INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE providers are also innovating by replacing backup generators with sustainable alternatives such as renewable-powered battery storage and fuel cells .
Further , colocation providers are making a concerted effort to embrace a circular economy – recycling hardware and exploring new strategies for water management and heat recovery to reduce their reliance on the electrical grid and minimise waste across their operations . This is also buoyed by a strong effort to move data to the Edge . Doing so significantly reduces the volume of traffic going back to the centralised data centre and thus requires fewer physical resources to support it , such as servers , cooling and power .
The adoption of new digital technologies enabled by 5G , fibre and cloud computing could help the tech sector reduce its global carbon emissions by 40 % before 2030 .
When targeting colocation , organisations should ensure they select a partner that has the right credentials in place such as a Science Based Target , CDP rating or equivalent as well as those that are transparent around key metrics such as Power Usage Effectiveness ( PUE ), Renewable Energy Factor ( REF ) and Water Usage Effectiveness ( WUE ). Additionally , partners should have the ability to design sustainability from the ‘ network up ’ into the colocation data centre by taking into consideration what can be virtualised and right-sizing capacity for equipment .
The bottom line is that colocation is a truly viable way for organisations to avail themselves of all the benefits of having a data centre and using their data for business advantage , while similarly doing their part to ensure that thriving in a digital economy is as environmentally friendly as possible . � www . intelligentdatacentres . com
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