aim here is to maintain annualized Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) below 1.2, along with waste diversion rates of 75% in construction and demolition and 90% in operations.

So far, the company has reached TRUE Zero Waste certification across three sites - London North, Tokyo Inzai 1-3, and Osaka Keihanna - and hit a global PUE of 1.41.

In terms of water use, the GRD incorporates chilled water systems using low-Global Warming Potential (GWP) refrigerants with near-zero water consumption, alongside rainwater harvesting for indoor use.

Meanwhile, closed-loop liquid cooling systems recirculate coolant, transferring heat without relying on evaporation.

Dina Nassar, sustainability analyst at Colt DCS, said efforts to improve sustainability capabilities come in direct response to AI-related pressure, which is creating “new efficiency challenges” for data center operators globally.

"Our revised GRD underpins the efficiency gains made in 2025, by ensuring lower embodied carbon materials and advanced cooling technologies are baked in at the design stage.”

Data center sustainability in the spotlight

The figures published by Colt come amidst rising concerns over data center efficiency and the environmental impact of infrastructure worldwide.

A recent UN report concluded that AI will be using the same amount of water as 1.3 billion people by 2030, along with 945 terawatt-hours of electricity, while CO2 emissions will rise to 399 million ​tons.

Similar research from PwC warned the data center boom is increasing electricity consumption faster than the supply of clean energy in some parts of the world, leading to higher power prices and increased reliance on fossil fuel generation.

In the US, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that most of the increase in data center electricity demand through 2030 will be met by natural gas, holding back decarbonization efforts.

Earlier this month, the EU announced plans to develop minimum energy-efficiency standards for data centers, saying that there's an urgent need for them to become more energy efficient, reuse waste energy such as heat, and use more renewable energy sources, with a view to becoming carbon-neutral by 2030.

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With financial support from several other tech giants, Google has committed $915 million in new funding for carbon removal through the purchase of carbon removal credits.

Chipping in are Stripe, Google, Shopify, Salesforce, H&M Group, and Anthropic, which will contribute via Google's Frontier advance market commitment (AMC), made in 2022, to buy $1 billion of carbon removal by 2030.

The goal, Google said, is to spur innovation by sending a clear demand signal to researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors that there is a growing market for these technologies.

"Our renewed support helps scale novel climate solutions that benefit both ecosystems and communities – ranging from improving soil health through enhanced rock weathering to strengthening local economies through biomass carbon removal," said Randy Spock, Google's head of carbon credits and removals.

"These long-duration removals fold into our broader climate solutions portfolio, which includes restoring natural ecosystems and eliminating superpollutants. Together, these approaches are more than the sum of their parts; they can be combined to neutralize the warming impact of emissions over every timescale."

The company is focusing its efforts on two main areas. On the supply side, it plans to concentrate purchases on a narrower portfolio of companies where, it said, it's thoroughly convinced that the technology has gigaton-scale potential.

On the demand side, meanwhile, it will require every deal to have a clear line of sight to robust, long-term demand, be it compliance markets, industrial regulation, or direct government procurement.

The program includes methods such as enhanced rock weathering (ERW), inland water alkalinity enhancement (IWAE), ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), biomass injection, and waste-to-energy with carbon capture.

"Surficial mineralization and ocean alkalinity enhancement have the potential to be huge and low cost, but outstanding technology risks mean large error bars on both metrics," said Google.

"Biomass-based approaches and enhanced rock weathering are capped in their scale potential, and the cost of direct air capture is likely to remain relatively high, but these technologies are better understood and enjoy more existing policy support."

Currently, it's Microsoft that's the world's largest buyer of carbon removals by far: in fiscal year 2025, it signed agreements to remove a record 45 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide with 21 companies across the globe.

But over the last four years, said Google, Frontier firms have also made a great deal of progress. Last year, seven portfolio companies delivered around 23,000 tons – roughly twice as much as the year before, and broke ground on 1.4 million tons of new annual removal capacity. This year, Frontier portfolio companies are forecasting more than 50,000 tons removed.

"Hundreds of companies are being built, and tens of thousands of tons have been delivered. We have real-world data across most major pathways and growing confidence in which technologies could be a meaningful part of a gigaton-scale future. The major question now is whether demand will materialize at the magnitude required," said the firm.

"To get to gigaton-scale, companies and governments will need to work in concert. Policy takes years to develop, and governments are best served by a range of proven, derisked technologies. Corporate buyers bridge that gap, providing the reliable revenue companies need today to get their technologies to commercial scale."

NTT has developed what it said is the world’s first framework enabling companies to calculate CO₂ emissions across the entire software product life cycle.

The rules are based on the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry's Carbon Footprint Guidelines, covering everything from procurement and design through to operation and disposal.

While the ICT sector is projected to account for more than 20% of global power consumption by 2030, software emissions have historically been difficult to measure.

In March 2024, with the support of the Ministry, NTT came up with version 1.0 Cradle-to-Gate, which made it possible to evaluate emissions during development.

However, since software products are generally used for a long period of time after development, it's not been easy to evaluate the amount of emissions created through the entire life cycle of software products – and these emissions can be significant.

"While software does not consume physical resources on its own, it indirectly increases energy consumption through the use of the cloud, data centers, networks and user terminals, affecting the overall environmental impact of the ICT sector," said the firm.

"At the same time, in recent years, there has been increasing social demand for companies to disclose their Scope 3 emissions, and the disclosure of emissions resulting from software products is becoming increasingly important as a means of evaluating procurement and determining transactions."

Tracking software’s environmental impact

The calculations cover three main areas. First, they define and systematize the scope of assessment of software product emissions throughout the entire life cycle.

In the past, CO2 emissions assessments for software have been limited to the development stage, or have been comprehensively covered as a whole, said NTT.

This rule focuses on software products themselves, and organizes the emission sources and calculation processes that should be considered at the use and disposal stages, as well as at the development stage – allowing organizations to evaluate the entire life cycle on a consistent basis.

The second is the calculation of emissions at the estimation stage, before software development and operation – a rule that's intended to be used for proposals and product design in green product procurement.

This can be done by limiting the processes subject to calculation to those directly related to software operations that can be worked out by developers in advance.

Finally, the framework incudes practice-focused calculation rules for international applications that can be used not only in Japan but also globally.

Looking ahead, NTT said it plans to promote the use of these calculation rules both within and outside the NTT Group, and accumulate a set of calculation results.

Based on what it learns about the breakdown and characteristics of emissions in individual cases identified through power consumption measurement experiments, it will analyze trends in emissions caused by differences in software products and usage conditions.

The company said it also plans to promote the creation of effective reduction technologies, as well as the reaction of a third-party certification scheme.

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Data center operators should admit whether infrastructure projects will lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and impact the UK's net zero ambitions, campaigners have told the government.

A group of environmental and social justice activists have written to the UK technology secretary Liz Kendall saying the build-out to power AI could disrupt plans to decarbonize the country's electricity grid.

Because of that, new projects should be forced by the government to show how projects won't lead to an increase in emissions or cause water shortages.

At the moment, the UK government is working on a national policy statement (NPS) on data centers. Activist groups including Foxglove and Friends of the Earth would like that document to include a framework to assess the broader environmental impact of data centers.

This would include assessments of water and power use, Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, as well as the introduction of new rules aimed at banning data centers from increasing emissions or water scarcity.

Campaigners expect the NPS to be published for consultation in the coming months, but hundreds of new data center development projects are already underway.

“Without these commitments, such vast electricity use will inevitably generate vast climate emissions,” the campaigners said in a letter to Kendall and shared with ITPro.

The call for stricter environmental and energy rules for data centers comes amid a massive rush to build infrastructure to power national AI ambitions.

On both sides of the Atlantic, national and local governments have faced significant pushback from campaigners over the environmental and economic impact on local communities.

Stricter data center rules needed

Campaigners want the requirements to apply to major data centers above 1MW, noting that AI infrastructure's demands differ from previous designs.

"The new generation of ‘hyperscale’ data centers currently being planned across the UK are on a very different scale to the facilities in place today," the letter noted, pointing to plans for infrastructure in Elsham in Lincolnshire and Cambois in Northumberland, which will each have a demand for electricity of 1GW.

"By way of context, the peak winter electricity demand for the entirety of the UK is around 47GW.”

"This additional demand – unless meaningfully matched with new, renewable energy generation and storage – poses a serious threat to efforts to decarbonize the UK’s electricity grid," the letter said.

Google's proposed data center in Essex, for example, could lead to a “net increase in GHG emissions of 568,727 tonnes CO2е per year during the operational phase”, according to the company’s planning documents.

To avoid increasing emissions, data center developers should prove how they will increase renewable energy supply – by building generation or by funding it – and to fully describe how cooling systems will work.

"Measures to prevent the use of ‘greenwashing’ in claiming the data center is carbon-neutral, for example through the purchase of renewable energy certificates or the use of power purchase agreements which do not result in the construction of additional generating capacity," they added.

The letter was also signed by Global Justice Now, Global Action Plan, Opportunity Green, and the Green Web Foundation.

Government response

Whether the government listens to such concerns remains to be seen, but signs suggest environmental and energy impact of this infrastructure build-out is raising concerns, at least for some politicians.

Indeed, MPs last week launched an inquiry into the environmental impact of data centers in the UK, in particular energy and water use.

In response, energy secretary Ed Miliband last week said the UK's grid decarbonization efforts should already mitigate any emissions from increased electricity demand, but admitted that energy use from data centers remains "inherently uncertain."

A government spokesperson told the Guardian that such data centers would help boost the economy and address environmental issues, too.

"Datacenters will increasingly be powered by renewables and our AI energy council is exploring opportunities to attract investment in new clean power sources for the industry, while the planning system takes water scarcity into account," the spokesperson added.

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‘Green AI’ is good for business, and UK trade group UKAI is calling for more government support to position the country as the go-to location for eco-conscious tech companies.

AI that's efficient, affordable, deployable at scale, and aligned with long-term economic and environmental sustainability isn't just better for the planet, it makes economic sense, according to UKAI.

Future advantage won't just be a question of raw compute, the trade group said, but will belong to countries that deliver the greatest economic and social value per unit of energy, infrastructure, and resource.

Notably, the UK is uniquely positioned to lead this shift, in part because of all its existing problems, such as high energy costs, grid constraints, complex planning systems, and strong public scrutiny.

This confluence of issues means the UK is already operating under the conditions that many other AI economies will soon face, giving it a head start in terms of innovation in efficiency, system design, and coordination.

“The UK is at a crossroads; with the opportunity to become the next green AI superpower, if we seize the moment,” said Tim Flagg, chief executive of UKAI.

"We already have the foundations: world-class research, strong innovation, and hard-won experience operating under energy and infrastructure constraints," Flagg added.

"That gives us a genuine opportunity to lead, and to export Green British AI to a global market that is starting to face the same challenges and require the solutions that we are pioneering. But this window will not stay open for long, we need to act now.”

How will a ‘green AI’ strategy work?

The report sets out four mutually reinforcing priorities that together define a Green AI strategy: integrated infrastructure, fairer pricing, targeted innovation, and smarter systems.

UKAI has also called on the government to make green AI a national priority, while building consumer trust in AI.

It should prioritize the early development of shared technical, data, and governance standards to ensure interoperability across AI, energy, and infrastructure systems by default.

Elsewhere, greater support for research will be needed, according to the trade group, which called for the creation and support of a small number of AI and energy-focused “living labs” to act as real world testbeds.

The public sector has a part to play

Public sector procurement could be key to shaping and scaling effective ecosystems in the medium-term, according to UKAI. This will help support open and federated approaches.

A dedicated industry-led body with responsibility for building, coordinating, and scaling the "Green AI mission" will also be required.

"The future success of the UK’s AI sector will be determined less by the pace of technical innovation alone, and more by the interconnected systems approach that enables AI to be deployed at scale. Energy, infrastructure, markets, regulation, and coordination are no longer peripheral considerations; they are now decisive," the report concludes.

"For the UK, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that many of the constraints holding back AI growth are structural and cross-cutting. The opportunity is that these are precisely the areas where the UK can differentiate itself."

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Copper demand is expected to skyrocket over the next two decades, according to new research from S&P, fueled in part by surging AI industry growth.

Analysis from the consultancy shows demand for copper will soar by 50% across the next 14 years. Demand levels in 2025 stood at 28 million metric tons, S&P noted, and this is expected to grow to 42 million by 2040.

This surging demand poses questions about the ability of global copper producers to meet expectations across the period, with concerns about looming bottlenecks rising.

At present, S&P warned global supplies are falling short by around 10 million metric tons each year.

A key concern highlighted by S&P lies in competition for resources. The AI industry is hungry for materials as data center infrastructure projects expand rapidly – and are expected to continue growing over the next decade.

Recent analysis from JLL projects the global data center market to grow by 14% annually between 2026 and 2030, with nearly 100 GW of new data centers coming online across that period.

This, the firm noted, represents a doubling of global capacity.

Copper is a key material used across an array of industries, with the transportation, construction, telecommunications, and electronics sectors all relying heavily on the resource.

S&P said growth in these respective industries, and thereby growing demand for the material, means the AI industry faces an intense battle to secure vital resources.

“Copper is among the most critical metals of the 21st century, essential for a world that is increasingly electric,” the consultancy said.

“Across the global economy we see major growth in demand for electricity, whether for power hungry data centers enabling AI, the global shift to electric vehicles, the 2 billion air conditioners that will be installed, or the electrified weapons of the future.”

Copper supply warnings growing

The S&P report marks the latest in a string of studies highlighting potential bottlenecks in copper supplies over the next decade or so.

Similar analysis on the state of the global mining industry also warned climate change could disrupt supply chains, again having a knock on effect on data center infrastructure projects.

A study by PwC found nearly one-third (32%) of global semiconductor production will be reliant on copper supplies at high risk of water shortages between 2025 and 2035.

“More and more of the copper supply that semiconductor production relies on is at risk,” the consultancy said.

“As early as 2035, at least 34% of every semiconductor-making territory’s copper supply is projected to be at risk of drought disruption.”

Key markets, such as Chile, were identified as being at “severe drought risk” while 17 other countries are expected to face similar issues. These markets included China, Mexico, Australia, and Brazil.

Glenn Burm, global semiconductors leader at PwC South Korea, described semiconductors as the “hidden lifeblood of modern technology” at the time, warning disruption could have a serious impact on the global technology landscape.

“It’s hard to think of a company that doesn’t rely on semiconductors in some way,” Burm said.

“They underpin economic security, are vital to unlocking the potential of AI and integral to renewable energy.”

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Google-owner Alphabet is buying data center and energy firm Intersect in a deal valued at $4.75 billion.

The move comes amid a race to rollout data centers – and the energy systems required to power them – to fuel AI.

In the last year alone, data center investment topped $61bn, though concerns continue over whether energy systems will be able to keep up with demand.

As part of the deal, Alphabet will acquire the $15bn in data center and energy assets Intersect already has in operation or is working to build, Reuters noted, adding that by 2028 Intersect had planned to have 10.8 gigawatts of power either up and running or in development.

"Intersect will help us expand capacity, operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lockstep with new data center load, and reimagine energy solutions to drive US innovation and leadership," said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet.

Google targets energy innovation

Google already owns a minority stake in Intersect. However, moving forward Alphabet said Intersect would operate separately from itself and Google, keep the company brand, and continue to be led by CEO Sheldon Kimber.

The aim is for Intersect's team to work closely with Google's technical infrastructure division on joint projects, including a data center and power site already under construction in Haskell County, Texas, the duo said.

Intersect noted it will work to develop emerging technologies to diversify energy supply while also boosting Google's data centre projects.

"Intersect has always been focused on bringing innovation to the industry and we look forward to accelerating at scale as part of Google," said Sheldon Kimber, founder and CEO, Intersect.

"Modern infrastructure is the linchpin of American competitiveness in AI. We share Google’s conviction that energy innovation and community investment are the pillars of what must come next."

The deal doesn't include currently operating assets in Texas or California, which run as separate companies and will be bought out by existing investors, Kimber said in a blog post.

Powering AI

With infrastructure expansion gathering pace worldwide, experts have questioned whether supply will be able to keep up with demands placed on data centers as a result of AI.

Moreover, similar questions have been raised over whether current energy systems are up to the task of meeting future power demands. Data center power demand is predicted to top 106GW in the next ten years, according to a BloombergNEF report.

Google has already said it will pause AI data centers to help balance overloaded grids, and signed deals for renewable energy sources – including with modular nuclear reactor developers.

Kimber said deals like Alphabet's acquisition of Intersect are "pillars of what must come next".

"AI today is stuck behind one of the slowest, oldest industries in the country: electric power," he wrote.

"The country has racks full of GPUs that can’t be energized because there isn’t enough electricity for them. The grid is a patchwork operating system that’s been running for a century. An engineering miracle in its time, but not built for the AI era."

Bring your own power

Kimber said the US model is increasingly "bring your own generation".

"Companies like Google are thoughtfully building AI the responsible way," he added. "In the case of Intersect, that has meant renewables paired with flexible backup sources and energy storage, often on the same site as the data centers themselves. This approach can significantly accelerate speed to power and unlock scarce transmission capacity."

While Google has invested in renewables — including a 99% carbon-free data center in Norway — its greenhouse gas emissions have leapt 48% since 2019, driven by electricity use for data centers.

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Most UK IT leaders believe their organizations aren’t doing enough to meet their own sustainability targets, new research shows.

In a recent study from IT service management firm Flexera, 93% said sustainability is increasing in priority, yet 83% admit their organization needs to step up.

A confluence of issues are hampering success on this front, however. Rising cloud computing costs are straining budgets, cited by 69% of respondents, while nearly half (46%) said they feel overwhelmed by the volume of cost and usage data they receive.

These surging data volume means sustainability teams are swamped, preventing them from identifying key focus areas.

“Without full visibility of what their technology estate is costing, consuming and emitting, businesses cannot evidence clearly whether cloud and AI investments are advancing or undermining their climate goals,” said Marlon Oliver, senior vice president EMEA at Flexera.

Access to sustainability data is improving, the researchers found, with 79% of IT decisionmakers saying it’s easy to access such data within their organizations. However, sustainability goals often appear to be grouped with regulatory compliance, which is seen as a lower priority than AI integration, cost reduction and risk mitigation.

Flexera recommends integrating sustainability into technology choices, evaluating cloud migration, SaaS adoption, and AI investments through both cost and sustainability lenses.

Similarly, sustainability metrics should be used alongside financial and operational KPIs to guide investments and measure impact.

Always keep sustainability in mind

Crucially, the study noted that sustainability must be taken into account during IT modernization projects. Researchers said these considerations should be prioritized alongside areas such as security and data protection.

Collaboration across IT, procurement, and sustainability teams should also be encouraged, with clear ownership and incentives for sustainable outcomes.

"Closing the gap between sustainability ambition and execution requires integrating sustainability into every facet of IT —from strategy and procurement to daily operations," said Mark Bradley, senior manager, product management, at Flexera.

"By leveraging robust data, fostering cross-functional collaboration and embedding sustainability into decision-making, IT leaders can drive both environmental and business value."

The research comes as the UK prepares for new Sustainability Reporting Standards, expected to apply for accounting periods beginning in 2026.

The standards, which are aligned with the ISSB framework, will require large and listed firms to report more transparently on climate-related risks and impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions and energy use.

For many organizations, that will mean accounting for the footprint of technology operations, such as data centers and cloud infrastructure, where these are a material source of emissions.

“Boards are expected to show climate progress in ways that can be proven against reporting standards," said Oliver

"Right now, IT leaders are facing rising bills and data that do not add up to a clear story. And until that changes, organisations will find it difficult to deliver the results that regulators, and their own stakeholders, now expect."

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Lenovo claims traditional data centers are not fit for purpose and is proposing some radical solutions for future designs.

