HOW SUSTAINABLE IS YOUR DATA CENTER?
Are you on track for the EU 2030 sustainability targets?
Data centers today: an unbalanced ecosystem
Data centers are complex ecosystems that involve a lot of subsystems (power, cooling, emergency generators, fire suppression, security etc..). Historically the Nr 1 design criterium for a data center was availability and reliability which inevitably introduced the risk of over-engineering and adding extra layers of redundancy, cost and complexity. Sustainability was rather “nice to have” than a table stakes requirement as it is today. The result is an unbalanced ecosystem with very high resource intensity (excessive use of land, power, water) and associated capex/opex costs.
This situation is already very apparent in certain area’s in Europe (Amsterdam, Ireland) where local governments are increasingly concerned about how the continued construction of new data centers are placing real pressure on local power infrastructure and causing land shortages.
Sustainable Cost of ownership
Therefore we can no longer measure data center TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) solely in terms of economic costs per megawatt installed for the design, construction, and operations of a data center. Rather, we must use a Sustainable Cost of Ownership model which incorporates environmental and social costs for a true end-to-end life cycle cost assessment and accountability.
This is exactly the goal of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which are a collection of 17 global goals designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”. 7 of these goals are applicable to the data center context. Building on this framework, the EU’s Green Deal and new digital policy has decided that data centers should become climate-neutral, highly energy-efficient and sustainable by 2030.
Solutions
A sustainable data center solution is thinking about the future and a sustainable cost of ownership by bringing balance to the natural resources used.
Customers are certainly welcoming this trend as a massive majority is willing to pay more for a service provider that is offering sustainable products & services!
Consider yourself invited to a new balance and join this journey to a more sustainable data center built environment
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