I proudly uphold the three Rs every day (reduce, re-use, recycle) and also ride my bike or publich transport when I have the chance - but reducing carbon emissions and going green isn't just about cutting down on gas-guzzling devices or vehicles.
There needs to be major reform (more than what is happening already) to the tech and telecom sectors in order to make sure that electricity comes from renewable sources! Nevertheless, there are some victories to celebrate - I've outlined them here.
Responding to public pressure to clean up their acts, technology industry leaders such as Facebook, Apple and Google have committed to sweeping renewable electricity programs that promise to change the data landscape for the better. These reforms put them at the cutting-edge of green technology today; but these steps, while positive, only highlight the need for further widespread reform.
"We know at Apple that climate change is real,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook at a recent conference in San Francisco. "The time for action is now." Cook followed this statement with the announcement that Apple will spend $850 million to supply the company’s data centers as well as stores, offices and headquarters in California with solar power from First Solar, the largest solar farm developer in the US. This makes them one of the first major US companies to get their power from a 100% renewable source; music to the ears of people at Greenpeace.
But as a comprehensive report from Greenpeace published last spring points out, not every IT company in the US or Europe is embracing green operating practices when it comes to their data centers; Amazon topped the list of worst offenders just last spring:
Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides the infrastructure for a significant part of the internet, remains among the dirtiest and least transparent companies in the sector, far behind its major competitors, with zero reporting of its energy or environmental footprint to any external third party or even stakeholders.
Almost a year later, the picture has improved, albeit only slightly. AWS has agreed to a 150-megawatt wind power deal in Indiana to supplement its massive electrical needs. That’s only a chip off the block for a company of its size, making it easy to be cynical about the decision; but it is nevertheless still cause to remain hopeful. Overall, the International Energy Agency predicts that renewable energy use will have exceeded that of natural gas worldwide in 2016, its usage increasing by almost 50% between 2013 and 2018.
Green data campaigners are pushing for AWS, Twitter and other major IT companies to follow in their greener competitor’s footsteps and switch to 100% renewable electricity. Environmental responsibility is already part of many corporate branding schemes, dramatically improving public trust and opinion. Moreover, thanks to the competitive cost of wind, solar, hydro and geothermal energy versus fossil fuels, environmental consultants can now point to renewable energy as a smart business investment rather than a moral choice, as they did in the past.
Turning to sustainable energy to keep data centers running is financially advantageous for businesses as well as being attractive to consumers. These facts make it likely that even the worst users and providers of ‘dirty’ data will eventually change their practices—or so organizations like Greenpeace hope.
Smaller companies don’t feel pressure to use renewable electricity
The big players such as Google, Facebook, Amazon or Apple tend to steal the headlines away from smaller IT companies, since environmental advocates can harness the media spotlight on these giants to effect changes in environmental policy. The belief is that trenchantly ‘dirty’ internet companies such as Amazon or Twitter will eventually have to rethink their energy usage to remain competitive. However, these major cloud companies actually make up less than 5% of the data sector’s overall energy use according to a Datacenter Dynamics article reports:
The biggest power users are the small-to-medium sized data organizations’ data centers, which burn about half the power used by US data centers […].The next biggest section is the enterprise data centers, with about a quarter of the total, and next down is the colocation sector, which consumes about one fifth of the total. The only sector smaller than the cloud players is the supercomputer sector or high-performance computing (HPC), where a tiny number of organizations run very power hungry systems.
As this article shows, the combined carbon footprint of smaller IT companies is larger than the major cloud companies currently in operation; this may change as Google, Amazon and co. gain ground in the still developing data-cloud sector. But as it stands today, smaller to medium-sized companies - spared the media attention of their more powerful siblings - are to blame for the lion’s share of the industry’s carbon emissions.
One recent industry survey conducted by US-based Green House Data found only tepid interest from IT companies in the environmental practices of their data centers. The problem is that responsibility gets muddled the further from the power source you go. A fairly common bottom-line scenario shows why: an IT company that rents data storage space from a colocation center may never see an electricity bill; subsequently, that company views renewable energy as a low priority.
Consumers are choosing a sustainable Internet
Getting the entire data sector to shift its energy reliance away from fossil fuels will ultimately rest with consumer habits and preferences. As the internet becomes more prevalent in our daily lives for entertainment, work and communication, so too does it attract more of our buying dollars. Making informed choices about which services we use online is a good way to send a clear message to the industry.
Luckily, environmental awareness is a global trend that marries desire with obligation. An international survey conducted in 2013 identified at least 2.5 billion ‘aspirational consumers’ who were defined by their love of shopping (78%), desire for responsible consumption (92%) and their trust in brands to act in the best interest of society (58%) (BBMG, GlobeScan and SustainAbility, October 2013). These figures are drawing the attention of entrepreneurs who want to make their companies competitive; one sure way to do that is to listen to public opinion.
One way internet users can make an impact on the data sector is to use services from responsible companies. This might require some additional research to find out which data center an IT company relies on and how it is powered. Some companies, like web host 1&1, don’t openly advertise to consumers that they’re hooked up to sustainable energy sources; the top 10 companies on 100% renewable energy might even come as a surprise.
It’s important to reward these companies for taking the right steps to fight climate change rather than their irresponsible competitors. In our hyper-corporatized world, choosing to spend or not spend our money somewhere is tantamount to casting a political vote. Let’s hope everyone in the data sector gets the eco-message soon, so others can start listening too.