Research from the company shows many are failing to meet sustainability targets, with 46% of IT leaders admitting their current infrastructure doesn't support energy or carbon-reduction goals.

That comes despite the fact 92% said they prioritize technology partners who reduce energy use and carbon footprint.

Meanwhile, an overwhelming 99% of IT and C-level decision makers across EMEA said data sovereignty will be critical in the coming years.

Unsurprisingly, AI is a key consideration in terms of future data center sustainability and design. Nine-in-ten believe that AI will significantly increase organizational data usage in the next decade, and 62% expect AI and automation to have the greatest impact on IT strategy.

This means that data centers of the future will have to be designed with AI workloads in mind, and many simply aren’t up to scratch right now.

“The data center of the future will be defined by how effectively it can scale for AI, deliver on sustainability targets, and operate with maximum energy efficiency,” said Simone Larsson, head of enterprise AI for EMEA at Lenovo.

“In EMEA, data sovereignty stands out as a particularly urgent priority, shaped by complex regional regulations and heightened scrutiny from CIOs and C-suites alike."

Lenovo is taking 'the cloud' to the next level

So what's the answer? Well, according to Lenovo, it's all about thinking outside the box. The company said it's been working with engineering firm AKT II and architect Mamou-Mani to dream up some ideas.

The most radical is the 'Floating Cloud' – perhaps taking the term 'cloud' rather literally, by suspending the data center in the air. These would operate at an altitude of 20-30km and make use of 24/7 energy from solar power. Pressurized closed liquid cooling loops would avoid any air pollution.

Closer to reality, other ideas touted by the company include the use of modular, stackable brick or pod systems of data centers linked to city needs. These would be sited close to water sources such as rivers or canals, the company said.

When sited next to geothermal power sources, designers suggested these could be referred to as 'Data Spas'.

Elsewhere, there's also the possibility of utilizing disused tunnels, bunkers, or transport systems, reducing land use while allowing for facilities to be set up in central locations with lower impact.

Such sites would benefit from enhanced security resilience, while the subterranean location would create a naturally efficient heat management system.

Some of these ideas are already starting to appear in the real world. Portus Data Centers, for example, operates an underground data center in the heart of Luxembourg, powered by 100% renewable energy sources.

Siting data centers near water sources is already pretty standard, and in areas with significant geothermic activity, many already take advantage of the free power.

Microsoft, G42, and KenGen, for example, are building a data center at the Olkaria geothermal field in Kenya.

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How much energy does it take for Gemini to respond to a user prompt? Google says it’s less than you might think.

One of the challenges of generative AI is how much energy is required to power the data centers needed to run a model to answer a question, generate some text, and so on.

Unpicking that isn't easy, but early reports suggested that using OpenAI's ChatGPT for search was ten-times more energy intensive than using plain-old Google, though CEO Sam Altman has since confirmed it's about 0.034 watt-hours (Wh) of energy.

That said, it's an easier question for Google researchers to answer than their academic peers, what with the access to the company's own systems. Researchers at the tech giant looked at the full stack of infrastructure that underpins its Gemini AI range, detailing their findings in a recent technical paper.

The wide-ranging study examined “active AI accelerator power, host system energy, idle machine capacity, and data center energy overhead".

All told, the average text prompt in Gemini Apps uses 0.24 watt-hours of energy – a figure the company is keen to point out is "substantially lower than many public estimates".

Elsewhere, a single prompt emits 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent and consumes 0.26 milliliters of water, about five drops.

This, researchers said in a separate blog post, is equivalent to “watching TV for less than nine seconds".

So how does Gemini stack up to a traditional Google search? According to reports from MIT Technology Review, 58% of the energy demand of running a prompt was from AI chips, with the CPU and memory of a server taking up another 25%.

A further 8% is from cooling, power conversion, and other data center overheads, with 10% attributed to backup equipment.

In comparison, running a Google search uses an average 0.0003kWh or 0.03 Wh, which suggests that running a Gemini text prompt is on par with – or even more energy efficient than – a basic search, and roughly on par with OpenAI's figures.

Google study comes with a catch

It's worth noting these figures are just for using an AI model. Training AI models also consumes huge amounts of energy, as does building and running the data centers needed to do host AI models and various assorted workloads.

That's why Google's emissions are up 51% over the last five years — it posted a 22% in Scope 3 emissions, specifically highlighting data center capacity delivery as a major hurdle to curbing emissions.

The tech giant isn't alone in assessing the environmental impact of its AI models, either. Last month, Mistral unveiled its own sustainability auditing tool that included insights on model training as well as 18 months of use.

The French AI company found that the training phase alone used the same amount of water as 5,100 citizens annually and 20.4 kilotons of carbon dioxide.

By leaving out the training phase, Google isn't including a huge part of the broader impact of these systems. Plus, as Google admitted, the data hasn't been independently verified and could change as new models are added.

Beyond that, it's also notable that this specifically refers to a text prompt in the Gemini App, not more energy intensive queries like deep research using more advanced models or image generation, for example.

Working to slash AI's impact on the environment

Google said that improvements to hardware and software had helped reduce the energy required by Gemini systems, pointing to improvements in the Transformer model architecture, more efficient algorithms, and custom-built hardware.

"We continuously refine the algorithms that power our models with methods like Accurate Quantized Training (AQT) to maximize efficiency and reduce energy consumption for serving, without compromising response quality," the post said, adding:

"Our latest-generation TPU, Ironwood, is 30x more energy-efficient than our first publicly-available TPU and far more power-efficient than general-purpose CPUs for inference."

Because of such efforts, Google insisted the average demand from a Gemini App text prompt fell by 33x in terms of energy and 44x in terms of carbon footprint in the last year.

"While the impact of a single prompt is low compared to many daily activities, the immense scale of user adoption globally means that continued focus on reducing the environmental cost of AI is imperative," the report noted, calling for other AI companies to follow suit with similar data sets.

"We advocate for the widespread adoption of this or similarly comprehensive measurement frameworks to ensure that as the capabilities of AI advance, their environmental efficiency does as well."

The figures may be better than expected, but the heavy use of these AI tools — not to mention the environmental cost of building data centers and training models — still represent a threat to power grids.

Data center energy demands are growing rapidly worldwide, with the International Energy Agency warning that AI will use the same amount of power annually as Japan by 2030.

Behavioral shifts on the part of consumers – and more information from providers – could be key to reducing the broader energy impact of AI.

Earlier this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that users are needlessly wasting compute power just by being polite to the chatbot.

In a thread on X, Altman revealed users saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in response to ChatGPT cost the company millions of dollars a year.

Altman added that it’s “tens of millions of dollars well spent”.

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A new report has laid bare the scale of water usage by data centers across England - and the results aren’t quite as devastating as one would imagine.

TechUK’s Understanding Data Centre Water Use in England, based on a survey in collaboration with the Environment Agency, suggests data centers are “not intensive water users”.

According to the study, 64% of commercial data centers across the country use less than 10,000 m³ of water each year, which techUK noted is less than a “typical leisure center” or equivalent to the water use of a Premier League football club.

Just 4% of sites reported use over 100,000m³ per year, the techUK report added, in line with industrial manufacturing requirements.

The figures from techUK come amidst rising concerns over the impact of water use by data centers, both in the UK and globally. A host of big tech companies, including Google, have come under fire for data center water consumption rates in recent years.

In 2022, for example, Google was called a “water vampire” for consuming around a third of an Oregon city’s supply, prompting an overhaul of practices at the site.

A similar report in early 2025 highlighted concerns over water scarcity, noting that Amazon, Microsoft, and Google were running data centers in some of the world’s driest regions and exacerbating existing supply challenges.

Data center operators have made significant progress in curtailing water use, largely thanks to advances in cooling techniques. Traditionally, large volumes of water are required to cool data centers, but the rise of ‘closed-loop’, direct-to-chip, and waterless cooling systems are becoming increasingly popular.

Indeed, more than half (51%) of data centers across England are now using waterless cooling systems, which the report noted use “no water beyond the regular functioning of any building”.

Meanwhile, 89% of operators said they no longer need to monitor water usage due to closed-loop systems.

Matthew Evans, Director of Markets and COO at techUK, said the report shows that data center operators are “actively innovating” to address water consumption despite negative public perceptions.

“Data centers are the backbone of the UK’s digital economy and will be central to delivering our AI and innovation ambitions,” he said.

“This report shows that, contrary to some public perceptions, most commercial data centers are actively innovating to use minimal water.”

Data center industry needs support

Data centers are estimated to contribute £4.7 billion in GVA to the UK economy each year, supporting more than 43,000 jobs. The sector also has huge potential, according to techUK, potentially bringing in an additional £44 billion in GVA between 2025 and 2035.

This is dependent on whether data center capacity can be increased across the country, however, and is an issue the trade body insists requires action.

“As demand for compute grows, we must plan ahead,” Evans said. “We need smart policies, resilient infrastructure, and stronger data to ensure digital and environmental resilience go hand in hand.”

The report from techUK noted that “major data and planning” gaps are hampering data center growth across the country, and called for closer collaboration between government, regulators, and industry to accelerate expansion.

Key recommendations from the trade body included the development of a UK-wide “water exploitation index” to help developers and planners assess potential water stress on a region-by-region basis.

Elsewhere, the report also called for greater industry focus on measuring and reporting water usage – as well as water usage effectiveness (WUE) – at sites across the country.

Investment in advanced cooling technologies and the development of cooling systems “based on local water availability” were also highlighted by techUK.

Richard Thompson, the Environment Agency’s Deputy Director for Water Resources, said future data center expansion across England “must go hand-in-hand with protecting public water supplies, food security, and the environment”.

“It is vital the sector puts sustainability at its heart, and minimizes water use in line with evolving standards,” he said.

“We are working with industry and other regulators to raise these to secure the best outcomes for our environment and our water supply for future generations.”

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Mistral has launched a new sustainability auditing tool to help organizations understand the environmental impact of AI models.

The French AI frontrunner completed a lifecycle analysis of its flagship Large 2 model, working with the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) and Carbone 4, a consultancy specializing in carbon strategy.

Mistral reported a footprint of 20.4ktCO₂e or 20.4 thousand tons of carbon dioxide emissions for Large 2, as of January 2025. By that date, the model had also consumed 281,000 m3 of water, equivalent to 74.2 million gallons.

This figure accounted both for the training of the model and for 18 months of use, according to the AI firm. The average French person consumes 150 liters of water in a day, per LaVie data, meaning the training phase for Large 2 was equal to the yearly consumption of over 5,100 French citizens.

As much as 91% of the water use and 85.5% of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with Large 2 come from its training and inference phases.

Training large language models (LLMs) requires vast amounts of energy and water, as developers run data centers at peak compute capacity for weeks - or months - to produce advanced models.

Inference, in which a trained model produces outputs based on a user’s inputs, similarly draws huge amounts of power and water for cooling. Though each prompt a user puts into an LLM has a far smaller impact than training the model, they quickly add up, particularly as millions or hundreds of millions of users interact with the models concurrently.

Each 400 token prompt for Large 2, accounting for around 300 words, directly led to 1.14 gCO₂e and the consumption of 45 ml (1.5 fl oz) of water. Mistral compared this usage to the amount of energy needed to stream a video for 10 seconds, or the water needed to grow a small radish.

“Even though some recent initiatives have been taken, such as the Coalition for Sustainable AI, launched during the Paris AI Action Summit in February 2025, the work to achieve here remains important,” Mistral wrote in its blog post.

“Without more transparency, it will be impossible for public institutions, enterprises and even users to compare models, take informed purchasing decisions, fill enterprises' extra-financial obligations or reduce the impacts associated with their use of AI.

AI is driving direct and indirect emissions

The environmental impact of training and running AI models is increasingly acknowledged by the largest companies in the tech sector.

This is because they are obliged to publish their scope 1 emissions – those they directly control – as well as their scope 2 and 3, accounting for the impact of their energy purchases and those of other companies in its supply chain.

Google’s emissions have risen by 51% since 2019, driven in large part by scope 3 emissions such as massive data center construction. Microsoft reported a 29% rise in emissions in 2024, similarly tied to data center expansion.

In response, Microsoft has announced a range of plans intended to cut or offset emissions such as novel approaches to data center cooling, building wooden data centers, and even burying human waste.

Google has also put great emphasis on its newest chips for AI training and inference, which it’s said are 30x more efficient than its 2018 models. But emissions continue to rise in the face of these big tech efforts.

Mistral eyes sustainability improvements

Mistral acknowledged that, at present, LLM computation happens across a wide range of data centers, including in regions with carbon-intensive electricity generation and those experiencing water scarcity.

The firm said it is in the process of building its own data center in France to make use of the country’s abundant energy derived from low-carbon nuclear power and cooler climate, both of which will drive down the emissions of its models.

Crucially, Mistral found that the environmental footprint of LLMs correlates very closely with their scale.

“[A] model 10 times bigger will generate impacts one order of magnitude larger than a smaller model for the same amount of generated tokens. This highlights the importance of choosing the right model for the right use case,” Mistral wrote.

With this in mind, businesses may consider the pros and cons of using the largest models on the market, including the flagship offerings of OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, over more lightweight models.

In the future, Mistral recommended that better systems be established for metrics such as the lifecycle of data center GPUs, which is a core piece of the puzzle for working out the environmental impact of AI models but is currently hard to track.

“Moving forward, we are committed to updating our environmental impact reports in the future and participating in discussions around the development of international industry standards,” Mistral added.

“We will advocate for greater transparency across the entire AI value chain and work to help AI adopters make informed decisions about the solutions that best suit their needs. The results will later be available via ADEME’s Base Empreinte database, setting a new standard for future reference for transparency in the AI sector.”

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Microsoft has made no secret of the surging energy requirements required by its mushrooming AI infrastructure, and its latest attempt to improve sustainability stinks of greenwashing.

The company recently signed a deal with Vaulted Deep, a waste management company that, in its own words, turns “excess organic material into permanent carbon removal”.

Vaulted Deep will bury upwards of 4.9 million metric tonnes of waste deep underground. This largely comes from manure, sewage, and assorted “agricultural byproducts” that can’t be reused or contain harmful chemicals.

Simply put, the tech giant is burying poop to offset emissions – and it really is a perfect way to sum up the generative AI boom.

Energy consumption and emissions at Microsoft are skyrocketing amid the sharpened focus on the technology. In May, the company’s annual sustainability report showed its carbon emissions are soaring.

In a blog post dissecting the report, Microsoft President Brad Smith revealed the firm’s total emissions – including Scope 1, 2, and 3 – increased by 23.4% compared to its 2020 baseline due to AI and cloud expansion.

That baseline refers to greenhouse gas emissions which Microsoft uses as a marker in its 2020 commitment to become carbon negative by 2030, which at this stage has taken a few knocks.

Energy use also shot up by 168% last year, according to the report, but Smith was keen to point out that shows its efforts to improve sustainability are working given the disparity between emissions and overall usage.

Microsoft is burying waste - and its head in the sand

Generative AI is power hungry, to say the least, and the insatiable demand for services is placing huge strain on data center infrastructure globally.

The soaring power consumption rates have reached such a point that grid operators in Europe are struggling and scrambling to upgrade grid infrastructure. Data center water consumption, the often-unseen aspect of the problem, is causing serious problems for local communities.

Meta’s data center in Georgia, for example, is allegedly sucking the earth dry and limiting supply to local residents.

To its credit, at least Microsoft is doing something – it could always just shrug off concerns and criticism. In April, the firm signed a deal with carbon capture company AtmosClear to remove nearly 7 million tonnes of carbon emissions.

A similar deal with Chestnut Carbon, meanwhile, will see seven million metric tonnes of carbon offset through reforestation in the United States.

Elsewhere, infrastructure improvements have also been a key focus for the tech giant. These include novel data center cooling techniques and the use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) in data center construction to reduce its reliance on steel and concrete – both of which are large contributors to carbon emissions.

These are all positive moves, no doubt. But the volume and frequency of ‘partnerships’ and new-fangled attempts to offset emissions just reek of greenwashing and token gestures to prove they’re actually mindful of the effect they’re having on the environment.

Weigh the carbon removal numbers against Microsoft’s yearly emissions – around 15 million tonnes in FY24, per its 2025 sustainability report – and they don’t look so significant.

Moreover, perhaps I missed it, but Microsoft and counterparts also weren’t exactly bending over backwards before the generative AI boom to plant millions of trees or bury excrement thousands of feet underground.

It’s clear they’ve bit off more than they can chew with the beast they’ve unleashed on the industry. So now they’re scrambling.

Everyone’s looking for a quick fix

In an announcement confirming the deal with Vaulted Deep, Brian Marrs, senior director of energy and carbon removal at Microsoft, said this will provide a “differentiated, scalable approach to permanent carbon removal”.

"Its work delivers immediate climate benefits while stimulating local economies and addresses long-standing environmental challenges that communities face every day,” he said.

Cutting through the mind-numbing corporate jargon we’ve come to expect from big tech companies, the “immediate benefits” comment stands out here and speaks volumes about how Microsoft - and its counterparts in the industry - view the topic of sustainability.

They’re looking for a quick fix, because they’ve dived headlong into generative AI without considering the long-term impact. Sustainability and net zero were cool and trendy in 2020 when the company set its ‘baseline’ and pledged to reach carbon negativity by the end of the decade.

But AI has become such a moneyspinner for the industry that they can’t slow down at this stage or else be eclipsed by a competitor – and that would impact shareholder value, which of course is paramount.

Microsoft and friends have bombarded us with an array of ambitious plans to meet surging energy demands. From reopening nuclear power stations to geothermal energy projects and development of small modular reactors (SMRs).

At this stage it seems like they’re just throwing money at any conceivable idea to pad the numbers and catch headlines.

Small businesses are worried they won't be able to give an accurate report on their carbon footprint, and that's largely down to tech partners and vendors failing to give clear data.

That's according to a survey of 1,200 business decision makers by Sapio on behalf of Wasabi, which found that two-thirds of SMBs believe they can provide accurate information about the emissions of their tech stack, versus three-quarters of larger companies.

Such information is increasingly important not just for a company's own sustainability goals, but to help meet incoming regulations, notably the UK's Sustainability Disclosure Requirements, which are expected to begin enforcement next year.

While that is expected to initially focus on larger companies, the report noted that the vast majority of British businesses are in the SMB range, and fewer than half believe they have reliable figures when it comes to public cloud contributions to carbon footprints.

"SMEs are the unsung heroes of sustainability; quietly, but powerfully driving progress toward broader environmental goals," said Kevin Dunn, Vice President and General Manager of EMEA at Wasabi.

"To keep that momentum going, they need real support from their technology partners.”

Dunn added that the environmental impact of digital infrastructure is “hidden in a black box”, and this trend is harming smaller businesses.

“Without clear, trustworthy emissions data from tech providers, SMEs are flying blind, and that puts them at real risk,” he said. “With the right transparency and backing, these businesses can become an even greater force for sustainable change than they already are."

Small businesses need scope 3 assistance

Emissions tracked by companies are divided into three categories: Scope 1, which refers to assets directly owned by a business, such as buildings; Scope 2, which includes indirect emissions from energy used for work; and Scope 3, which refers to emissions in the supply chain or by providers, such as cloud vendors.

Last week, Google issued its latest emissions report, showing cuts to Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, but an increase of 22% in Scope 3 - largely due to ongoing AI infrastructure investments.

The Wasabi report noted that Scope 3 emissions make up as much as three-quarters of a company's total carbon footprint, highlighting the importance of gathering data on those emissions from partners and suppliers.

Half of small businesses told Wasabi their technology partners and vendors weren't "giving them a clear or reliable picture," while 29% said the high number of vendors they work with was "muddying the waters".

Because of that, 47% of firms said they need their technology providers to do more when it comes to sharing emissions data. Moreover, they need to ensure it's trustworthy and accurate, as this was a concern raised by 49% of respondents.

