The cleanest data centers are the ones that aren’t built at all

- Susanna Kass, Data Center Advisor to UN Sustainable Development UNEP DTU Partnership, Member of Climate 50

Published on Cloud Expo Europe 16 June 2020

If we want to keep society running, we must deliberately depart from linear practices and embrace end to end sustainability throughout the lifecycle of data centres. 

Consumption of environmental resources that are critical to data centers are becoming increasingly scarce as the demand for data centers, and their 24x7x365 resilient operation, continues to grow.

Digital transformation is a necessity to keep society running, especially in times of disaster such as the mass shutdowns to reduce transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the disease affected more people in the months following its initial discovery, a massive surge in the global usage of digital infrastructure was observed.

Digital services for virtual meetings, online learning, telemedical diagnostics, government services, ecommerce, grocery delivery, ebanking, and entertainment all experienced unprecedented growth in demand.

Depletion will eventually stop all growth

If the data center industry is to continue its path of innovation and provide critical infrastructure to connect the world, it must look to circular economics for its future, particularly to address rapid resource depletion…………..[To read more, please click here to see this article on Cloud Expo Europe]