How innovation, customers and consumers will fuel the movement and create a lasting legacy for our children.
Greener Data vol II article by contributing author Fredrik Jansson, CSMO, atNorth
This year, I have had the pleasure to join many of my industry peers in the Greener Data movement. This movement couldn’t be closer to my heart or the core of atNorth. This multi-author, visionary book features the voices, stories and perspectives of leading decision-makers in the digital infrastructure industry who are passionate about drastically reducing carbon emissions for a more sustainable Earth. The book launched on Earth Day (April 22nd) and became an Amazon Best-Seller in less than 24 hours.
As a contributing author, I’m extremely excited that the book has made such an impact and honoured to be a part of such an important movement. We have the power and the ability to create and support the changes needed to drive a more sustainable compute, inspire positive and long-term sustainability and ultimately help to promote a greener future.
Without wanting to give too much away, here’s a sneak peek of my Chapter, where I examine the critical factors at play and the role our industry can play in helping to move the needle from climate culprits to climate champions.
“The two defining trends of our time — digitalization and sustainability — meet in the data center. It’s where digital transformation meets the climate crisis head on. Every time consumers go online — whether to bank, shop, or stream a TV series — a process starts in a data center. If this data center is power hungry, coal fired, energy inefficient, and lets excess heat into the atmosphere — then we are all, as consumers, contributing to climate change, albeit most likely unknowingly.”
The first part of my chapter looks at digital infrastructure through the eyes of a child and helps land how being a part of this industry affords us an opportunity to – in my daughter’s words – help make the world a better place.
In my chapter, I zoom in on the innovation that is transforming the data center industry – how the digital data explosion fuels the need for high-density data centers, and why modern data centers need to adopt heat reuse, innovative cooling and circular economy principles to work in tandem with the climate. I then zoom out to discuss the factors that can accelerate innovation as well as the individuals and organizations that will increasingly act as change agents to usher in the shift towards greener data.
Our industry has a responsibility, one that may turn out to be our biggest challenge, to arm the supply chain and ultimately the end consumer with the right information to make this choice — to empower my daughter and future generations to be active digital climate champions instead of passive climate culprits. By coming together and working closely with each other, we can succeed. This is exactly why initiatives like Greener Data are so incredibly important to our industry, to our wider society and to our next generations.
You can find a video interview outlining the key points of my chapter here and the book is available for purchase here.