Poor data is hampering progress

Four-in-ten SMBs and large businesses surveyed said they struggled to make informed decisions because of poor data, impairing future tech investment.

While 57% of the small businesses surveyed said they felt confident in the accuracy of their emissions data for on-premises and private cloud technologies, the figure fell to 44% when it came to public cloud.

Despite such challenges, two-thirds of small firms said they believe they can still provide accurate data about their emissions with regards to technology infrastructure.

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Google emissions continue to climb amid the AI boom, new figures show, up 51% from 2019 to 2024 and 11% in the last year alone.

The tech giant’s total carbon dioxide emissions reached 11.5 million tonnes last year, according to its annual environmental report, marking a steep increase on the 7.6 million tonnes recorded in 2019.

A key factor behind this increase lies in the huge strain placed on data center infrastructure by generative AI - and it’s an issue that Google isn’t alone in tackling.

The International Energy Agency warned that AI will chew through the same amount of energy as Japan by 2030, with emissions from leading AI companies up by 150% since 2020.

There are different types of emissions, and Google has made headway in curtailing impact across a number of areas. Scope 1, for example, refers to sources that a company directly owns, such as buildings.

Google cut this type by 8% year-on-year, the report noted. Meanwhile, Scope 2 refers to indirect emissions from energy used by the company; those fell by 11%.

Scope 3 refers to supply-chain emissions, which climbed 22% year-on-year — and they make up 73% of Google's carbon footprint.

Google said that the increase in Scope 3 emissions were "primarily due to increases in data center capacity delivery (i.e., emissions generated from the manufacturing and assembly of technical infrastructure hardware — including for AI — and their logistics, as well as from data center construction)."

The company said it would continue to build out infrastructure next year and aimed to "decouple this growth from a proportional increase in emissions", in part by encouraging clean electricity in the supply chain and shifting to low-carbon data center construction.

Google emissions are being addressed

Still, the company highlighted its progress. Notably, it slashed data center energy emissions by 12%, with Google data centers using 84% less overhead energy than the industry average.

In a blog post examining the report, Kate Brandt, chief sustainability officer at the tech giant, said that despite a 27% increase in electricity demand for data centers, the company has “successfully decoupled our operational energy growth from its associated carbon emissions.

"This was largely due to more than 25 clean energy projects we’d contracted over the past several years — some as far back as 2019 — coming online in 2024.

Google also claimed that its products more than made up for its own emissions, noting that the combined emissions savings for 2024 alone from Nest thermostats, Google Earth Pro, Solar API, Google Maps' fuel efficient routing, and Green Light was 26 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent — more than double Google's own tally.

Cleaner energy required

Brandt admitted that "it's important to be up front about the hurdles we're facing", highlighting that total admissions were up 11% year on year.

She pinned the blame on slower progress with decarbonizing energy in some key regions, notably Asia Pacific, and said challenges remain with newer forms of energy production.

"When it comes to the next-generation clean technologies we need — the solutions that go beyond wind and solar like enhanced geothermal, advanced nuclear, nuclear fusion, and more — they’re still in their early stages," she added. "They’re not yet deployed at the scale required and can remain expensive to get online."

Google has teamed up with various energy companies on smaller modular reactors and other advanced nuclear, as well as geothermal and biomass, the report noted.

In last year's version of this research, Google saw a 13% increase year-on-year for GHG emissions and a 48% increase since 2019, with the report noting: "This result was primarily due to increases in data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions."

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Microsoft says it's outstripping its zero waste targets, recording a 90.9% reuse and recycling rate for servers and components in 2024.

This puts the company beyond its 2025 target of 90%, a year ahead of schedule.

Microsoft is focusing on three particular areas. It's piloting the sustainable extraction of rare earth minerals from hard disk drives at scale, continuing to expand its Circular Centers around the world, and finding recyclable packaging solutions for its data center hardware.

"As we build on progress over the past five years, we’re excited to continue accelerating circularity practices across our business. Preventing waste remains the core of our zero-waste strategy," said Rani Borkar, corporate vice president, Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure.

"In addition, we’re continuing to invest in expanding markets for circular solutions and collaborating with local organizations to support circularity in the communities where we operate and work."

In terms of other recycling, the company said it successfully reused more than 3.2 million components through internal and external channels in 2024.

It has Circular Centers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as well as five in the US and facilities in Dublin, Ireland, and Singapore.

It's planning new facilities in Cardiff, Wales; New South Wales, Australia; and San Antonio, Texas.

The new Cardiff Circular Center will help extend the life of data center hardware through reuse and component recovery, support regional job creation and training academies for data center technicians, and enable more sustainable IT infrastructure for customers across the UK and Europe.

Microsoft said its work on packaging has also been paying off. It started with data center hardware and components where, for example, the packaging for server racks might include several layers of wood, glue, and foam.

Over the past 18 months, the tech giant has been working with suppliers, logistics service providers, and recyclers to separate these layers, meaning the materials can be recycled locally.

This has seen packaging from more than 30,000 server racks processed, diverting more than 2,500 metric tons of waste from landfills. The company is now looking at expanding the program to other types of packaging, such as those used for cables, spares, and network components.

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The energy demand of AI data centers will top that of Japan by the end of the decade, new research shows – and that’s providing that energy grids can even keep up.

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), which sought to quantify the impact of AI on energy networks, noted that investment in data centers has nearly doubled since 2022, with data center electricity use up by 12% since 2017.

That's set to double by 2030, largely driven by the rise of AI as the tech industry steams ahead with adoption.

"Global electricity demand from data centers is set to more than double over the next five years, consuming as much electricity by 2030 as the whole of Japan does today," said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

Varied demand

The IEA report noted that a typical AI data center consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households — but the largest under construction now may chew through 20 times as much.

However, the report noted that data centers are just one driver behind the growth of global electricity demand, making up about one-tenth of that demand — less than industrial motors, air conditioning, and electric vehicles.

Developing economies may see less impact from data centers, as their electricity demand growth was already high; advanced economies, which had largely stagnant electricity demand, will experience a more dramatic impact.

"The effects will be particularly strong in some countries," Birol added. "For example, in the United States, data centers are on course to account for almost half of the growth in electricity demand; in Japan, more than half; and in Malaysia, as much as one-fifth."

The report noted that in the US, by the end of the decade, data centers will use more electricity than aluminum, steel, cement, chemicals, and all other energy-intensive goods combined.

Energy grids are creaking

The IEA warned that strain on electricity grids could delay as many as a fifth of data center projects, noting that there are already long waits for connecting to grids and access to critical grid components such as transformers and cables. For gas generation, turbine deliveries already face lead times of several years.

"If the electricity sector does not step up, there is a risk that meeting data center load growth could entail trade-offs with other goals such as electrification, manufacturing growth or affordability," the IEA said.

This isn’t an issue isolated to the US, either. Last year, the head of the UK’s National Grid warned the country’s energy network was already struggling to keep up with rising demand - and that’s a trend expected to continue across the decade unless major investment is secured to facilitate upgrades.

One solution presented by the IEA included choosing better locations for new data centers, looking for opportunities in areas with power and grid availability.

"Grid operators could also examine incentives to locate data centers in areas where grids are less constrained," the IEA said. "We find that 50% of data centers under development in the United States are in pre-existing large clusters, potentially raising risks of local bottlenecks.

Beyond those direct concerns, the IEA also warned about security. Attacks on critical national infrastructure have increased rapidly in recent years, and with data centers now representing a crucial cog in the modern economy, the risks are growing.

"Cyber attacks on energy utilities have tripled in the past four years and become more sophisticated because of AI," the IEA said in a post. "At the same time, AI is becoming a critical tool for energy companies to defend against such attacks."

AI could be the curse and the cure

AI could help address some of these challenges by optimizing existing sources, reducing consumption, and boosting grids — such efforts are already in place, with the UK government's AI Energy Council tapping AI leaders including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon to help tackle local energy concerns.

The report said that AI-based fault detection could reduce outage durations by 30-50%, while remote sensors paired with AI management could increase the capacity of existing transmission lines.

"Up to 175 gigawatts (GW) of transmission capacity could be unlocked if these tools are applied, without any new lines being built," the report said.

Perhaps highlighting the impact of AI, the IEA also unveiled a new AI agent to help answer questions on the report's contents, though it warns that "AI can make mistakes, and you should verify the answers independently with the original source materials."

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High energy consumption, raw material requirements, and physical space constraints are holding back data center sustainability efforts, according to new research from Seagate.

With Goldman Sachs Research forecasting that global power demand from data centers will increase by as much as 165% from 2023 to 2030, energy usage is now a top concern for 53.5% of business leaders.

Seagate’s Decarbonizing Data report noted that rising data volumes, slowing power efficiency gains, and increasing AI adoption are piling on the pressure to balance carbon emissions, infrastructure expansion, and total cost of ownership (TCO).

"Data centers are under intense scrutiny – not only because they support modern AI workloads, but because they are becoming one of the most energy-intensive sectors of the digital economy," said Jason Feist, senior vice president of cloud marketing at Seagate.

"This calls for a fundamental shift in how we think about data infrastructure – not as a trade-off between cost and sustainability, but as an opportunity to optimize for both."

The report found that virtually all (94.5%) respondents reported increasing data storage needs, with 97% expecting the growth of AI to drive demand even further.

But when it comes to sustainability, while nearly 95% of respondents were concerned about the potential environmental impact, only 3.3% prioritize it in purchasing decisions.

This aligns with recent research from Cadence, which found that while 88% of data center decision makers are actively working to enhance energy efficiency, only three-in-ten believe that they’re doing enough. Only 63% are using renewable energy sources, for example.

Data center sustainability barriers grow

According to Seagate, the top barriers holding back sustainability at data centers were high energy consumption, cited by 53.5%, raw material requirements at 49.5%, physical space constraints at 45.5%, infrastructure costs at 28.5%, and acquisition costs, cited by 27%.

Notably, although 92.2% acknowledged the importance of extending the life cycle of storage equipment, only 15.5% said they consider it a top purchasing factor.

As organizations expand their data capabilities, Seagate said they face three options: improve efficiency within existing infrastructure, expand data center footprints, or migrate workloads to the cloud. Each involves trade-offs between cost, carbon, and control.

The report recommends looking at technological innovations such as liquid or immersion cooling and HVAC systems. Stronger commitments to life cycle extension and circularity were also recommended, with the company urging enterprises to ramp up refurbishing, reuse, and maintenance of storage equipment.

Similarly, accountability should be shared across the entire value chain, including vendors, suppliers, and cloud service providers.

"Sustainability cannot be solved in isolation. A holistic approach spanning infrastructure, life cycle management, and industry-wide accountability could ensure that the growth of AI and data center operations does not come at the expense of the environment," said Feist.

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The UK government is holding talks with Microsoft, ARM, Google, and Amazon in the first meeting of the new AI Energy Council.

Announced in January, the aim of the AI Energy Council is to make sure that the country's big AI push has the energy supply to power it.

The meeting, which will also include the National Energy System Operator (NESO), EDF, Scottish Power, Ofgem and National Grid, will focus on how clean energy initiatives can be implemented with expanding AI and compute infrastructure to deliver economic growth.

The Council will meet quarterly to explore the potential of energy sources such as renewables and nuclear, and offer advice on improving energy efficiency and sustainability in AI and data center infrastructure.

"The work of the AI Energy Council will ensure we aren’t just powering our AI needs to deliver new waves of opportunity in all parts of the country, but can do so in a way which is responsible and sustainable," said secretary of state for science, innovation and technology Peter Kyle.

"This requires a broad range of expertise from industry and regulators as we fire up the UK’s economic engine to make it fit for the age of AI - meaning we can deliver the growth which is the beating heart of our Plan for Change."

AI is a huge energy guzzler, with a recent study from Loughborough University finding that if growth continues at the same rate, energy consumption by data centers globally could be more than the total volume of electricity production by 2033.

And this isn't the government's first move to try to address the issue. Earlier this year, for example, it launched a series of new AI Growth Zones with fast-tracked planning permission in areas which can access at least 500MW of power.

The government hopes this will spark significant private investment and help address growing concerns over infrastructure energy constraints.

It's also been working with both Ofgem and NESO on fundamental reforms to the UK’s connections process - which, it said, could release more than 400GW of capacity from the connection queue.

Late last year, the government announced a series of reforms aimed at unblocking the grid, speeding up planning decisions, and building more renewables as part of its Clean Power Action Plan.

"We are making the UK a clean energy superpower, building the homegrown energy this country needs to protect consumers and businesses, and drive economic growth, as part of our Plan for Change," said secretary of state for energy security and net zero Ed Miliband.

"AI can play an important role in building a new era of clean electricity for our country and as we unlock AI’s potential, this Council will help secure a sustainable scale up to benefit businesses and communities across the UK."

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The sustainability of technology vendors' distribution channel could hold many back from meeting their ESG targets, and HP has made efforts to ensure its partners are onboard with them on its sustainability journey.

HP set itself the goal of becoming the most sustainable technology company in the world and as a company that claims to have the channel as part of its DNA, aligning partner organizations towards this goal was vital for success.

Four years ago HP introduced its global channel sustainability, Amplify Impact, to do just that, setting itself the goal that by 2025 more than 50% of its Amplify partners would take part in the program.

On stage at HP Amplify 2025 in Nashville, Kobi Elbaz, SVP and GM of global revenue operations, shared that HP has met this target. The next step, he said, will be to continue working with channel partners to ensure it can meet its larger goal of leading the tech industry in sustainability.

Speaking to ITPro, Mary Beth Walker, head of global channel strategy at HP, set out why HP needed to build the program to stay on track to meet its 2030 aspiration.

“We realized a few years ago that if we wanted to be the most sustainable technology company in the world, which is our goal by 2030, we can’t do business with partners who don’t care about sustainability and customers don’t necessarily want to buy from partners who don’t care about sustainability.”

Walker noted that a large part of this program centered around sharing the sustainability learnings HP had developed internally to its channel partners via the Amplify Impact program.

“It started out as a program to really help partners, especially smaller partners, take advantage of all the money that we had invested in sustainability training. They can’t afford to do that so let’s just share our training with them,” she explained.

“We also shared road maps for them to create a sustainability strategy, to be able to know how to produce a sustainability report and basically create the credentials that they need to be able to show customers that they have the capabilities and care about sustainability so customers want to do business with them.”

Sales boosts for HP channel partners

Walker said the results have shown channel partners who have committed to the program and received higher sustainability ratings through the Impact system have experienced a marked increase in sales.

“It’s been very successful, and the partners who have got those ratings are seeing the benefits in their sales,” she announced.

“We started getting statistics last year and the partners who are part of the program and established even a three star rating, 70% of them said that they got more sales this year than last year because of that.”

Not all HP’s partners have embraced the Impact program, however, with Walker acknowledging the firm has seen "diversity" in terms of how much value certain countries have attached to the program.

She noted that HP is leaning into the areas of the world where this is the case to maximize global impact.

Walker added that HP has not come up with a plan for a potential scenario where non-compliant channel partners are holding it back from meeting its 2030 target, but ultimately that channel partners cannot afford to not have a sustainability strategy in place.

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Nearly three-quarters (74%) of executives find measuring generative AI sustainability a challenge due to limited transparency from AI providers, according to research from Capgemini.

A lack of transparency in disclosure and reporting on generative AI’s environmental impact has become a major obstacle to businesses measuring and reporting on sustainability, the report found.

This was the most cited reason execs gave for not measuring the environmental impact of the technology, with other reasons being a lack of awareness in leadership teams (68%) and too great a level of complexity in measuring (64%).

With over three-quarters (78%) utilizing pre-trained generative AI models - and just 4% using internal, proprietary models - businesses are heavily reliant on third-party AI tools and, by extension, the associated climate metrics.

“You should be able to ask Copilot or ChatGPT what the carbon footprint of your last query is but none of the tools will give you a response to that question at the moment,” Niklas Sundberg, CDO at Kuehne+Nagel, said in the report.

Cyril Garcia, Capgemini’s head of global sustainability services and corporate responsibility, suggested these results point to a need for greater collaboration on sustainability.

“If we want generative AI to be a force for sustainable business value, there needs to be a market discussion around data collaboration, drawing up industry-wide standards around how we account for the environmental footprint of AI,” Garcia said.

Almost a third (31%) of those surveyed said they’d taken steps to build sustainability into generative AI lifecycles, while over half are either using smaller models or power infrastructure with renewables - or plan to over the next 12 months.

AI sustainability is a hot topic

As generative AI continues to ramp up power consumption in data centers across the world, several firms are turning their attention towards sustainability in AI development.

AWS, for example, unveiled new sustainable data center components at the end of 2024, with the firm’s sustainability lead Margaret O’Toole telling ITPro how this forms part of a wider mission at the firm.

Research from SambaNova recently found that 70% of business leaders said they were aware of the significant energy burden created by using AI tools.

Like the Capgemini report, though, another disconnect was revealed - only 13% are monitoring the power consumption of their AI systems, despite 60% acknowledging that energy efficiency will play an important role in future strategic planning.

Technological developments such as AI are revolutionizing industries, unlocking new ways of working and automating tired processes. Yet, this new computing power comes with a hefty price – unprecedented power consumption.

Following the United Nation’s COP29 conference that took place last month, which introduced the first ever Digitalisation Day and Declaration on Green Digital Action, the tech industry is facing increasing pressure to get carbon emissions under control and counter climate change – and the channel is no exception.

Unfortunately for business leaders, this coincides with the same time that companies and leadership teams are looking to prioritise sustainability targets – 74% of public companies plan to invest in sustainability reporting technology and tools over the next year, according to a recent report from Deloitte.

This leaves us with the question, how can we protect the planet and our cloud usage?

Channel leaders can navigate this ‘perfect storm’ by using the GreenOps approach to optimize their resources. This, paired with the adoption of more efficient cloud architectures and the development of a sustainability-focused culture can hit the sweet spot – meeting environmental targets without sacrificing any of the benefits of cloud.

Value of a GreenOps approach

At a high level, GreenOps is not dissimilar to FinOps. Both look to maximize cloud efficiency and usage for organizations. But where FinOps focuses on the financial and business value first, GreenOps puts environmental impact front and center.

When it comes to implementation, the two approaches actually go hand in hand. Optimizing operations often leads to a decrease in both costs and environmental impact. Admittedly, some sustainable practices do require significant investment, but the GreenOps approach emphasizes balance with operational efficiency at the heart.

To even implement it in the first place, you’ll need to have at least some FinOps in place as many of the sustainability principles in GreenOps rely heavily on FinOps practices. With energy efficiency, for example, GreenOps focuses on the optimization of IT infrastructure and data centers to consume less energy.

It requires FinOps practices to identify the cost-saving opportunities that can reduce the use of cloud resources and by extension, energy usage, however. Think of it as a GreenOps approach with a FinOps focus on the details. It’s not a world away from FinOps, just looking at it from a different perspective.

Once you’ve got the hang of that, the only thing left to do is to monitor. Energy and waste-related targets must be continually monitored by the relevant teams. Traditionally, operational monitoring tools account for everything but sustainability but there’s not much point in adopting GreenOps if there’s no visibility of its impact is there?

Efficient architecture and practices

Adopting a ‘GreenOps approach’ is not an overnight fix for sustainability, true organizational change takes time. There are still several key changes you can make to day-to-day operations to see a difference immediately, however.

Efficient resource management might as well be formally made ‘step one’ for any and every organization looking to reduce their environmental impact. By critically assessing your organizational demand for cloud resources, you’ll likely find many areas with excess unused cloud resources, allowing you to scale back and score an easy win. There’s also a lot to be gained by going back to basics and re-examining your code. Optimized code can save you more resources than you’d think.

Organizations could (and should) also look at adopting serverless functions. These are single-purpose programmable functions that ensure resources are only used when needed, rather than always running on in the background, driving up energy consumption.

