Introduction to Data and Sustainability

Co-Authors: Rajeev John , Akilesh S.

Scientists and researchers around the world have identified and agreed on the fact that an increase in global warming above 2°C would be catastrophic to our planet. If not kept under threshold it could result in increase in temperatures, loss of biodiversity, higher health risks, among others. One of the various contributors to global warming is the rise in technology.?

With organizations becoming more digital, and affordable technology having reached a far wider audience, the number of electronic devices in use is in the billions. All these devices create and transfer data every second, piling over the existing mound of zettabytes of data. At the current rate we create over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. Hence, the need to store and manage these data through data centers has also increased. We explore how this is affecting the environment, what measures could one take, and how data could be leveraged to benefit the business while being sustainable.

In a series of blogs, we explore – the sustainability challenges with data, how one can setup their data on cloud sustainably, and how the insights from data could be used to drive sustainability initiatives.

Sustainability challenges with data – the need for storage and compute has increased with explosive growth in data in the past decade. Traditional on-premise data centers are no longer effective nor are they sustainable to manage this growth. In addition, using the data for training AI models could also have environmental impact. Moving to cloud is a solution, but is the move to cloud all green? In our first blog, we explore the different sustainability challenges with data and what sustainability measures cloud providers are taking.?

Setting up data on cloud sustainably – with the understanding of sustainability challenges posed by data, organizations can embark on setting up their data on cloud by defining their sustainability strategy, evaluating their current state (emissions from their data center, energy consumption of their AI models, etc.), opting for greener tech choices, and realizing value from their sustainability initiatives. Along with this we also explore how a data center’s geography impacts sustainability, in the second blog.

Sustainability insights from data on cloud – once sustainability goals and targets have been set, organizations would need the right data to track progress, take actions, and report on them. To ensure this, they should start by defining the right metrics to measure so they can collect appropriate data, communicate throughout the organization their goals and strategies, empower employees to be able to access and track the right data, build systems necessary to enable capture, curation, and consumption of the data, and put in place a governance mechanism to ensure periodic review and tracking.?

This content is provided for general information purposes as the views are personal and is not intended to be used in place of consultation.

References:

1. How much Data is Produced every Day 2021?

This content is provided for general information purposes as the views are personal and is not intended to be used in place of consultation.