EDITOR ’ S QUESTION

Essentially , the report advocates an end to the siloed thinking Serverfarm sees as preventing real sustainability actions in IT and data centers and a shift , instead , to collaboration over decarbonizing digital infrastructure across the full IT and data center stack . The paper pitches sustainability gains at every layer of the stack as CIOs and CTOs gain an understanding of the energy and carbon emissions profile of their digital infrastructure and operations .

A combined top down and bottom up approach to measuring the sustainability impact of each layer of the stack , the paper says , start to deliver tangible results if , at each layer of the stack , consideration can be given to understanding power performance and the carbon footprint of the underlying infrastructure .

Gathering and understanding such data will , the paper says , inform strategy and save on resources in energy use , space and time .

Data centers are where the physical infrastructure of the Internet intersect with digital services driving economic efficiencies and acting as sustainability enablers .

Digitalization is a major driver of decarbonization . According to a 2022 Accenture survey : “ Delivering on the sustainability agenda will be impossible without technology . Every respondent in the survey of 560 companies with over US $ 1 billion in revenue said technology was either ‘ important ’ or ‘ very important ’ for achieving their sustainability targets .”

Within this , the paper says , roles of CIOs and senior data center managers in meeting corporate sustainability targets are undisputed .

But they cannot act by separately looking at half the picture . Greater collaboration based on shared data is vital . Where there is so much to evaluate , surely it is time to define the development of future data centers by the scope for ecological sustainability .

32 INTELLIGENTCIO NORTH AMERICA www . intelligentcio . com