A not-too-distant relative of automated idle and shut-down policies that operate similarly, powering servers down when not in use. Changes like these come in handy particularly during established off-peak times when servers could be left running for extended periods without use, driving up unnecessary waste.

Building a culture of sustainability

Of course, to reach the sustainability targets necessary to counter climate change effectively it can’t all be completely reliant on the tech. After all, your employees are what keeps the tech running day in and day out.

This GreenOps approach should inform everything, right down to company policy. By engaging employees with training on exactly why sustainability is so vital, you can make it a priority across the whole company. With business leaders driving this change from the front, processes could also be opened up for feedback to make sure everybody is truly involved.

There’s also room to explore some out-of-the-box methods. Perhaps a reward or some form of recognition for the teams that reduce their resource usage methods the most. Carbon offsetting might also be considered, potentially working with carbon offset projects that interest the wider team could also drive engagement with the process.

Whichever methods you choose to explore, keeping employee engagement top of mind is key. The more aware they are, the more conscious their actions will be when dealing with cloud resources and the more likely they are to spot further savings.

Fair weather ahead?

While the storm clouds of looming sustainability targets and conferences continue to pile pressure onto cloud organizations, a GreenOps approach offers a safe shelter through the storm. Leveraging existing FinOps methods can deliver sustainable reductions in environmental impact, and with a mix of ‘quick wins’ and embedded cultural change, it allows organisations to put sustainability at the heart of operations without sacrificing efficiency.

Beyond the already discussed environmental impacts, adopting a GreenOps approach to cloud optimization could also bring you reduced overspending and increased productivity. Maximizing the use of your existing resources has a plethora of benefits beyond the environment and without GreenOps, you’re missing out on them all. This is one of those few and far-between instances where doing something for the wider world can also do you a whole lot of good at the same time.

Researchers say they have “significant concerns” about the effect rapid growth in data center electricity demand is having on regional energy networks.

Schneider Electric has published an investigation into the possible future of AI’s electricity consumption over the next decade, using system dynamics modeling to forecast scenarios for AI electricity demand in the future.

‘The breadth of AI’s projected electricity demand encompasses a wide array of interconnected issues. These issues range from infrastructure challenges to supply chain disruptions and socio-economic concerns,” the report stated.

It added that while data center electricity use only accounts for 0.3% of worldwide electricity demand at the moment, rapid growth is anticipated globally.

For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projected electricity consumption associated with global data center demand to more than double between 2022 and 2026, peaking to over 1,000 TWh in 2026, which is equivalent to Japan’s national electricity consumption.

The report noted that effects of this explosion in demand will not be distributed evenly however, raising "significant concerns about regional grid stress and power capacity".

In the US, just 15 states are responsible for hosting 80% of the country’s data centers. In northern Virginia’s ‘Data Center Alley’, sites consume roughly 25% of the region’s electricity, which could rise to 50% in a high-growth scenario.

It's a similar story in Ireland, where data centers could consume up to 32% of the nation’s electricity by 2026, according to another IEA study, which would exceed the combined energy consumption of all urban homes in 2023.

AI expansion may be limited due to both human and natural constraints

The report’s authors, Rémi Paccou, director of the sustainability research institute at Schneider Electric, and Professor Fons Wijnhoven, associate professor at the University of Twente, sketched out four potential scenarios of AI electricity consumption over the next decade.

In all but one of these scenarios, Paccou and Wijnhoven warn of inequality in terms of the distribution of AI inferencing capabilities as well as energy challenges.

The first scenario is one in which AI-driven advancements in energy efficiency and resource optimization result in substantial improvements in data center operations.

“A symbiotic cycle emerges between AI and the new energy system, where AI enhances system efficiency through renewable supply, demand-side electrification, and grid management, which in turn powers more sustainable AI development,” the report describes.

The key findings of the analysis of this potential outcome were that generative AI inferencing will emerge as the dominant electricity consumer, but traditional AI will play a central role in decarbonization efforts.

Additionally, resource-conscious approaches to generative AI training will exhibit an intensified focus on using less energy-intensive models.

Scenario two describes a scenario where AI expansion is hindered by natural or encounter natural or human-linked constraints. These hindrances include power availability, data scarcity, material and mineral shortages, computational resources, as well as regulatory restrictions.

Paccou and Wijnhoven found that this scenario also implies potential regional disparities in their AI inferencing capabilities.

“Areas with more robust power infrastructure and cooler climates may have advantages in scaling their AI operations, potentially leading to geographical concentrations of AI inference capabilities.”

Uncoordinated AI governance could lead to localized energy crunches

The third scenario is one in which improvements in AI efficiency actually induce an increase in overall energy consumption as firms push for widescale AI implementation across all sectors.

The subsequent “unbounded growth” competes with natural constraints, and could exacerbate AI access inequality and e-waste issues by prioritizing performance over practicality.

Finally, the fourth scenario is labeled the ‘AI Energy Crisis’, in which rapid growth of AI leads to an "unforeseen energy crisis where the technology’s electricity demand begins to conflict with other critical sectors of the economy.”

“In this scenario, very high exogenous constraints are put on local grid capacities as the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of data center energy consumption might reach staggering levels, potentially surpassing 25% in some regions,” the report stated.

In this scenario, uncoordinated AI governance is projected to lead to disunified regulation and localized blackouts in high demand areas.

The report added that piling additional resources into new areas like synthetic data and multimodal learning will likely intensify local energy crunches associated with AI training.

“The geographical implications of these trends could lead to a concentration of AI development in areas with access to both vast amounts of data and energy, potentially exacerbating local energy challenges in these regions.”

Edge computing is becoming an essential part of IT infrastructure for business leaders and IT managers as they support the Internet of Things (IoT) and on-premise applications, as well as bring high bandwidth content closer to data sources. With this comes the need for better uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

This eBook from Schneider Electric discusses the challenges that UPS can come up against at the edge, and explains the benefits of three technologies that can help mitigate them, including cloud-based management and monitoring technologies.

Download now to learn more about how wide-bandgap technology works, how lithium-ion battery technology can help reduce carbon footprints, and how cloud-based software can help with staffing.

Provided by  Schneider Electric

It’s no secret that tech leaders can play a critical role in championing and leading sustainability initiatives. A large majority (81%) of CEOs and CSOs believe that tech leaders need to step up and become sustainability leaders, according to Intel’s Sustainable CTO report, published in June 2023. 

In the same report, 82% of respondents specifically named the CTO as pivotal to their company’s net zero transition, and seven in 10 expressed the belief that net zero goals won’t be met without action from the IT function. Steps that can be taken to greenify your digital transformation strategy include considering the environmental impact of the cloud and committing to sustainable hardware management. Knowing what action to take requires an understanding of your company’s IT infrastructure and this means you need to be able to collate data and measure the performance of your IT operations.

The problem is that there’s no universal standard for performance benchmarking, which means it can be difficult to know how to go about measuring sustainability performance. On top of this, there can be issues with data availability and suppliers aren’t always frank about scope 3 emissions – those that are the result of activities not carried out by a business itself. As a result, the majority of firms are failing to meet their own sustainability goals.

The good news is that there are ways that you can improve your data collation and measurement to redesign your IT operations more sustainably.

Define what sustainability means to your company 

To properly measure sustainability performance,  you first need to set out what exactly sustainability means for your company and define your key performance indicators (KPIs). “You might want to track your carbon footprint and water footprint, for example. Or you might want to track energy efficiency, waste reduction, social impact and compliance with environmental regulations and standards,” says Gareth Mann-Tighe, sustainability lead at cloud services provider Nasstar. This echoes the Intel report, which identified four key areas for measuring sustainability performance: energy consumption, supply chain, e-waste, and water consumption. 

Bill Wilson is the chief sustainability officer and head of data and intelligent solutions at NTT Data UK. He adds that it’s crucial that tech leaders are aware of the boundaries of their IT operations, especially when it comes to carbon accounting which is used to quantify the amount of emissions produced.

“Even with carbon accounting in place, successful IT leaders can be penalized for creating low-carbon digital solutions which relieve significant emissions elsewhere in the business but create an additional line item for the IT team,” warns Wilson. 

Using tools and data analytics to measure sustainability performance

Once you know what KPIs you want to be tracking, you need to go about collecting the data on your company’s baseline performance. Sensors, meters and software will likely need to be installed to monitor emissions, water consumption, waste generation and supply chain activities, says Mann-Tighe.

The latest tools will help you to measure the sustainability performance of assets in your IT infrastructure, pool data from various data sources,, and then aggregate the data to turn it into insights. This can help you to identify any gaps and where there’s room for improvement.

“We see too many examples of firms trying to solve the data challenge with spreadsheets and it quite quickly gets out of control. And sometimes, massive corners end up getting cut because the tools being used are no longer up to the job,” says Wilson.

Sustainability metrics can also be very complex to track from end to end. Measuring the sustainability performance of the IT department starts from the moment devices such as networking equipment or servers are manufactured and finishes once their end-of-life has been managed. End-user devices such smartphones, business laptops, and printers generate one and a half to two times more carbon than data centres, according to McKinsey & Company’s Blueprint for CIOs. 

Data science and data analytics techniques such as process mining can help you to mine log data from IT operations to get a more holistic view of the IT function’s processes, parts, and performance. “Process mining essentially acts like an X-ray of existing data. The overview of internal processes offers IT leaders an opportunity to measure and drive sustainability, while simultaneously gauging performance against best-practice models,” says Janina Bauer, global head of sustainability at data processing firm Celonis.

The insights gleaned through process mining could then be used to make more informed sustainable purchasing decisions. Eliminating legacy tech that stands in the way of CIO ambitions, for example, or switching to greener suppliers. 

You could also consider Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software to help automate data processing for energy and water consumption.

Identifying unstructured data to measure sustainability performance 

In order to get a full picture of the sustainability of your IT operations, you need to remember to factor in scope 3 emissions.

More countries are requiring big companies to disclose their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance annually. While some smaller suppliers that aren’t mandated may offer up this information voluntarily, others may not have the time or resources to report it and some may even be reluctant to do so, making some scope 3 emissions data hard to get hold of.

Nevertheless, you should consider collating sustainability data when vetting suppliers. Mann-Tighe recommends conducting audits, surveys and interviews to gather data that can’t be quantified. Collation should include both structured and unstructured data, such as information from journals, magazines, news and websites. 

“There may also be opportunities to collaborate with your suppliers, customers, partners, or regulators to create shared value and address systemic challenges,” adds Mann-Tighe.

Once you bring this qualitative and unstructured data together with publicly-disclosed quantitative data in a single system, it’ll become easier to analyse and measure supply chain sustainability credentials.  

This is especially important for IT teams with a say in sustainability initiatives and who want to avoid falling prey to greenwashing. Being able to measure sustainability performance includes knowing who your suppliers are, what their track record is, and how transparent they are about their own ESG metrics.

Artificial intelligence (AI), driverless cars, robotics, and other emergent technologies are already having dire climate consequences. Training a single large language model (LLM) creates the same carbon emissions of five cars over their lifetime, according to one academic paper. And it’s not just energy use, but it’s driving demand for rare-earth metals, while financial efficiencies in manufacturing can spark an increase in consumption – bad news for pollution, landfills, and emissions. And this is only the beginning.

At the moment, data centers and data transmission networks are already responsible for 0.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Energy Agency, though some pin the number closer to 2% – similar to global air travel emissions. The rule of thumb that a Google Search was on par with boiling a kettle has been rightly debunked, though beefing up its search engine with AI will unquestionably boost its carbon footprint – we just don’t know by how much, until that data is made available. And right now, it isn’t. 

The impact of AI on climate change

Making machine learning more accurate usually means creating bigger models with more parameters churning through ever bigger data sets for training. “Since AI models are, on average, getting bigger, their energy costs are definitely rising as well,” says Sasha Luccioni, climate lead at AI developer Hugging Face. “So far, all of the numbers and research are mostly about training AI models, but we actually have very limited information about the energy costs of their deployment. Since we are increasingly putting AI models in many products and services – think navigation, smartphones, voice assistants – the energy costs of that are consequential too.”

Research suggests training large machine learning models only makes up a tenth of energy use, with running the model making up the rest. That’s true whether it’s to analyze medical data sets or generate a goofy image for a meme. And that’s merely the energy cost of compute: Luccioni’s own research reveals that considering other carbon costs, such as manufacturing components, doubles the footprint. 

But, she notes, it’s worth knowing not all AI is necessarily gobbling up energy: it depends on the type and the use case. “A very small number of very large models – [such as] GPT-type models and other generative language models – are dominating the discourse when it comes to AI but, in reality, there’s a plethora of much smaller and more efficient models that are being used across the community, including for climate-positive applications like tracking deforestation or predicting the climate,” Luccioni says. “So it’s easy to think that all AI models are incredibly energy-intensive, but truly it’s only a small portion (that take up all the space right now).” In short, just because it’s AI, doesn’t mean it’s an energy hog. 

Of course, tech companies are keen to slash their energy use and, because of that, they’ve put significant effort into building dedicated hardware to boost performance and efficiency. In other words, these are already the optimized versions of such systems. What else could be done? Researchers have called for those building large models to publish energy usage, in the hopes of spurring an arms race not just in terms of capability but efficiency. 

The key to slashing the energy demands, and in turn the carbon cost, of AI and related technologies? “Transparency is crucial,” says Luccioni. “Organisations should report both the training costs: compute time, hardware used, energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, etc, as well as inference efficiency (quantity of energy consumed per 100 queries, for instance). Otherwise, users are left in the dark regarding all of these factors and can’t use them to make informed decisions.”

The impact of driverless cars on climate change

Waymo’s automated cars are already ferrying passengers around the San Francisco Bay Area, as are the Alphabet-owned company’s main rival, GM’s Cruise. Both use similar technologies to let their vehicles see the world around them. LIDAR scanners paint a 3D picture by pinging light pulses off everything, and measuring how long it takes to return. Cameras ring the vehicles – for Waymo, there are 19 cameras on its smaller Chrysler Pacifica cars and 29 on the larger Jaguar I-PACE – as well as radar to help improve calculations of an object’s distance and speed despite weather such as rain, fog, or snow. 

All of that real-time data crunching chews through energy – though it’s difficult to know exactly how much, as that information isn’t made public and it will differ by car and by system. In 2018, researchers estimated that cars at the lower end of autonomy generate as much as 3Gb/sec of data, while cars at higher levels will have sensors spitting out as much as 40Gbit/sec of data. That figure will only have increased in the space of five years.

One challenge is understanding the growth in data processing and improvements in computing efficiency that are likely to happen before these cars become widely available, if they ever do. Academics at MIT modeled the future impact on emissions of driverless cars, finding one billion driverless cars on roads globally would lead to the same amount of emissions as all of the world’s IT data centers currently do. That’s based on the assumption that cars are used for just an hour a day, driven by a computer using 840W. 

“If we just keep the business-as-usual trends in decarbonization and the current rate of hardware efficiency improvements, it doesn’t seem like it is going to be enough to constrain the emissions from computing onboard autonomous vehicles,” said study author Soumya Sudhakar, a graduate student in aeronautics and astronautics, in a statement. “This has the potential to become an enormous problem. But if we get ahead of it, we could design more efficient autonomous vehicles that have a smaller carbon footprint from the start.” 

We should have plenty of time: the study looked at all of this happening by 2050. However, to avoid driverless cars contributing to climate change, computing hardware must double in efficiency every 1.1 years. Another option, the researchers note, is to improve the efficiency of the algorithms themselves, so they require less computing power in the first place, though the difficulty is managing this without impacting accuracy. 

The model doesn’t take into account autonomous cars being used differently than how we drive now, however. One idea often mooted is shifting car ownership to a shared, subscription model – essentially handing the keys to Alphabet et al and accessing a car via an app – which could potentially reduce the number of cars on the road in the first place, Still, if we’re all traveling via Waymo taxis, we’re going to need an awful lot of them. 

The impact of robotics on climate change

There’s more to the environmental impact of future technologies than energy use and subsequent emissions, however. For example, the rush to embed chips in everything means more mining of key materials, such as rare earth minerals. Plus, how we use such innovations matter: giving up on public transport for corporate-owned, driverless (or even flying) taxis could exacerbate urban traffic. 

Laurie Wright, a professor at Solent University, Southampton, points to the “rebound effect”: an economics observation that as we become more efficient at producing something, the price falls so we use it more. “You can play this out with AI: if we produce more stuff, more cheaply, more efficiently, that’s great – but if there’s more stuff to buy at a cheaper price, that can potentially drive up emissions,” says Wright. 

Consider robots. They can take on dirty, dangerous jobs from humans, which is good news for the people who used to suffer those roles. But as robotics become more advanced, they can go further than people ever could, opening up areas of our world – and beyond – that previously were safe from environmental degradation simply by being too hard to reach. For example, robotics could allow mining in ever more remote and dangerous regions, such as deep seas – and even in space. “Is that actually a better thing to do?” asked Wright. “It’s always a complex balancing act.”

How can the industry innovate sustainably?

Should we stop using ChatGPT write silly sonnets, grammar check our WhatsApp messages, and other low-value queries? Loïc Lannelongue, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s department of public health who runs the Green Algorithms carbon calculator, doesn’t think so – most of what we do for fun has a carbon impact. The onus shouldn’t be on those at home playing around and exploring technology to limit the carbon impact; instead, it should lie in the hands of the people building such systems. “They’re paying the energy bills, so they know what the carbon footprint is,” said Lannelongue.

He agrees with the argument that instead of an arms race for larger models, AI developers should publish the carbon footprint of training and using their models. We could then choose not the biggest, but the most efficient. “It’s just a cost-benefit analysis that we need to do beforehand,” says Lannelongue. “And the only way is to know the cost.”

Without counting the cost, there’s no reason to reduce computing use. The classic example, Lannelongue says, is tuning the hyperparameters of a machine learning model; it’s impossible to know when you’ve hit the best combination of parameters, so researchers run many different combinations to find performance improvements. “Imagine it’s 5pm, you’ve been running tests all day, and you think you’ve hit the plateau [in performance],” he says. “As financial costs are negligible, it’s tempting to just let it run overnight and do as many tests as it can, because I’m sleeping and it doesn’t matter… but the extra half percent you might get could get you published at NeurIPS.”

That’s the sort of behavior Lannelongue wants researchers developing AI to think twice about. “The whole point of the project is not to say we shouldn’t do computing anymore,” he says. “We just need to acknowledge that there is a carbon cost.” And hopefully planting that seed will remind people to only compute where necessary, to not waste energy, and to double-check their work before running complex calculations: “It’s happened to everyone that you run a massive thing and only at the end realize you forgot to write the outputs… and have nothing to show for it.”

Tracking the impact, helped by projects such as Hugging Face and Green Algorithms, can help us understand the environmental costs of future technologies, and hopefully encourage developers to build in mitigations such as energy efficiency. But in the meantime, adding generative AI to search, driverless automation to cars, and using robots for everything else might be convenient and intriguing for us, but less so for the planet. When we talk about human-centric, ethical AI, we should probably consider clean air and tolerable temperatures as key components of safe technology. 

As businesses worldwide face growing pressure to address environmental concerns, the role of CIOs in driving forward business sustainability has become vital. 

Far from being a peripheral figure in the environmental journey, the knowledge required and ability to execute an effective sustainability strategy means that CIOs should be central to the sustainability process from the beginning. 

Increasingly, businesses are recognizing that sustainability is not the sole responsibility of specialized departments but should be baked into every aspect of the organization. 

We’re seeing this not just in terms of company culture and collaboration but accountability too. A study by Harvard Business Review found that more than 70% of companies surveyed had incorporated sustainability-related performance metrics into their executive compensation plans. 

This trend sends a clear message that sustainability goals are now firmly placed on the agendas of top-level executives, including the CIO.

