A year ago, COP26 brought the climate crisis crashing into the headlines. Whether or not you think the conference went far enough in its commitment to change, it nonetheless made climate plans a key priority for many countries, with the UK itself setting a net zero goal of 2050.
As well as a governmental focus on climate change happening across the globe, the public is also increasingly more aware of the impact we’re having on the environment and the world we live in. As they say, there is no planet B. We expect industry and big businesses to get serious about sustainability – and we want to know exactly how they’re doing it.
Power-hungry data centres, under increasing pressure to cope with escalating demand for compute, are also now expected to be actively taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint. Across the sector, we’re hearing more and more about how priority is being put on the use of renewable energy, demand response grid interaction, efficient cooling and waste heat and water reuse.
But is the industry guilty of “greenwashing” for appearances’ sake? Are measures like new governmental regulations and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting really going to make a difference, or will it just be a box ticking exercise? Real change is going to take time, money and planning – have we begun the journey to a greener future?
At Critical Insight next month, our day one panellists will be debating ‘The Sustainable Data Centre’, asking, are we really serious about creating a more sustainable future – and what are we doing in practice?
Astrid Wynne is the sustainability lead at Techbuyer, a global company that specialises in buying, refurbishment and selling data centre IT hardware.
Astrid represents the company on a number of research collaborations including the three-year Interreg funded CEDaCI project led by London South Bank University, of which Techbuyer is an Associate Partner. She also chairs Techbuyer’s KTP with the University of East London. Astrid has submitted evidence to the Circular 4.0: Data-driven Intelligence for a Circular Economy led by the University of Exeter, the Climate Protection Potentials of Digital Transformation (CliDiTrans) led by Bordersteps Institute in Germany, and the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into electronic waste and the circular economy.
She will be joined by John Booth, a well-known figure in EU data centre circles, primarily for his role as reviewer for the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency) (EUCOC) programme and his work with the Certified Energy Efficiency Data Centre Award (CEEDA) and Data Centre Alliance Certification (which assesses data centres to a subset of the EUCOC best practices and EN 50600 respectively).
John is also the chair of the Data Centre Alliance’s (DCA) Energy Efficiency and member of the sustainability steering group, shaping the DCA’s policy on these topics as well as providing support to the DCA in other steering groups and the Alliance’s wider activities.
Rounding off the panel is Terry Storrar, Managing Director UK at Leaseweb – a leading Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider.
He has brought over 20 years of experience across a range of specialised services to Leaseweb UK and has worked in managed services, cloud, hosting, implementation and architecture. In his role at Leaseweb, Terry oversees business development and operations in the UK, with particular attention to expanding the company’s cloud product portfolio.
Critical insight 2022 will be taking place on 22-23 November – don’t miss your chance to take part in this crucial debate, as well as much more.
To view the agenda and to register, visit: https://critical-insight.co.uk/
