Greening Data Centers: towards a sustainable digital transformation

Did you know that #datacenters use more #energy than entire countries and are responsible for about 1% of global #GHG emissions? Thus the #greening of #datacenters is critical to fight #climatechange ????.

Taking action, the Data Economy and GovStack Teams of the 德国国际合作机构 have launched jointly with the #WorldBank and #ITU the Green Data Center practioner's guide supported by the Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ) at the recent Africa Climate Summit ???https://lnkd.in/ge7mZa

Data and Data Centers are the backbone of the Digital Age

In today's digital age, data infrastructure, including data centers and cloud solutions, plays a pivotal role in supporting public management and efficient service delivery. However, these essential components of modern societies come with challenges. They are energy-intensive, consume valuable resources, and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. To ensure sustainable digital transformation, efforts are needed to green digital infrastructure, manage climate risks, and reduce environmental footprints.

Why have data centers become so important and are growing rapidly?

Demand for #digital services is growing rapidly. Since 2010, the number of internet users worldwide has more than doubled, while global internet traffic has expanded 20-fold. The data centres and data transmission networks that underpin #digitalisation have led to rising energy use.

What are the negative consequences of the data center the #environment and climate change?

Although data centers and cloud solutions are essential for storing and processing data, they are 1) highly energy intensive ?2) consume refrigerants 3) use large amounts of water for cooling 4) use large amounts of lands 4) produce a significant amount of e waste.

As such, they leave a large negative environmental footprint and contribute to global #greenhouse gas emissions

What is the digital sector doing to address this challenge?

The #digital sector is the largest purchaser of #renewable energy globally, with about 44% of all renewable energy produced being purchased by #tech companies.

Tech companies have improved the energy efficiency and improved the cooling systems for data centers. Therefore, the energy share used by data centers has hardly changed since 2010.

The negative environmental and climate impacts remain however a huge challenge which require urgent action.

What can be done to minimize or avoid these negative environmental effects?

Greening data centers supports climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, contributing to #decarbonization of a country’s #economy and helping meet wider #sustainability goals.

How can the Green Data Center Guide help?

The guide presents a wide range of solutions to help?practitioners develop environmentally sustainable data centers, covering the following six critical dimensions:

1. sustainable design and buildings;
2. sustainable ICT;
3. sustainable energy;
4. sustainable cooling;?
5. climate-resilient data centers,
6. e-waste management, and
7. greening the enabling environment

This guide targets a wide range of practitioners, from policymakers to data center technicians, offering principles applicable to anyone involved in policymaking, regulation, development, operation, or procurement of data center infrastructure. The guide stresses the importance of contextualized strategies that address local conditions and focus on challenges faced by low-and-middle-income countries.

It aims to promote #investment in the greening of ?data centers and increase resilience and efficiency of existing data infrastructure.

Take a look at the guide: ???https://lnkd.in/ge7mZasp

A special thanks to?Sara Ballan , Rosie McDonald Xiao Wang , Maarten (Martin) Voorneveld ,?John Watt ,?Nienke Hacco? ,?Vanessa Gray ,?Nora Hauptmann ,?Garam Marc Bel ,?Seth Ayers ,?Modupeoluwa Oluokun ,?Martina Karaparusheva ,?Yassin Bendjebbour GovStack digital.global Isabel Neto ?