Making green investment count

Recent research, including our own CIO Report, shows a notable shift in CIOs' investment strategies towards sustainable technologies. 

This in part is the realization that sustainable practices are not just the right thing to do from an environmental perspective, but deliver commercial advantage across the board, from cost saving, brand enhancement, and long-term viability. 

In fact, the survey highlighted that 92% of CIOs interviewed see a clear link between ESG, sustainability, and enterprise value.

While increased investment in sustainable technologies is commendable, it must be approached strategically. The market for green tech has exploded and the options for investing are endless. 

But investment without proper consideration can lead to wasted resources and minimal impact on the organization's overall sustainability goals.

This is just one reason CIOs should be central to the sustainability strategy from the beginning and work closely with other departments to identify areas where technology can have the most significant positive impact. 

Each investment should be evaluated against specific sustainability goals, with the appropriate benchmarking and measurement in place.

Knowing where to start

It’s clear that the impetus is there for IT to become more involved in the sustainability agenda, but it's not always clear how to translate intention into action. 

In my view there are practical steps CIOs can take now that will drive immediate positive change, as well as solidify the long-term role of the CIO in driving environmental sustainability. 

There’s no sustainability plan without data

Data provides a baseline of current environmental performance, uncovers opportunities for improvement that could otherwise be missed, and helps set measurable targets and goals. 

Latterly with data-driven monitoring, businesses can track progress, optimize resource usage, and identify cost-saving measures. 

It’s also essential for regulatory compliance and transparency. It’s possibly the most essential part of any sustainability plan and the CIO is key to ensuring that data exists and is used to its full potential. 

Most sustainability initiatives will either have a tech component or be tech contingent from smart buildings to water conservation. 

These further compound the importance of having IT involved at the outset; helping assess the efficacy of each initiative, ensuring compatibility with existing systems and facilitating roll-out. 

Optimize IT infrastructure

Optimizing IT infrastructure is now a must. Consolidating servers, switching to energy-efficient hardware and cloud adoption are powerful strategies that can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. 

In more challenging economic times, CIOs are rightly looking at costs, but the two objectives can be met in tandem when decision-makers have good visibility across both the cost and environmental efficiency of their infrastructure. 

Promote sustainable practices

CIOs have an important role to play in encouraging employees to adopt sustainable practices through technology. Leading by example and promoting the use of remanufactured equipment to stimulate the circular economy can help employees to improve their own tech life cycles while reducing emissions. 

Implementing digital collaboration tools can reduce the need for business travel, leading to lower carbon emissions. Additionally, promoting remote work options can contribute to a more sustainable work environment.

In the last ten years, the role of the CIO has changed beyond recognition but like technology itself, it’s continuing to evolve. 

Rather than seeing environmental sustainability as an onerous new responsibility, it should be seen as an opportunity for innovation, the benefits of which will not only be felt by the business but by the world at large. 

Workers with experience with green and sustainable practices are in a better position to land a job, according to a new report.

Those who had some experience with sustainability or at least one green skill had a 29% higher hiring rate than the workforce average.

Job listings in which applicants are required to have at least one green skill are on the rise, having increased by a median of 22.4% since 2022.

Between 2022 and 2023 alone, green talent in the workforce rose by a median of 12.3% across the 48 countries analyzed. 

The data was published as part of LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills Report 2023, which took in data from 48 countries between 2022 and 2023 to build a picture of worldwide job listings and hiring.

While green talent across the worldwide workforce is increasing, having risen by a median of 12.3% across the period, this is not keeping pace with the growing demand for green skills.

Business leaders have bet on sustainability to ward off disruption, and firms across sectors are expected to expand their green investments in the face of economic uncertainty and the climate crisis.

The study found that businesses could soon experience a green skills shortage, with green roles still largely being filled by those with prior experience rather than upskilled workers. 

Over the past year, 81% of workers who took up green jobs already had some green skills, but some emerging roles are more available to those with no prior experience with sustainability.

New roles include energy auditor, with 43% of UK hires for this position across the period having had no green experience.

Some businesses have embraced green commitments by retaining existing employees while changing role descriptions. The study found that between 2015 and 2022, 24% of the skills in an average job description have changed, with green skills now emphasized. 

The utilities industry has marked the lowest hiring decrease of all measured sectors at just 7% year-on-year amidst a record-breaking shift to renewable energy, while the tech sector has reduced its LinkedIn hiring rate by more than 50% year-on-year.

Green jobs could buck the trend of big tech layoffs and AI-linked job cuts, by offering firms a route for positive growth amidst global financial upheaval.

Tech workers may increasingly seek out green jobs as their demand grows and other tech sector opportunities dwindle.

The study indicated that some existing skills offer an advantage for workers looking to transition into green jobs, including backgrounds in STEM, digital skills, and an understanding of hardware and software.

Workers with a background in mathematics were found almost 1.75x more likely to transition to a green job, which could offer hope for tech sector firms looking to increase their green roles.

IT workers with experience in supply chain management could also be well-suited to green jobs, with supply chain understanding noted as an important skill for the renewable energies sector, as well as for reducing carbon emissions.

Workers in different regions are facing increasingly-disparate hiring landscapes. Green IT ranks in the top ten fastest-growing green skills in the EU, but does not rank in the US at all.

Unilever has branded itself a cloud-only company after completing a 'landmark' digital transformation project.

Working alongside Microsoft and Accenture, the global retailer said it has completed one of the “largest and most complex” cloud migrations in the consumer goods industry, which saw the company adopt Azure as its primary cloud provider.

The retailer confirmed that with Azure as its primary cloud platform, it will be able to “accelerate product launches, enhance customer service, and improve operational efficiency”.

Unilever said the migration will also help deliver on its ongoing sustainability commitments by cutting carbon emissions and streamlining energy usage.

“The creation of an agile, high-performing digital core that delivers greater efficiency will provide Unilever with increased computing power to explore new ways of working,” the company said in a statement.

“Unilever’s adoption of a cloud-only approach will significantly improve business resilience, strengthening security and enhancing control of the IT landscape.”

Unilever outlined four key areas in which its cloud transformation project will benefit the business in the long term.

The retailer is one of the world’s largest suppliers of consumer products, serving more than 3.4 billion consumers every day and running operations in 190 countries worldwide.

The firm said that this transformation will enable it to utilise “industrial metaverse technologies” that use real-time data from factory digital twins to streamline operational efficiency in its supply chain operations.

Predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities will also be enhanced following the cloud migration project, Unilever said. The company will accelerate product forecasting and improve the ability to identify existing consumer trends.

The retailer said it will also embrace “the latest in AI” to drive employee and consumer experiences by applying the Azure OpenAI Service across its business to accelerate automation across several key business functions.

“Unilever is a truly data-powered organisation,” said Steve McCrystal, chief enterprise and technology officer at Unilever. “We’re using advanced analytics to make better-informed decisions quicker than ever before.

“Working with Accenture and Microsoft on this global transformation project, we can respond to ever-changing consumer needs faster, allocate our resource more effectively to focus on what drives growth, and bring services and products to the market faster.”

Unilever's sustainability focus

Unilever said it also plans to reduce its carbon footprint in existing data centre operations following the cloud transformation, and will implement Green Cloud Advisor - a sustainability-focused analytics service in Accenture's myNav platform - which “facilitates Unilever’s transition to a more sustainable and efficient cloud environment”.

The move follows a previous collaboration with Google Cloud to drive cloud sustainability across the firm’s retail operations.

In 2020, the two companies revealed a partnership which aimed to “advance sustainable business practices” and drive “eco-friendly decision-making”.

This partnership saw the duo collaborate to develop the first commercial application of Google Cloud and Google Earth Engine for sustainable commodity sourcing.

“By combining the power of cloud computing with satellite imagery and AI, the two companies are building a more holistic view of the forests, water cycles, and biodiversity that intersect Unilever’s supply chain,” the company revealed at the time.

Equinix has revealed a new rooftop farm on one of its data centres in France.

The farm makes use of waste data centre energy to power itself, and is located on the Equinix PA10 data centre in Saint-Denis, Paris.

The goal of the project was to promote the sustainable use of data centres, as well as promote health and wellbeing since the food grown is expected to be shared among staff and visitors, said Reid Brewin Architects (RBA), the company that designed and built the project.

RBA said that seasonal fruit and vegetables can be grown in the greenhouse through its hydroponic system. Hydroponics have been used to minimise water usage and make the most of the space.

The facility consists of a 430m² greenhouse along with 570m² of green space, and the garden is powered through a heat recovery system linked to heat exchangers connected to the data centre’s water cooling system.

The greenhouse is able to monitor humidity, external temperature, and internal temperature through various sensors.

If it gets too cold, for example, heaters will be turned on. It is also able to provide a controlled climate throughout the year since it has sunshades, ventilation, and automated irrigation systems.

In the gardens outside of the greenhouse, insect hotels have been installed to promote biodiversity. The garden's plant selection was a specific one. Only species of plants that rely on rainwater consumption are being grown for maximum sustainability.

“We’re extremely proud to support our clients with this shared goal, and PA10 heralds the start of an exciting new era, enabling us to apply learnings from this project across other projects,” said John Hutchinson, director at RBA.

“Sustainability and safeguarding the environment are at the heart of everything we do, and this opportunity has already inspired further initiatives across our client base.”

Waste heat from data centres has been used by other firms in a number of creative ways. Microsoft, for example, revealed in March 2022 that it was building a new data centre in Finland which would use excess heat to power local homes, businesses, and services. A district heating system was set to be constructed to connect heat from the server cooling process to buildings in the local area.

More recently, the UK startup Deep Green announced that it's using data centre waste heat to power local businesses and swimming pools, as reported by Business Green. It has installed its infrastructure at the Exmouth Leisure Centre in Devon and is looking to expand it to buildings in Bristol and Manchester in the future.

Exmouth Leisure Centre currently has 12 servers installed on its premises used to heat its swimming pool - an initiative expected to save more than £20,000 per year when it comes to heating costs.

The forthcoming adoption of USB-C as the connector of choice has been a frequently covered topic and, as you will have read, it’s been causing quite a heated discussion. Since 2009, there’s been a voluntary code in place between the EU and mobile manufacturers to reduce the variations of chargers from over 30 down to three. Last September, the EU Commission published an agreement, bringing this to one.

The rule change is being championed for both consumer convenience and to help fight e-waste. According to EU figures, consumers spend €2.4 billion on standalone chargers and over 11,000 tonnes of them end up in e-waste streams. The hope is that changing to a single socket will make it simpler to find something suitable to stick in it, but also control how rapidly your device will charge. Fast-charging technologies are also part of the rules.

Despite this genuinely positive news, what has been omitted from the legislation – in a cruelly deliberate oversight – is the effect fixing USB-C ports has on ageing Yorkshire-based PC technicians whose eyesight has lost the sharpness of its youth. A typical USB-C port has 24 internal pins, which obviously need to be connected to the machine. Comparatively, a USB-A port has up to five internal pins and when you consider the size differential between the two sockets, soldering up to 24 pins within a smaller area increases the difficulty level somewhat.

Remember, USB-C purely describes the shape of a port and not its functionality, but because it’s so versatile, USB-C is currently the obvious candidate for universality, irrespective of how much of a nightmare it is to fix. Looking ahead, the USB-C legislation won’t encapsulate laptops until 2026, but as the writing is on the wall, manufacturers could move early, triggering some radical redesigns inside the machines.

Traditionally, fixed ports such as USB, DisplayPort, Ethernet or HDMI are always soldered to a PCB, but most DC power barrels have broken free in recent years and are connected with a simple plug and socket. This makes repair much easier for anyone confident enough to open their laptop, or cheaper if professional help is required. Broken sockets remain the number one hardware fault I encounter on laptops, so when USB-C becomes the de facto method of power delivery, it’s critical that swapping a broken USB-DC is at least as simple as the plug and socket we have now. Keeping it on the board vastly increases the repair costs and the probability of the machine going in a skip.

It’s taken a long time to get this far, but now universality has become mandatory, it should be simpler to evolve the rules in the future. Jump forward five years when we’re talking about 'USB-D', the established rules can be tweaked. It’s not perfect but it draws a line in the sand and is far better than an office full of workers using 30 different chargers.

Sustainability has become a key priority for enterprise, not just because it’s the right thing to do for the planet, but the smart thing to do for the business. On the one hand, with climate instability, storms, drought, and heat waves on the rise, responsible businesses feel the need to behave more sustainably. On the other, there’s evidence that it helps them attract customers and employees – and also attract investors. In 2021, a report from Accenture and the World Economic Forum noted that companies that demonstrated effective environmental, social and governance practices were, on average 20% more profitable. That’s something investors find hard to ignore.

Perhaps most importantly, sustainability measures can also improve operational efficiency. By putting processes and technologies in place to minimise their carbon footprint or their waste output, businesses can also reduce their ongoing costs. Within IT, this is particularly important, particularly in the datacentre. On the sustainability front, it’s estimated that data centres already consume at least 1% of the global electrical supply and contribute between 0.3% and 2% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. On the TCO front, Datacentres are becoming more expensive to operate, as energy costs rise and power density increases at the rack, with knock-on effects for cooling.

2022 research from Gartner suggests that the cumulative impact is a 40% increase in operating costs. Reducing energy consumption and waste in the datacentre can both help organizations meet sustainability objectives and drive TCO back down.

The same applies outside the datacentre. Offices, logistics centres, retail outlets and manufacturing facilities face similar issues with rising costs and power consumption, yet offer similar opportunities for reducing both. What’s more, embracing sustainability can be a chance to rethink working practices, optimise processes, and use new technology in smart buildings, IoT and the cloud. Doing so could both reduce the business’s environmental impact and its TCO. These innovations can add a layer of complexity to managing the core infrastructure, but new infrastructure – and new dedicated utility networks – can help organizations keep things simple and avoid additional management challenges.

For many businesses, the biggest challenge is knowing where to start. How do you develop an infrastructure that doesn’t just meet your current needs, but will help you minimise your costs and support your sustainability goals further down the line? What can you do inside the datacentre to battle energy consumption, while maintaining high levels of performance and reliability? How can you build sustainable supply chains, or reduce the waste and carbon impact in manufacturing and logistics operations – or just in the office where your teams go to work?

The answer often lies both in small but meaningful steps, and in a holistic strategy that brings in stakeholders from across the business, with clear targets for teams to reach for and clear metrics to evaluate your progress. It’s not just a question of processes or technology, but the partnerships you put in place to make them work. When you’re starting out on your sustainability journey, it helps to have suppliers and service partners that can share their own experiences and know-how.

To find out more about how you can build a business that’s leaner, more agile and more sustainable, read our co-branded IT Pro and Leviton report, Sustainability and TCO: Building a more power-efficient business.

Public sector organisations could be forced to accelerate their shift to the cloud as the UK government’s long-awaited net zero strategy looms.

In the government’s Net Zero Review, former energy minister Chris Skidmore revealed that the UK is falling behind on tackling carbon emissions, and the upcoming Net Zero Strategy is expected to outline specific policies to accelerate decarbonisation and meet targets for net zero emissions by 2050.

The move could place additional pressure on public sector organisations to place a stronger focus on overhauling legacy IT systems and accelerate their shift to the cloud, according to Kainos, a public sector digital transformation partner.

“The public sector will be expected to lead the way in making tangible and measurable cuts to emissions once the Net Zero Strategy is published,” said Gareth Workman, cloud practice director at Kainos. “But many departments still rely on legacy technology, which wasn’t built with sustainability in mind.”

While the government’s focus on net zero targets could spark an acceleration in cloud migration among public sector bodies, questions remain over whether organisations have the capability to rapidly pivot to meet expected reduction goals.

Research last year revealed that nearly two-thirds (63%) of public sector organisations have struggled to adopt a dedicated cloud strategy. This sluggish uptake has resulted in around 70% of internal IT infrastructure remaining on-premises.

There are notable examples of successful public-sector cloud adoption. A number of organisations have reaped the rewards of migration and unlocked tangible benefits in terms of operational agility, service improvement, and carbon reductions.

Companies House, for example, was found to have reduced carbon emissions by 94% after shifting its IT infrastructure and services from its in-house data centres to the cloud.

This migration saw the organisation migrate front-end services to AWS and back-end services to Azure.

Kainos said other public sector organisations could realistically replicate this success.

Tim Allen, head of engineering for cloud and DevOps at XDesign, told IT Pro that some public sector organisations are “better placed” to move to the cloud and monitor their impact.

The Cabinet Office has implemented a cloud sustainability reporting system to enable monitoring of carbon emissions generated by the services they deliver, he explained. However, other departments have been unable to implement or develop “such a well-focused approach”.

This could mean that, long-term, a gap develops between public sector organisations capable of accelerating their shift to the cloud and those that are simply unable to pivot at such a rapid pace.

“In general, the public sector does not maintain the knowledge or funds to pursue sustainability as a fundamental requirement in cloud migrations and conscientious outside assistance is required”, he said. “In the public sector, the goal of efficient, sustainable compute-based services remains a way off yet.”

Sustainability and the cloud

Discussions around the environmental impact of cloud adoption have been a recurring theme in recent years, with research suggesting that cloud migration could enable organisations to drastically reduce their carbon footprint.

A study from Accenture found that migration to public cloud could achieve a “significant carbon reduction” and deliver a 5.9% decrease in total IT emissions.

A host of major cloud providers have made carbon-neutral commitments in recent months. Amazon recently pledged to use 100% renewable energy sources by 2025 and reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040.

In November last year, AWS also revealed plans to be 'water positive' by 2030 in a bid to use water in data centres more efficiently.

Similarly, Microsoft has outlined intentions to be carbon negative by 2030 and aims to offset all carbon emissions since 1975 by 2050.

Kainos suggested that public sector organisations can capitalise on this current focus on sustainability and environmental awareness among key industry players.

“By migrating their infrastructure to major cloud providers, the public sector will benefit from these sustainability initiatives by reducing their direct emissions from data centres,” the company said.

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Companies in the tech industry have contracted more renewable energy across 2022 than any other sector in a year that saw record investment in clean power, according to a new report.

326 companies invested in 77 gigawatts (GW) of domestic clean energy throughout the year, enough to power more than one thousand data centres and worth more than $55 billion (£44.6 billion) in capital investment.

The tech sector alone accounted for 48% of all wind and solar power totalling 36.8 GW, with the energy industry coming in second at just 6.7 GW, according to the American Clean Power Association's figures.

Tech giants Amazon, Meta, and Google have contracted the most of all companies in the sector. By the end of 2022, the companies had contracted 12.4 GW, 8.7 GW, and 6.2 GW respectively.

Over half of the contracted power is not yet operational. But 36 GW, equivalent to 16% of all renewable power operating in the US, now stems from corporate funding as companies look to decrease carbon impact across their supply chains and invest in renewables for long-term stability.

Large tech firms have typically chosen to invest in clean power contracts close to locations of important operations such as offices, warehouses or data centres.

Those with more operations centres have invested in more geographically-diverse projects, with only Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Walmart having started projects in ten or more states.

Meta’s contracted projects, for example, have been built in close proximity to its regional data centres which make up much of the company’s annual energy demand. Each Meta clean power project across 22 states operates on the same grid as a Meta data centre, apart from its planned centre in Kuna, Idaho.

The location of clean power projects is largely influenced by power purchase agreements (PPAs) - the most popular mechanism used by companies to purchase renewable energy.

These see a company agree to purchase energy from a generator that owns and operates a project at a set price, rather than a utility company. Companies obtain renewable energy credits which add to their sustainability records.

Texas, for example, accounts for 35% of all corporate clean energy contracts partly because the state is well-situated for both solar and wind power, but also because of relatively cheap PPAs with The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

Green energy keeps data centres affordable

Analysts say that businesses are increasingly betting on sustainability to tackle disruption, and contracting power generation is key to this long-term investment.

In 2022, Gartner warned that the energy crisis will hit data centre budgets by 40% or more. Tiny Haynes, senior research director at Gartner, told the IT Pro Podcast that prices could remain volatile for years.

Renewable energy is cheaper to generate than it has ever been thanks to investment in wind and solar technology, and is already being embraced by companies seeking to slash their energy bills.

Firms are more aware of the cost of sticking with fossil fuels than ever, especially after the scare of rising fossil fuel prices driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Corporate investment has turned to solar over wind power, as firms look to shore up utility-scale energy security with 14.4 GW of procurement in 2022. 58% (45 GW) of corporate contracted renewable energy is in solar, though only 28% of this is currently in operation.

Amazon has an official target of running on 100% renewable energy by 2030, though claims it is set to reach this goal by 2025. Google has committed to operations on “24/7 carbon-free energy” by 2030, while Meta targets [PDF] net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across its "value chain" by 2030.

Tech workers increasingly view a business' sustainability and overall purpose as equally important factors in choosing their next job alongside salary expectations.

Hays' 2023 UK Salary and Recruitment Trends study showed that the average UK tech salary increased by 7% over the last year.

Similarly, more than three-quarters (76%) of employers revealed they increased salaries in 2022 and tech jobs continued to pay higher than the UK average.

But salary considerations aren’t the only key factor for employees now, the study found. Increasingly, workers view sustainability, purpose, and diversity as attractive propositions as many seek opportunities at firms which align with their values.

Sustainability is “coming to the fore in many organisations,” Hays said, and firms recognise its growing importance in creating long-term value and satisfaction for employees.

Commitments to sustainability were highlighted as an important factor for 78% of employees when searching for a new role. Conversely, however, Hays’ research showed that only 65% of employers believe these commitments are important to help them attract and retain staff.

Fiona Place, global head of sustainability at Hays, said that issues such as climate change and environmental pollution were “firmly in the spotlight” for employees seeking new roles.

“Our research shows that employees want to work for organisations that can show their sustainability credentials. Younger generations are even more in tune with this, so failing to show progress towards a green agenda could impact your ability to secure the next generation of professionals,” she said.

Diversity and inclusion in the workplace

More than two-thirds (69%) of employees reported that an organisation’s ability to “demonstrate a diverse and inclusive culture” heavily influences their decision to apply for a new role.

In contrast, however, around one in four (26%) employees voiced concerns over workforce diversity and their respective companies, while 18% said they don’t think their organisation is inclusive.

This has prompted a shift among employees towards encouraging diversity and expecting this as an inherent cultural staple within their organisation. More than two-thirds (66%) said it's important that organisations implement steps to mitigate bias in the recruitment processes, for example.

An organisation’s purpose was also highlighted as a key factor for workers seeking new roles, Hays found. Most employees (85%) said purpose was an “important consideration” when assessing a new role.

This was identified as an even more prevalent factor for those working in the public sector and for younger generations – particularly Gen Z.

At a roundtable attended by IT Pro last year, representatives from Dell, Red Hat, and Kyndryl revealed that the continued influx had driven organisational changes and a shift in strategy in the hybrid cloud space.

Participants revealed that generational shifts had prompted changes with regard to ESG goals, such as the need to reduce energy demand. In fact, the continued onboarding of younger workers had helped embed a stronger focus on ESG among C-suite executives and improved transparency.

Kevin Poulter, employment partner at national law firm Freeths, told IT Pro that while salaries still remain a critical consideration, recent purpose-based trends present new challenges on how organisations present themselves to prospective employees and attract talent.

“Employees have for some years shown an ever-greater interest in how a company presents itself and behaves in a fast-changing socio-economic, environmental, and political landscape,” he said.

“Although employers should not discount the motivations of salary, benefits, and other financial incentives, they should expect questions about diversity and inclusion, sustainability initiatives, and a company’s response to global issues such as Black Lives Matter, the Me Too movement, and climate change.

“Employees and candidates have built a confidence in challenging employers and turning the tables on recruiters, moving the conversation on from issues of personal impact, such as work/life balance and flexible working,” Poulter added.

Lewis Maleh, executive recruitment expert and CEO of executive search firm Bentley Lewis said purpose and sustainability are key considerations for businesses in 2023.

“Purpose and sustainability are not only important factors for those seeking new roles, but they are essential considerations for business and society in 2023,” he said.

“If people hold sustainability and purpose as important values in their personal lives, it’s natural they are going to want a role that prioritises them professionally too.”

Sustainability a ‘key trend’ for 2023

Hays' insights on views towards organisational purpose and sustainability align with recent research conducted by Gartner on the issue.

A study from the consultancy firm identified sustainability as a key trend in 2023 as businesses look to reduce their environmental impact, boost employee satisfaction, and attract new talent.

Sustainability was highlighted as an issue which “traverses all of the strategic technology trends for 2023”, with CEOs reporting that environmental and social changes are now a top-three priority for investors after profit and revenue.

“This means that executives must invest more in innovative solutions that are designed to address ESG demand to meet sustainability goals,” the consultancy said.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced that by 2030, it will return more water to communities around the world than it uses in its direct operations.

To reach this goal, the cloud giant has focused on four strategic areas: increasing the efficiency of water usage, ensuring water comes from sustainable sources where possible, returning water to communities, and expanding water replenishment activities.

AWS said it has deployed Internet of Things (IoT) devices to analyse water usage in real time, and also uses outside air to cool centres where possible, such as its data centres in Ireland and Sweden that require no water for cooling for 95% of the year. Efficiency increases have the added benefit of reducing the costs of running data centres, which have been greatly exacerbated by the energy crisis.

AWS is also undertaking a number of projects to improve the replenishment of water in communities, to improve the quality of water tables, and increase the accessibility of clean water and sanitation in underserved communities. The firm will support nonprofit Water.org to expand water access to 250,000 people in India and Indonesia, in addition to its previous announcement of $10 million towards a Water.org fund aimed at helping 100 million people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

In the UK, AWS is to create two wetlands on a tributary of the River Thames, in collaboration with The Rivers Trust and Action for the River Kennet. It's hoped this will improve overall water quality in the area, and replenish its groundwater at a rate of more than 587 million litres per year.

“England’s rivers are a national treasure, and we are thrilled to partner with AWS to help protect the River Thames and its tributaries by working with our member trusts in the area,” said Mark Lloyd, CEO of The Rivers Trust.

“AWS’ commitment to be water positive by 2030 will drive action needed to help restore the rivers and water resources impacted by climate change. We are looking forward to growing our relationship with AWS and using this partnership to demonstrate a similar path other businesses can take to support collaborative water stewardship activities that improve the resilience of our rivers.”

Where possible, the company has aimed to use water that is recyclable and only suitable for irrigation and industrial use, in order to conserve local drinking water and allow spent water to be passed on to other community members, such as farmers. Although recycled water is only used in 20 of its data centres worldwide, AWS plans to expand this in line with its water positive goal.

“Water scarcity is a major issue around the world and with today’s water positive announcement we are committing to do our part to help solve this rapidly growing challenge,” said Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS.

“In just a few years half of the world’s population is projected to live in water-stressed areas, so to ensure all people have access to water, we all need to innovate new ways to help conserve and reuse this precious resource. While we are proud of the progress we have made, we know there is more we can do. We are committed to leading on water stewardship in our cloud operations, and returning more water than we use in the communities where we operate. We know this is the right thing to do for the environment and our customers.”

News of the goal was shared at AWS re:Invent, the firm’s annual conference held in Las Vegas. In the same announcement, AWS also revealed that its 2021 global water use efficiency (WUE) metric was 0.25 litres of water per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Going forward, AWS has committed to annual reports on its WUE, water reuse and recycling work, as well as new practices and updates to existing work in order to reduce overall water usage.

The WUE metric was developed by the nonprofit industry consortium The Green Grid, whose goal is to improve the sustainability of data centres, and is used to measure the amount of water consumed for functions such as cooling. A 2016 report by the US Department of Energy stated that the average WUE of a data centre is 1.8 litres per kWh, while a Microsoft Azure blog post from April 2022 stated that Azure’s global WUE average was 0.49 litres per kWh.

Sustainability has been identified by Gartner as the key strategic technology trend for 2023, and is increasingly being cited as a good investment against disruption by business leaders. As the climate crisis looms and businesses seek to shield themselves from long-term economic hardship, sustainability projects are becoming increasingly core to business strategy, as well as a major focus of younger workers seeking purpose in their roles.

Businesses must foster Gen-Z’s sense of meaning through important goals such as sustainability targets, in order to maintain competitiveness and spur growth, according to industry experts.

In order to attract young talent, businesses should choose to offer roles in which individuals feel like they’re making a difference to the world, and maintain a culture of communication, business leaders have suggested. Organisations that follow this, and foster a culture that supports overlaps with sustainability schemes, could future-proof their business strategies and remain competitive in a market increasingly reliant on new talent.

Younger workers require a clear understanding of the moral value in their job, and sustainability schemes that include contributions from individual employees could fill this need. As Gartner recently identified sustainability as the key tech trend for 2023, and businesses increasingly bet on sustainability to tackle disruption, the field could offer returns in both investment and employee satisfaction.

However, sustainability schemes that amount to little more than greenwashing can be met with negativity and a feeling that the organisation in question lacks the trust in its employees to be transparent.

Alongside purpose, young workers increasingly demand honesty from employers, so maintaining a young workforce amidst growing drives for net zero carbon will require a transparent approach.

At a roundtable discussion, representatives from Dell, Red Hat, and Kyndryl spoke to a changing strategy in hybrid cloud, driven in part by the onboarding of younger workers, and gave examples of tasks that can meet these demands.

“It’s got to be something we can bring to life, and imagine,” said Tosca Colangeli, UK and Ireland president at Kyndryl.

“When we launched Kyndryl, we joined up with One Tree Planted, and for every employee that we had, we planted a tree. We wanted to do that to recognise the importance of the environment, and we all voted for One Tree Planted; choice is part of the cultural shift - it’s important on a personal level to be able to contribute.”

Firms were also urged to use clear language in order to communicate the effectiveness of schemes such as those implemented to reduce energy demand. For younger workers, this can feed into the wider needs for transparency and a sense of progress in work, but it can also prove the value of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) schemes to C-suite executives.

“They're super intelligent people, but they're not experts in zettabytes and kilowatt hours,” Dayne Turbitt, UK general manager and SVP at Dell.

“So, if you put it in context for them, in terms such as “by doing this, you save as much electricity as a million houses”, that really brings it home.”

Members of the panel said the shift in generational priorities has happened alongside a gradual slowing of growth in the cloud market, as businesses have begun to take stock of the systems they have in place before expanding further.

“There’s a period of consolidation now, which says “how do I manage these costs I have?”, said Colangeli.

“There's economic pressure, there's a demand for real-time information... the real prize is about the data we're unlocking in the cloud, and that's what we're really seeing coming to life right now, around artificial intelligence (AI) and insights. We're going to get from having all of this data in the cloud.

“You're going to have to get your house in order. You're gonna have to get some control over the cost, so you can reinvest in the data and the insights that really will game-change your organisation.”

Increased automation, whether in the back office or through robotic process automation (RPA) systems that share tasks with human workers, is one cost-effective way for businesses to maintain efficiency amidst economic downturn.

If implemented correctly, automation can also be used to improve employee experience, allowing workers to get on with more meaningful work in lieu of tiresome manual processes.

“The case for the return on investment and the case of the environment have never been closer,” Simon Wright, director, strategic solutions team at Red Hat UK.

“It’s the small gains, and I think automation and self-service are two key things which will help drive us in the right direction.”

Microsoft and Kyndryl announced an expansion to their strategic partnership in October, with the aim of helping customers improve mainframe data access. Dell and Red Hat continue to work closely on containerisation, and the Dell APEX consumption model to improve customer scalability in a landscape increasingly demanding real-time reaction to macroeconomic shifts.

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The majority (86%) of business leaders plan to increase their organisation's investment in sustainability initiatives as a way to protect against disruption, according to new research.

Most leaders (87%) whose companies are already engaged in sustainability initiatives expect to expand these in 2023 and 2024, linking the investments made so far to improvements in company operations, as well as to supply chain savings.

Respondents identified that a number of costs related to operations can be mitigated through sustainability investments, with energy consumption named by 65% of those surveyed, and business travel by 42%. Other costs that were mentioned include customer transactions (40%) and productivity (33%).

83% of respondents also said that such investments have created value in both the short and long term for their organisation, with costs outweighed by immediate efficiency improvements and the promise of a more stable future for their company.

“Sustainability enables businesses to cope with disruption,” said Kristin Moyer, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner.

“Economic uncertainty, geopolitical conflict and escalating materials and energy costs are forcing businesses to re-examine all forms of expenditure. This focus on essentialism, in combination with increasing stakeholder desire to see progress on environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, creates new opportunities for organisations to grow while mitigating cost and risk.”

With firms facing rising energy bills driven in large part by the invasion of Ukraine, further Gartner research has predicted that data centre costs could increase by 40% in the immediate future.

Investment in software sustainability, as well as more efficient hardware, will be critical in handling these costs, while simultaneously reducing energy impact that will worsen the climate crisis, the analyst house concluded.

The survey was conducted by Gartner across the APAC, North American, and European regions in June and July 2022, reaching 221 respondents in executive roles at companies with annual revenue of $250 million or more.

Although a range of financial benefits stemmed from sustainability programmes, the report also made clear that business leaders see customers as the primary driving force behind greater investment in this area. Customers were identified as the group building pressure behind sustainability by the majority of respondents (80%), compared to investors (60%), and regulators (55%).

57% positively linked enterprise-wide sustainability programmes with their income results, although only 42% indicated that they are currently using said programmes to drive innovation or growth. However, with the trend of greater investment illustrated in the results of the survey, it is clear that sustainability is seen as a rewarding opportunity.

“On one hand, the returns on investments in sustainability remain unclear in the short term as people experiment and venture - there will be winners and losers,” said Joseph Tabita, SVP of energy and commodities lead at digital transformation consultancy Publicis Sapient.

“On the other hand, it will be the biggest long-term return ever seen when we think about future generations and future relevance of today’s businesses. Reasons to invest are plentiful - providing new revenue streams, accelerating innovation, new forms of customer engagement and providing a glide path away from business models that will be less relevant in the future - for example, Big Oil companies transforming into Energy companies, or countries like Saudi Arabia retooling for a post-fossil fuel world.

“The voice of the customer is a powerful incentive to companies to change, but we also need more pressure and regulation from governments and investors to make sustainable business decisions. The takeaway of the last few COPs is that more is still needed from all participants to accelerate this transformation.”

Because the survey only contacted companies which are currently engaged in sustainability programmes, the results may not be representative of industry-wide investment trends. No statistics are provided, for example, on the number of companies not currently invested in sustainability but who plan to in the coming years.

It follows on from a similar survey conducted by Gartner, which revealed that sustainability is the key strategic technology trend for 2023, as identified by investors. Environmental, social, and governance (ESF) expectations continue to push companies to spend on sustainability schemes, and government regulations in the public sphere have been joined by the growing availability of sustainable technology in the private sphere to ease the transition for companies.

Green growth is seen as a key area of potential among IT decision-makers, and beyond cost savings sustainable technology can be leveraged to improve services for businesses and customers like, across the sector.

Anxieties are rife given the surge in the cost of energy, with a combination of global factors and lack of long-term planning domestically causing prices to skyrocket as we edge into the winter months.

Everyone, from consumers to businesses of all sizes, are looking for ways to reduce their energy bills and cut consumption. Employees, for example, are asking whether going into the office might save on energy bills, while organisations wonder whether the support scheme available cuts the mustard. Indeed, an entire generation raised on the mantra of “disruption” is now finding out just what that term means when applied to their own energy costs.

It seems likely the present price squeeze will ease off at some point in the future, but it's inevitable the situation will get worse before it gets better. The long-term solution might be to power down any energy-hungry systems for good, in favour of cloud services and mass-scale remote working. Those are, however, major projects, so we must ask ourselves where our electricity is going in the first place, and how we can begin working to get our bills down bit by bit. We examine some of the most common causes of excess power use, and what you can do at the corporate level to reduce your consumption, your carbon footprint and, ultimately, your energy bill.

1. Measure energy consumption

You could use a little plug-socket wattmeter, but that’s not ideal for IT infrastructure, as it requires you to unplug each device you want to test. The professionals use a clamp metre, which clips onto the power cable of a running system and measures the strength of the magnetic field around it, which in turn indicates how much power is being consumed.

You can get one of these clever devices for under £200, so depending on what it discovers it could pay for itself pretty quickly. This is the first step towards understanding how one can reduce energy consumption. Although not everything can simply be ‘turned off’ – for example, powering down a high-wattage server – it’s a crucial first step in a broader plan.

There are also various tools you can use to give you an estimate for how much you're likely to save by taking various measures. Chcek out Schneider Electric's virtualisation calculator, which allows you to input variables to determine the energy cost breakdown. Another illuminating tool is Microsoft's cloud carbon tracking dashboard.

As far as day-to-day hardware goes, it might be a good idea to double-check how much power is being consumed, especially if fans are constantly spinning, or a power metre indicates unexpectedly high power draw. There is, thankfully, a handy tool built directly into the Windows operating system (OS) that can help to diagnose the cause.

Open an elevated Command Prompt (right-click on the icon and select 'Run as Administrator'), and enter "powercfg -energy" without the quotation marks. Windows will spend about 60 seconds analysing the PC's configuration and detecting anything anomalous about its power consumption. When it's finished, enter "energy-report.html" to open the results in your default browser.

The report is split into three sections: information (useful to know but safe to ignore), warnings and errors. Errors on our test machine included unusually high processor usage of 35.95% when the system was running nothing apart from background tasks. That will have a significant effect on our overall energy consumption. Using this as a starting point, we were able to use Task Manager to try disabling various processes and services to identify the culprit and take remedial action.

2. Optimise energy-guzzling IT infrastructure

Most of the things in any organisation’s server room are probably running 24/7 because that organisation needs them to be. An audit, however, often reveals that a few systems are consuming the lion’s share of energy – and probably not the ones you’d expect. Some machines draw a lot of power because they need to keep those RAID disks spinning and cooled; others do so because their vents and heat sinks are clogged up with dust, resulting in the fans running at full speed all the time.

It might be that the best way to manage your energy budget is to dip into your hardware budget. If you look at the power consumption of a ten-year-old file server and then compare a modern counterpart based on something such as an AMD Ryzen CPU, the difference almost defies belief. Not that power-efficiency is the only benefit; the cost of the newer hardware can also be justified in terms of improved performance and support.

Improving server efficiency is another step towards getting energy bills down, but can often be problematic. The hardware needs to be powerful, by definition, and, unlike hardware like PCs and laptops, it spends barely any time sitting idle. What's more, you can't generally power down a server out of hours.

A 2011 IBM white paper put the upper-end consumption of 1U, 2U and 4U rackmount servers at 350W, 400W and 1kW respectively, with a fully populated blade server chassis typically consuming 4.5kW. Those figures are upper estimates, and improvements in server technology over the past decade have brought power demands right down. Even so, if you're looking to reduce your energy footprint, it's clear that the server room deserves particular attention.

One way you can make savings is by maximising use of virtualisation. If you virtualise multiple discrete environments on a 1U device, suddenly it can do the work of ten separate servers split between different departments. Smaller organisations can take advantage of the same principle without even needing to own their servers, by renting space and processor cycles on commercial shared hosting.

Buying a set of modern services with a blade-chassis architecture means you’ll be drawing in all the power supply data you could ever wish for, along with extensive details of every other aspect of performance. That’s no small investment, though. In most fully instrumented builds like this, the cost of the licensing along with the monitoring software is likely to outweigh the money you’re trying to save on power. Otherwise, I’m afraid you’re left with a lot of small LAN and single-PC utilities; these tend to be produced by frustrated third parties and susceptible to the pitfalls of hobbyist code.

3. Replace older PCs and optimise laptops

It’s worth testing hardware that employees use on a day-to-day basis, and also working on a programme to replace these too, if need-be. Desktop PCs, even excluding their standalone monitors, consumer far more energy than laptops, so if you can move desk-based staff onto mobile or ultraportable devices, you can make a saving. Naturally, there's no point doing this outside of your regular upgrade cycle, as the energy savings will be dwarfed by the residual value lost through upgrading early.

If you must use desktop displays, smaller screens with a less intense backlight can make a difference. You only need put your hand on the back of some large panel displays to recognise how much energy is being wasted as heat. While they can act as surrogate heaters in colder months, in summer they will add to your air conditioning bill.

Then, there's the question of how much time your PCs spend in full-power mode. A typical PC and monitor combination could consume around 200W when sitting idle so if a system's left switched on 24/7, that's a cost to your business of hundreds of pounds a year. Often, employees simply leave them switched on. If you can enforce a staff switch-off policy (or automate the process) to ensure that your desktops are only awake for eight hours a day, you could reclaim over £200 per seat.

Each laptop, meanwhile, might only consume a fraction of the power of a server, but there are probably more of them plugged in at any one time. Although a laptop-first approach has a great impact on reducing energy consumption, they can still be quite wasteful if their usage isn't optimised. High-end hardware, for instance, is often dished out as a mark of seniority, but someone who spends long business hours dealing with emails and spreadsheets has no need for a workstation-class processor.

Then there’s the bloatware factor. Users love to fill up their laptops with things like 3D games, along with plenty of other stuff that they don’t even realise is there. The laptops with the highest power draw could even be infected with cryptocurrency-mining Trojans, meaning you can slash power consumption with a simple bit of malware clean-up.

4. Adjust Windows 11 power settings

If your office mostly runs on desktop PCs, you might not have spared much thought for Windows' built-in energy management tools. There are some powerful options here, though, which can make a real difference to your power consumption, and it might be worth advising, or even enforcing, employees to enable these settings while at work.

To access them, open the Control Panel, click through 'Hardware and Sound' to 'Power Options', then click the 'Edit Plan Settings' link beside your current plan, followed by 'Change advanced power settings'. This is where you'll find the Power Options dialogue box, which gives you more control than just picking 'Balanced', 'High Performance' or 'Power Saver'.

If you're working on a mobile device, though, you will find settings for both 'On battery' and 'Plugged in'; the former option is aimed at minimising power consumption, while the latter is skewed towards achieving the best performance.

Keep track of things such as display brightness, as super-bright screens can devour power at a shocking rate. If adaptive brightness is an option, it makes sense to use this to automatically dim the display when possible. Consider setting video playback quality to power-saving too, to reduce GPU power consumption.

If you're managing a network of Windows clients, you can push one of the three default power plans to all systems using Group Policy Editor. You'll find the setting inside the System\Power Management sub-section of the Editor's Administrative Templates. Sub-sections also give you access to sleep, display and hard disk settings, all of which can have an effect on the amount of energy a remote PC consumes.

5. Enforce the use of power-efficient apps

Software developers don't generally pay a lot of attention to power-efficiency, but if you notice fans regularly spinning up when using one particular application, that's a clue that it's using more juice than it should. Consider switching to an alternative if you can. Notably, there is one group of developers who are happy to talk about how much power their software consumes, and that's those working on browsers. It makes sense, as Microsoft calculates that Windows users spend more than half of their time on the web, so improving browser efficiency can make a big difference to power costs.

How is this done? Writing on the Chromium Blog in March 2017, Google's Alexander Timin explained that activity in background tabs accounts for a third of Chrome's power demands on the desktop which is why Chromium limits background tabs to 1% of a single CPU core. Not only does this keep your CPU free to work on other things, it means less energy is wasted on web pages you're not looking at.

Microsoft's Brandon Heenan, meanwhile, responded on the Windows Blog, claiming that the Edge browser used up to 31% less power than Chrome, and up to 44% less than Firefox. Microsoft also claims that using HTML5 in preference to Flash has a positive effect on consumption.

Taking an application's power requirements into account at the point of deployment can deliver deep savings when multiplied across the client systems in a small or medium-sized business (SMB). Limiting user accounts so that individual staff members can't deviate from officially sanctioned choices can lock these savings in for the future.

6. Invest in green technology

Aside from consuming less energy, another way to cut power bills is by reducing your reliance on the national grid by installing your own solar panels.

Needless to say, solar energy has its limits, especially in the UK. If you’re dealing with a cupboard full of dusty towers that look like they fell out of the 1980s then even the odd record heatwave is unlikely to provide enough energy to keep everything up and running.

A decent solar array, however, can generate a persistent feed of 2kW – enough to drive a good few NAS or gateway appliances. Or you can feed the energy you collect back into the grid to offset your bills.

This isn’t futurology. Solar panelling for industrial buildings and offices is a mature technology, and already underpins a number of major infrastructures that might otherwise be held back by power provision. Take Vodafone, for example: in the past, the company’s biggest business cost in the UK was the power required to run its 3G network. By sharp contrast, the 5G network is planned to power itself entirely by solar panels. There’s no reason why your business can’t enjoy similar benefits.

With additional reporting from Nik Rawlinson

Companies across Europe are now adopting cloud-native technologies faster than companies in the US, but with specific demands in mind, according to a new study.

Data suggests that Kubernetes and container use is now more common within Europe, as organisations look to firm up cloud-native technologies, with recent findings showing that 75% of back-end developers in Western Europe used containers in 2021, up 13% on the previous year and ahead of the US figure of 60%.

In contrast, demand for serverless architecture has plateaued, as firms seek to address specific market demands, while avoiding potential technical debt or vendor lock-in. Indeed, as cloud-native tools are more widely adopted, container migration services are becoming more widespread across the region, to assist enterprises in strategically scaling cloud-native technologies.

The figures were revealed as part of the 2022 ISG Provider Lens™ Cloud Native Services and Solutions report, published by tech advisory firm Information Services Group (ISG) on Friday.

As the market for cloud-native technologies matures, European businesses are increasingly seeking multi-cloud tools and mixed premises storage to address problems such as data sovereignty, with providers now moving to back up clients in meeting individual regulatory requirements.

Greater observability was identified as both a common goal among European businesses, and one that is increasingly complex. Cloud strategies increasingly extend to include DataOps, FinOps and SecOps, and maintaining full-stack observability is a key concern for decision-makers. A recent Dynatrace study revealed that 71% of CIOs worry their cloud complexity exceeds human ability, with 97% identifying various implementation barriers as preventing full-stack observability from being achieved.

As an extension of this demand for observability, firms are also seeking cloud-native tools with which they can measure their carbon impact. The concept of tracking carbon emissions to achieve software sustainability is growing in popularity among firms, and offers such as Google Cloud’s sustainability expansions offer cloud partners new ways to measure their carbon footprint.

Businesses are also relying more than ever on open source solutions, acknowledging that even commercial platforms such as those offering cloud security will necessarily integrate with open source solutions such as Prometheus. At the same time, firms recognise the need for ‘best of breed’ open source solutions, and programs such as Google’s Assured Open Source Software service to ensure that implementation does not compromise security.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) states that the most popular certified Kubernetes platforms within Europe were Amazon EKS, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

“As enterprises pursue cloud-native strategies, many are tapping into the strengths of different public clouds, along with on-premises and edge environments,” said Bernie Hoecker, partner, enterprise cloud transformation, with ISG.

“This may make their architectures even more complex, but it helps them avoid technical debt or lock-in.”

The report also assessed the capabilities of 65 providers across five quadrants: managed container services, container platform solutions, hyperscaler cloud-native platforms, cloud-native observability solutions, and cloud-native security platforms. VMWare was named a leader in three of these quadrants, while Azure, AWS, and Google were all named leaders in hyperscaler cloud-native platforms, indicative of the rival firms’ strong competition at the top of the market.

A new research study conducted by channel analyst Canalys and digital automation and energy management firm Schneider Electric has found that sustainability is currently the top focus for partners.

The study surveyed 120 EMEA partners to explore the maturity of IT channel sustainability initiatives, as well as the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) on customer purchasing decisions.

It found that most channel businesses in the region are already investing in their sustainability strategies, with 75% of partners having dedicated ESG resources – although many businesses do struggle to translate this into action.

Customers are also increasing the focus on ESG, with 69% of partners revealing that customer’s environmental considerations are driving their IT investment decisions. Additionally, 65% of partners now offer take back and recycling services.

However, regulations are proving to be a challenge for businesses – particularly smaller partners – due to the complexity of ESG strategies, as well as the need for differing local regulatory initiatives.

“Our report shows that partners are investing in their sustainability strategies,” said Rachel Brindley, senior director of Channels at Canalys. “They are committed to reducing their own and their customers environmental impact.

“Partners are looking to their vendors to support them in addressing these challenges and they are keen to demonstrate they are making significant progress towards carbon reduction.”

To help enhance sustainability performance, the report concludes that partners should invest in headcount to drive strategy, develop sustainability objectives, and calculate carbon footprint to plan for carbon neutrality.

Businesses should also build their own assessment services to support customers, as well as influence vendors to help drive greater ESG adoption, it says.

At Schneider Electric itself, the company continues to accelerate its ESG plans. The firm says it is committed to creating a “sustainable, impactful, and profitable” business to help both customers and partners reach net zero via three key areas.

The first – dubbed ‘Strategize’ – centres on taking strategic and proactive action to help businesses define their sustainability priorities and build them into a meaningful plan using energy assessments, tools, and consultancy services.

The second, ‘Digitize’, leverages Schneider’s EcoStruxure software to help enable transparent energy reporting, predictive analytics for optimising efficiency, as well as operational cost savings.

Thirdly, the vendor’s ‘Decarbonize’ category consists of four key pillars, based on: electrifying operations, reducing energy use and waste, replacing fossil fuel energy sources, and engaging the value chain through supply chain decarbonisation programs.

David Terry, VP of IT Channels at Schneider Electric, Europe, said now is the time for partners to “double down on their sustainability efforts” to help reduce carbon emissions and waste.

“Energy optimisation, energy efficiency and managed power services all present key opportunities for partners to differentiate and drive market share, and as one of the world’s most sustainable organisations, Schneider Electric is perfectly placed to support its partners at any stage of their sustainability journey,” he said.

Across Iceland, visitors can witness its rich, rugged landscapes, gaze in awe at cascading waterfalls, and even climb its icy glacier if they’re brave enough. This small island nation boasts of red-hot magma, rolling seas, and a luminescent flickering sky.

All of this attracts tourism, but there’s plenty more boiling under Iceland’s fiery surface. The country boasts an important resource vastly untapped by nations around the world – renewable energy – and the island’s technology sector is making full use. These energy sources have boosted the industry, especially when it comes to challenges posed by running energy intensive hardware processes like data centres.

On a recent visit to the land of ice and fire, IT Pro took a deep dive into the data centre scene, exploring how the nation hopes to position itself as a global leader.

With great power comes greatly reduced latency

Iceland runs on nearly 100% renewable energy which is sourced from domestic means. In 2020, Orkustofnun, the national energy authority of Iceland, revealed that 68.79% of the country's energy generation came from hydropower, 31.16% geothermal, 0.03% wind, and fuel accounted for 0.02%. This made up over 19 million MWh of electricity production in total.

Landsvirkjun, the largest energy generator in Iceland, is wholly owned by the public and operates 18 power stations on the island. It’s also recognised that Iceland has the ideal conditions for companies to set up sustainable data centres, even publishing guidance on its website.

The organisation really wants to emphasise the data centre sector, says Conor Byrne, business development manager at Landsvirkjun. Byrne believes that Iceland can offer potential data centre businesses some important benefits.

The stunning Pond City district in the Icelandic capital Reykjavík

One of these benefits is the availability of renewable energy, as well as the potential of energy capacity to grow. Landsvirkjun is looking at options to potentially expand its grid by 2030, where it hopes to get an extra 93 MWh of hydropower, 90 MWh of geothermal, and 120 MWh of wind power.

Another benefit is Landsvirkjun is able to sign commercial agreements with companies where it can commit supply to them over a long time period, at fixed prices. Byrne contrasts it with the way energy prices are spiking in the UK, with the price cap seeming to be reset every few weeks, producing a lot of volatility. In Iceland, companies are able to negotiate long-term agreements with fixed prices up to 12 years. “Obviously, from a business risk point of view, that's quite important, as an operator to have visibility, about what power prices, electricity prices you need to monitor,” says Byrne.

Iceland is also a stable, business friendly environment for companies considering different locations for data centres. He adds education levels are quite high, with a lot of people entering the tech sector – which has grown rapidly in recent years.

Moreover, the nation is also boosting its connectivity thanks to a new submarine cable under construction. Iris, Iceland’s third submarine cable, is set to be open in early 2023, according to Þorvarður Sveinsson, CEO at Farice, the nation’s publicly owned subsea cable operator.

“The government decided to start this project which is connecting Iceland to Ireland,” says Sveinsson, with the cable connecting Thorlakshofn to Galway.

Farice provides 100G and 10G wavelength services, IP transit, and ethernet services to its customers. Currently, data centres take up two thirds of Farice’s sold capacity while telcos and ISPs make up the remaining third. The latency between Reykjavik to London or Amsterdam is 18ms. Once Iris is fully installed, the latency will drop to 15ms, and will be 10.5ms between the Icelandic capital and Dublin.

The new cable will provide added redundancy in connection to Iceland. Additionally, Ireland might even offload high performance computing applications to Iceland, suggests Sveinsson, due to Iceland’s green power and attractiveness as a data centre powerhouse.

Looking to the future, Sveinsson says there is interest in establishing a 14,000km submarine cable connecting Japan to Europe via Canada, known as the Far North Fibre Project. This would be the first Arctic route connecting Asia with Europe through the Northwest passage. It could also connect Iceland to Asia, thanks to the Galway cable, giving the nation a route into a huge market. However, the project is still in the financing stage and is fairly ambitious.

Ship photons, not electrons

Icelandic data centres can underline their green credentials by comparing themselves to other markets. For example, power usage effectiveness (PUE), has been a hot topic for a very long time, says Gisli Kr, chief commercial officer of AtNorth, which has two data centres in Iceland, with a third coming soon. PUE is how much energy you’ll need on top of your server to cool the data centre, he explains, adding it’s a measure that’s king for customers.

AtNorth's CEO Magnús Kristinsson (pictured)

Part of the problem is that current data centre hubs in Europe are currently unsustainable, and are contributing to an increased carbon footprint, he explains. He refers to the “FLAP-D market” – Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin – claiming its data centre industry’s carbon footprint averages 292.2 CO2 grams per kWh. In the UK, meanwhile, the annual carbon footprint is 421.6 tons of CO2, which “is unacceptable”.

By contrast, the FINDS market – made up of Finland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden – averages a carbon footprint of 68.6 CO2 grams per kWh, nearly 80% lower than the FLAP-D hubs. These nations primarily exploit renewable energy, leading to a lower carbon footprint. Since the region has a cooler climate, too, less power is needed for cooling, which brings down PUE costs.

Kr adds, in some regions in Europe, there’s not enough power production, which has forced them to turn to external energy sources. One of these is the 1,400 MW NorthConnect underwater power cable between Scotland and Norway, which aims to connect their electricity grids. Kr says there’s an 8% loss of energy on the cable – around 112 MW of power. He outlines if it was a data cable, and there was an 8% loss of data, it would be unacceptable. Instead, he suggests moving the workloads from FLAP-D to the Nordics, and ship photons instead of electrons, so the data is closer to the energy sources.

Connecting two continents

Iceland’s optimal environment for data centres could transform the nation into a global hub in future, says Helgi Helgasson, managing director at Verne Global, although connectivity is the major pain point.

Verne is an Icelandic data centre company that opened its doors in 2012, and was the first big tenant of a former US NATO base, where its data centre in Reykjanesbaer was built. In September 2021, the firm was acquired by UK company Digital 9 Infrastructure.

Verne chose the location for its data centre in Reykjanesbaer as this area is geologically stable, enjoys a good climate for data centres, and has easy access to power. “We’re close to the airport,” Helgasson adds, “so that makes it easier for our customers to come visit us.”

Verne chose Reykjanesbaer due to its geographic stability and good climate for data centres

Despite enjoying accessible power, Helgasson’s challenges are those facing the wider industry, namely finding raw materials and equipment, and securing deliveries, which add to how much time it takes to build a data centre. He believes Iceland can serve as a hub for both the US and Europe, because it’s based between the two continents.

Despite Helgasson’s buoyancy, others disagree. Iceland’s data industry won’t necessarily be extremely big, according to Halldór Már Sæmundsson, chief commercial officer at Borealis Data Center. It will, nonetheless, be a pillar of the industry, and has great facilities and environment for certain kinds of workloads. This includes day-to-day high density workloads that don't require super low latencies. “I believe we will see the sector grow, but I don’t think it’s going to be sufficient to be really, really, huge,” says Sæmundsson.

The greenest data centres in the world

Borealis acquired a data centre in Reykjavik from Icelandic bank Íslandsbanki in mid-September, bringing its total number of data centres in Iceland to three. It seeks to operate efficient, low PUE, data centres using renewable energy, and focuses on the sustainable side for clients who want to reduce their carbon footprint.

It serves all kinds of customers, although tends to focus more on high performance computing (HPC), since the natural environment is perfect for that. “We also have regular colocation customers with their backup needs, disaster recovery, and we host some of the financial institutions locally as well as international customers,” explains Sæmundsson.

Most of Borealis’ customers are from overseas, especially the high density workloads and HPC workloads. The company has customers in Asia, Canada, and mainland Europe, for example. Borealis has also been building out its presence in Iceland exclusively. Its second data centre is located in the north of the country, near to a power station called Blanda hydropower station. Additionally, in this region, there’s no volcanic activity, no earthquakes, and the air is “absolutely perfect”, says Sæmundsson. He adds it’s one of the most secure locations in the country, too.

The data centre in the north has a different risk profile for its location. Different customer needs are being served through the additional site. It’s great for customers looking for high availability and security, he says, since its sites are spread over different parts of the country. Icelandic data centres, Sæmundsson stresses, are some of the greenest in the world.

“I think no other country can say that they have 100% renewable energy on the grid, and it's a closed-off grid; it's not connected to mainland Europe or other grids,” he points out, also highlighting the overall energy mix. The question over surging energy prices rears its head again, with Icelandic consumers and businesses benefitting from more predictability.

Iceland has a growing data centre industry that’s showing real green shoots. Many of the major players are hoping to attract more business from Europe, especially as energy prices on the continent rise, in contrast with Iceland’s cheap, stable and green energy provision. In the next few years, as data centre budgets struggle to stretch as far as they did before, the nation could be a tempting solution for many energy intensive processes like HPC computing. Plus, with the new submarine cable coming into play, Iceland might also prove itself a safe and secure location for companies to store their data.

New research from Gartner has revealed the top strategic technology trends for 2023, with sustainability a transcendent consideration for organisations as they look to the new year.

Announcing its findings at its IT Symposium/Xpo event, Gartner said businesses must review their current strategies and ensure they’re aligned with the key themes that have stemmed for both the pandemic and 2022, while continuing to accelerate digital transformation plans.

“To enhance their organisation’s financial position during times of economic turbulence, CIOs and IT executives must look beyond cost savings to new forms of operational excellence while continuing to accelerate digital transformation,” explained Frances Karamouzis, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner.

The research firm’s list of key trends for 2023 are built around three themes – ‘optimise’, ‘scale’, and ‘pioneer’.

'Pioneer'

The ‘pioneer’ category, which outlines new forms of engagement and opportunity, includes metaverse virtual 3D digital reality spaces. Gartner predicts these will be device dependent, won’t be owned by a single vendor, and will powered by digital currencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

In fact, by 2027, the research firm expects 40% of large organisations around the world will use a combination of Web3, AR cloud, and digital twins in metaverse-based projects aimed at increasing revenue.

The other pioneer focuses are superapps – designed to combine features of an app, a platform, and an ecosystem into one application – and adaptive AI systems that continuously retrain models and learn based on new data.

'Optimise'

The ‘optimise’ category names the three top technology focuses that help optimise organisational resilience, operations, and trust.

These were found to be digital immune systems for mitigating risk, applied observability for exploiting data artifacts in decision making, as well as AI, risk, and security management.

'Scale'

The top three focuses for ‘scale’ were named as industry cloud platforms, platform engineering, and wireless connectivity value realisation.

Across all three categories, however, sustainability is a key driver. In a recent Gartner survey, CEOs reported that environmental and social changes are now a top three priority for investors, behind only profit and revenue.

“In 2023, delivering technology will not be enough,” said David Groombridge, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “These themes are impacted by environmental, social and governance (ESG) expectations and regulations, which translate into the shared responsibility to apply sustainable technologies.

“Every technology investment will need to be set off against its impact on the environment, keeping future generations in mind. ‘Sustainable by default’ as an objective requires sustainable technology.”

Sustainability is a business opportunity

Charles Cao, head of operations and strategy at SaaS provider Conga, agrees with Gartner’s findings, suggesting stakeholders are now seeing the business opportunity in sustainability.

“Clearly this is indication that business leaders are feeling the pressure from key stakeholders to do more for their environment, but more importantly, that they are now beginning to see these initiatives as opportunities to drive business efficiency and revenue growth,” he said.

“As Gartner’s report suggested, sustainability is not only a business prerogative, but it also goes hand-in-hand with business success – it can provide leaders with the opportunity to optimise and scale their operations and explore new ways of working and doing business.

Cao added that digital transformation and sustainability are fundamentally linked, and they should be treated as one and the same.

“As executives continue to invest more in innovative solutions, they need to match technology with clear business objectives and sustainability goals,” he continued.

“To do this, organisations need to establish a sustainable technology framework, one that outlines key areas of improvement in how they deliver their services, any unnecessary processes, and ensures that they are maximising their own energy and material efficiency.”

“Ideally, leaders should approach their sustainability programmes by trying to simplify or streamline one critical business process at a time, rather than adopting fully transformational technology without identifying how it benefits the operational cycle.”

As businesses set their sights on 2023, Cao reiterated Gartner’s point that simply delivering new technology will not be enough – leaders must look beyond cost savings.

“Looking towards 2023, every investment in technology will need to be set against its impact on the environment, or at least proven to deliver more sustainable business practices, but leaders need to embrace sustainability with an open mind,” he said.

This automatically-generated transcript is taken from the IT Pro Podcast episode ‘Achieving software sustainability'. We apologise for any errors.

Rory Bathgate

Hi, I’m Rory Bathgate. And you’re listening to the IT Pro Podcast, where this week we’re asking if you can go green, while staying in the green.

The climate crisis is an issue that we must all confront, and businesses in particular face calls to cut back on emissions to meet net zero targets. In recent years, increasing focus has been placed on the climate impact of tech firms, and data centres in particular.

According to Bloomberg, by 2030 big energy systems could account for 20% of worldwide energy drain, which if not produced by renewable energy would represent a stark increase in carbon emissions. Despite this, many firms still weigh the cost of going green against expansion plans, and greater processing power often comes with a hefty energy cost.

To explore these challenges, I spoke with Behrad Babaee, Technology Evangelist at Aerospike, and the author of a white paper that proposes a framework for measuring the CO2 impact of software platforms. We discussed whether increased sustainability can also lead to increased affordability and even processing power.

Please note that as this interview was recorded at Big Data London, the acoustic quality is a little different to normal episodes, but we hope that the conversation itself will prove more than interesting enough nonetheless.

Rory

So something that struck me straight away at your talk was that some firms, they still see sustainability as a choice between sustainability and affordability. What would you say to those firms?

Behrad Babaee

So basically, what I found in this research was that actually the in, in software in terms of computing industry, it's the opposite. If you, if you think about it, and you want to create a software that is more efficient, you have to make the application run on fewer instructions, you want to reduce the number of instructions. So when you reduce the number of instructions, your task will complete faster, yeah, you're gonna have more space available on your CPU as you do more things. So you can do more. Therefore, you're going to reduce the number of reduce the amount of resources that you require. So when you reduce the amount of resources you have, your costs will be lower, your efficiency, your amount of emissions will be lowered as well, because a lot of the emissions are based on the amount of resources that you use and energy those resources are using. So basically, I think software and IT industry is one of the only industries that can actually reduce the cost by making the applications more sustainable. So I think that that's that's that's a unique opportunity for the IT industry to reduce their emissions.

Rory

Kind of an unprecedented win-win scenario, for IT professionals. I think something that struck me in the white paper was, you argue that efficient was always mean, as you're saying speed and cost of higher and more intensive resources are used. So could you expand upon that with with an example?

Behrad

So let's, let's talk about an example. Let's imagine that you have a task that takes I don't know, 10% of the instruction sets 10% of the instruction that your CPU uses in a second. I don't know how many megahertz or gigahertz your CPU has. But imagine that I'm using 10% of those instructions to handle that. If I can reduce that 10% to 5%. All right, I suddenly can do twice more on the same CPU. So that's the example of this that you can increase the speed, you can reduce the amount of resources that you need. And also because we are reducing the amount of resources, we are reducing the cost, and we are reducing the emissions as well. So I guess that's, that's an example.

Rory

Right, so something that companies should be striving for. And it's also something that companies, that you're saying, is eminently achievable by companies. Is this something that you see, is better suited to be built from the ground up? So let's put it another way to sort of start from scratch with systems or is this applicable to existing systems that could quite easily be transformed?

Behrad

I think in general, in IT industry, building something from ground up is less common than you know, fixing something. Yeah. So I think I think you have to be realistic. You have to look at it from both ways. So one side is that okay, I want to build it a new application, right? And then I can look into the different technologies that are available in the markets. And then you can study the amount of emissions that they might produce and make a decision based on that, to, to pick a technology that is better for the environment. But other than that, if you already have an application that is using something, I think that everybody's always trying to improve their application. So you can always look into that to improve that application. And, you know, basically make things work better. So I think that it's not either, you know, either this or that, you can always have both.

Rory

That's true, I suppose you're hard pressed to find any system in it, that isn't in some way, sort of stacked upon 40 years of pre existing systems. And exactly, so this is something that can be continually improved. I know that in the white paper, you you push forward a framework for identifying areas that are causing the most common impact, and then to allow companies to take that data and then apply it into making their system more efficient. Could you just describe that in detail?

Behrad

So the idea came to me from this, that I learned that the IT industry is actually using a lot of energy. At the moment, apparently, we are using something between 5 to 9% of the energy in the world, in 2030 is going to expand to to around 20%.

Rory

That's a shocking statistic.

Behrad

You know that, you know, energy is one of the most polluting businesses in the world. So therefore, IT industry is one of the polluting industries of the world. So I was like, Okay, if you're like that, is there any way to measure the amount of emissions that we are producing? Right, you know, to be able to review something, you first need to be able to measure it. And I looked around, and I couldn't find anything that gives you any indication about how much emissions a software produces. And then I had this idea that I might be able to expand this argument about efficient softwares to, to amount of emissions that they produce as well. And then, to be honest, the paper, you know, explain everything as much detail. But if you just want to look at look at it from you know, 30,000 feet view, it's it's rather simple. I'm saying that for a software, you look at this, that's how much resources you need to handle a specific workflow. And it can be anything, you know, well, Aerospike is a database company. So I did it with size up data. But if you imagine, you want to do that, for a technology that is analytics, you can say that, I don't know, I want to be able to analyse, I don't know 50 million users. That's whatever the workload that you have. So you can define your workload. And then based on that workload, you can say that I need this much resources. And then from there, it's going to be very easy. Yeah, there are some public data sources that are telling you that for this specific type of resource there, there are this much emissions produced while it was manufactured. And when you run it in, let's say, Ireland or that country, it's going to produce that much emissions, because it's using the power and energy that the country generates with that much efficiency in that country. So then you put them together. So you end up with this number. And I was thinking that if you have efficient, efficient softwares, you can improve this number. Basically, this paper shows that, you know, two nominally similar technologies can produce 5x different amounts of CO2, one of them produces 110 tonnes per petabyte, the other one produces 670 tonnes, right? It's a significant number, right?

Rory

So it's not inherent in the system itself. It's to do with the different practices thar the companies are deploying.

Behrad

Exactly. You don't you don't necessarily see that. But when you do the calculation, you see that oh, actually it's significantly more. And then yeah, if you're conscious of that, if you think that, you know, you need to reduce the CO2 emissions, then yeah, that's the way that you can focus on and one more thing is that that I think, in the years to come, more companies are going to look into that. Because right now, all of the three cloud providers, the most important cloud providers, tell you about the amount of emissions that your account produced during last quarter, right? They don't allow you to estimate that But you can see what's happened in the past three months. And I think that it's going to be the precursor for this, that they're going to charge back the companies who are using their infrastructures on the CO2 emissions, because very likely AWS and Microsoft and Google, you know, Net Zero targets as well. And if people start to use their resources, how can they offset that, I think the way that they will offset that is by charging back that number to the user. And then then it's going to be the responsibility of user to reduce that admission. So you

Rory

I think that maybe with a combination of I know in the paper, you suggest that they should be giving users insight into a prediction of how much carbon impact will be —

Behrad

Absolutely.

Rory

— and also, this charge that you're talking about? Users will have to foot the bill for if you like, pushing Amazon Web Services, or Azure, or whoever it is off their net zero target. So with a combination of those two things, do you think we can see an effective shift towards more efficient systems?

Behrad

Absolutely.

Behrad

Fantastic. So off the back of that call for more prediction, or for prediction available from cloud providers, I noticed that you're calling also for a universe of CO2 emissions metric, because my understanding is that currently, different providers provide CO2 emissions in different metrics is very difficult to compare across providers.

Behrad

Yeah, that's correct. So when you measure the amount of co2, you know, there are CO2 zones in Zone 1, Zone 2 and zone three? Is it? Is it directly created by you? Is it indirectly created by you, or it's two levels away from you. So each of these cloud providers are giving you different numbers, and these numbers are not necessarily comparable. So that's one of the problems. But the reason that I was talking about, you know, a metric was that, this analysis that I did was just between two different technologies. There are not only two technologies in the market, and you know, in the database market, there are at least 50 famous databases. I think, very similar to the way that we say that, yeah, this database can do, I don't know, 50,000 transactions per second on a node, or this database can handle that much data, we should have a metric that says that, yeah, this database can do, I don't know that and produce that much emissions. So people can really compare that and it's not really databases only, right. You can do that with analytics engine as well, you can say that more, I don't know that. That's amount of workload, this technology produces that much emissions that technology produces those emissions. And then, based on what are you doing, you can you can look into that and then make decisions. Luckily, I believe that efficient, software's always going to use less resources, and always going to produce fewer emissions. So think that is going to be always the case, so somehow you can guess that from the resources that you have. But I still believe that, you know, if you want to, for example, use as a service system. Right. You don't necessarily know what resources that you you're going to use. Right? So if you have something to tell you that yeah, this service that we're using producing this much emissions based on this thing that you do, I think that that's going to be relevant.

Rory

And ever more relevant as digital transformation is, you know, accelerated by the pandemic. But I guess in essence, what you're saying is that companies are at the moment sort of handing away their, there's a screen behind which they're not really aware of what they say their carbon impact is. So this information should be more transparent, across the board.

Behrad

I agree.

Rory

More specifically to Aerospike. Can you talk a bit about I know this is a broad, we've talked about a broad range of processes or frameworks, decision making, can you talk broadly about how this how these ideas are being applied within the company?

Behrad

So efficiency is core to what Aerospike does, right? So the the database from the day one was created for people who needed really, really fast access to data, so they had to make it really, really efficient. So they got all of the fat from the system and made it really really fast. So we do have clients that are doing thirty million transactions per second, with latency of less than a millisecond, right, these these numbers are just, you know, whenever when I was joining Aerospike I heard these numbers that they're lying. You know, it is like, you know, I worked in the database market for many, many years, and these numbers just didn't make any sense. Yeah. And they were doing that, while they were reducing the number of servers, just like it doesn't, it's not possible. So. So yeah, you know, the database is written to be super, super efficient. And then, as I discussed, you know, efficiency and speed, always bring you, you know, you were, you're going to need fewer resources, and you're going to generate less emissions. So I think that I don't think that when the company has started to build a application, that we're focused on this, this is something that we started to figure out, when more things started to come out, you know, the company in 2010, I don't think that many companies in 2010, 2011 were ticking about reducing their CO2. This is something that we recently understood that we need to we need to care about. Now we are looking at the market. And now we are comparing ourselves against the competitors. And we see, oh, we can we can help people other than, you know, just reducing their latency and help them to store a lot of data, we can help them to reduce their CO2 emissions as well.

Rory

A kind of handy marriage between short-term savings and also the understanding that with the climate crisis, you know, down the line, any changes made now are long term savings in the billions and trillions.

Behrad

Exactly.

Behrad

So I think there's one question that many people asked me, and I think that that would be, that might be interesting to some other people as well. So as we are moving towards more sustainable sources of energy. So is it going to have an impact on this argument that I'm making that you know, moving towards more efficient software is going to reduce emissions? Because some people think that okay, in 2030, we are using 20%. But all of this 20% is coming from sustainable sources? Is it going to be still relevant? My answer to that question would be this that no source of energy is emission free, every single source of energy has some kind of emission, some of them are more, some of them are less, and that you're not reducing the amount of energy that you're using either. So 20% of the energy in seven years, is possibly more than 50% of the energy that we're using today. So using all of the levers that we have to reduce the emissions is just the right thing to do. And then there's also another point and it's that, you know, expecting someone else to reduce their emissions and not doing it yourself is kind of hypocritical. If you if you think we need to do that. Right. And I'm not I'm not in a position to say that you should write I'm a software engineer. I only know about software, right? I'm not saying that you should write. But if you think you should, you should act, right. You can't you cannot say that, "Oh yeah, the sources of energy are going to clean up so I don't need to act." Because what if I did if they didn't?

Rory

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And potentially a perilous situation for any company that designed that it doesn't want to be at the kind of the forefront of this movement, a risk in itself to not act.

Behrad

Yeah. And, I don't know if this bit is going to be interesting at all, but I'll have another talk tomorrow that I'm discussing, and at how Aerospike is five times faster. You know, you know, because you cannot do it with sorcery, right. So somehow you should be able to do that. And then most people know that, you know, the data structures and algorithms that applications use, many were invented in the 70s and 80s. So yeah, how come there's a new technology in the market that is working often faster than the other technologies in the market? And, you know, I had that question when I was joining Aerospike as well. I didn't know that. How on earth is that possible? And that's a very interesting topic as well. The reason for that the reason that I figure now is that the number of transistors that you get, on, although the number of transistors that you get on a chip is not doubling every two years anymore. You know, if you look at, you know, the most advanced CPU that you can get right now it has around 8 billion transistors, and most advanced CPU that you could get 16 years ago, had like 580 million transistors. So the number of transistors is only 14 times more. Which it should have been 256 times more, because it's 16 years,

Rory

Right, and we're rubbing against the laws of physics there.

Behrad

So so so that's true about a single chip. Yeah. But if you look at the computers, yeah, the number of transistors has not only doubled every two years, I guess it's 10 times more every single year. Because now, you know, when you're comparing the computers today, with the computers of let's say, 16 years ago, you have significantly more than 256 times more RAM on a single machine. A top of the market machine in 2006, would only handle 64 gigabytes of RAM. Today, you can have 24 terabytes of RAM on a on a single machine. Right? It's 384 times more RAM, it's more than 256. And with this is even more interesting, because back in 2006, we hardly had any transistors, right, we were using spinning disks. Now, we are using these SSDs that are just transistors, and for a single terabyte of data, we have trillions of transistors. So basically, the number of transistors that you have in your CPUs is in billions, doesn't even matter. Right, because the number of transistors that you have in your disk is in the order of trillions. So significant changes in the hardware in the past 16 years caused a lot of changes in the way that we write programmes. But we still have a lot of programmes that were written for that kind of hardware that was good for 2006. And you can still run them on the modern hardware that we have today. But they do a lot of clever things to combat the scarcity of resources that they were facing in 2006, which you don't need to do today. And if you don't do them today, it lets your application fly and allow it to work five times faster, although you're using almost the same algorithms and almost the same data structures. And it's not unique to Aerospike. There are lots of other modern technologies that are coming into the market that are significantly better than the applications that were created 15 years ago.

Rory

I think this is kind of a worthwhile topic to link in as you're talking about efficiency. I know that you made a reference at the start of the podcast to that increase.

Behrad

Yeah, so the reason that we can do that is basically that. And it's not only limited to Aerospike, there are other technologies that are doing that as well. And I think that decisions make a decision makers have to notice that, you know, if you work with the technology for the past 10 years, and you call it the modern technology, yes, it is modern technology, it is not you're not using a technology that was developed in the 80s. You're using a technology that was developed in the past 15 years. But you have to notice that there has been a massive change in the type of the hardware that we are using today. And 16 years ago, so it was noticing what is going on with the newer technologies that are coming to the market, because there's a chasm between the number of transistors that we had in 2006 and 2022, and it's not stopping. It's still growing. And you're missing a lot, if you're still, you know, using those software that were written for scarcity instead of abundance.

Rory

And enterprises have to get their eye off the supposed bottleneck with the processors, almost an obsession with somehow defeating that hardware challenge? And as you were talking about adapting algorithms, adapting programmes to more efficiently use the hardware that we do have, and actually is an order of magnitude better than what we had.

Behrad

Yeah. Another example of that is the ratio of RAM to disk. A server in in 2006, is 1:200, 1:300. For each megabyte of RAM, you have around 200-300 megabytes of disk. On a server today, you can increase that to 1:10. For each megabyte of RAM, you can have 10 megabytes of disk. So RAM is not, and RAM is relatively cheap. So RAM is not that scarce resource that you had to use very, very carefully. You can use it freely. And you don't need to constantly move things between disk and RAM to do let your application or to let your application use the RAM. You can keep everything in RAM. But but that's a different mentality. Right. And that's a different mentality, which interestingly, we are doing with microservices, because with micro services, you're dedicating resources to one or two threads, which just owns one or two cores of our CPU. And because it's dedicated, we can, we can increase the speed of our applications. So we basically, took concurrency outside of the process. And we made the processes basically parallel instead of putting multi threading inside.

Rory

And needlessly trying to use multi threading is a silver bullet when yeah, there's a whole separate process that actually improves efficiency, and to tie it back into the sort of title, title of discussion it's in these exact areas that businesses should be looking into to, to increase their their reduce the overhead costs and increase their sustainability and efficiencies?

Behrad

Exactly. So what I was saying was that there are lots of new applications, new technologies that are coming into the market that are significantly faster than the older technology. And by older, I mean, 10 years ago technology. I'm not talking about, you know, Oracle 2000, Oracle 1984, right, I'm talking about something that is relatively recent. They are new technologies that are coming in, they are faster because they're faster, they're using fewer resources and because of fewer resources, they are generating less emissions.

Rory

You can find links to all of the topics we've spoken about today in the shownotes, and even more on our website at it pro.co.uk. You can also follow us on social media, as well as subscribe to our daily newsletter. Don't forget to subscribe to the IT Pro podcast wherever you find podcasts. And hey, if you're enjoying the show, leave us a rating and a review. We'll be back next week with more insights from the world of it but until then, goodbye