07 May 2024

Advancing sustainability achievements in the power-guzzling IT sector is a worthy goal for sure – but how important is it to the UK’s operators, and which technologies are paving the way?

Sustainability goals are increasingly having a significant impact on enterprises thanks in part to pressure from consumers and investors who are considering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors when making decisions. And in a world where reputation is everything, businesses must do everything possible to avoid getting caught with their pants down.

Moreover, like many world regions, the UK government has been active in implementing stricter regulations related to environmental protection and sustainability. Enterprises must comply or face penalties and the loss of their operating licenses.

“It looks like sustainability goals are significantly influencing UK enterprises, particularly as the government encourages all businesses, regardless of size, to commit to net zero,” reports Andreas Nobell, development manager at TCO Development. “Over 40 of the UK’s FTSE 100 companies have signed up to the United Nations Race to Zero campaign, which reflects the UK’s corporate sustainability efforts. This initiative is part of a broader movement to integrate sustainable practices into business models, aiming to significantly reduce carbon footprints by 2030. It indicates a strong trend among UK enterprises towards adopting more sustainable operating models.”

But not all enterprises are acting equally. While green initiatives can lead to long-term cost-savings, the upfront capex can deter smaller or cash-strapped businesses.

“At the moment, sustainability focus is concentrated in larger companies and within certain verticals – especially financial services and professional services – as smaller companies perceive being more sustainable to have a higher cost implication – so it is considered to be a luxury,” says Steen Dalgas, senior cloud economist at Nutanix. “The IT industry is seeing the impact of this increased focus on sustainability as a business outcome, and we are being asked to demonstrate how our solutions can reduce carbon emissions during the vendor selection phase. Most government customers are applying a score for Social Value (which includes sustainability) of between 10-30% of the total tender scoring. We are now starting to see similar procurement criteria appearing in private sector tenders as well.”

Maintaining a greener network

Designing, building, managing, and maintaining a more sustainable network is no mean feat. Whether exploring the supply chain, energy consumption, or transportation network, one of the biggest challenges is achieving comprehensive collaboration and coordination among stakeholders.

Dalgas reports that Scope 3 emissions (those consumed within the supply chain) account for the majority of emissions for most organisations. “Therefore, to reduce emissions, organisations need to be able to measure these emissions and have trust in the data. The problem in the IT industry is that these indirect emissions are often hard to quantify accurately. Greenwashing and making under-stated claims on these emissions is rife within the industry and many companies are publishing inaccurate emissions data.”

Some believe that a lack of standards relating to the whole measurement process allows companies to come up with their own systems of measurement, which may be little more than guesswork.

As such, “there is a need for greater transparency of data under-pinned by standardised reporting on supply chain emissions,” opines Dalgas. “At the moment, too many companies are happy just to get an answer to the supply chain emissions question and are not asking questions or testing the number they are given by the vendor. IT operations teams are lacking training on the sustainability topic and are simply viewing this as a compliance and tick box exercise without understanding the underlying business value that a sustainability first approach can offer to businesses.”

Nobell, meanwhile, believes that the biggest challenge in maintaining a green network often revolves around balancing the need for technological innovation and infrastructure development with environmental sustainability.

“This involves investment in energy-efficient technologies, sustainable procurement practices, and managing the lifecycle of IT equipment in a way that minimises environmental impact. Additionally, ensuring that these practices are economically viable and do not impede an organisation’s operational efficiency or financial stability can be challenging,” says Nobell. “In the end it all comes back to one thing: as long as there is no demand for more sustainable IT networking products, a sustainable journey cannot kick off for real. When there is demand, development can kick off fast.”

Making sustainability pay

Investing in more efficient, sustainable technologies often leads to lower energy consumption, which can decrease operational costs.

“However, initial investments in green technologies or infrastructure adjustments can be higher. The key is to adopt a long-term perspective, where the initial higher costs are balanced against the benefits of reduced emissions, energy savings, and potential improvements in corporate reputation and compliance with environmental regulations,” says Nobell.

“At the moment, there is a market perception that reducing carbon emissions is viewed by many as an expensive luxury that requires an upfront investment. If we look at the car industry, electric cars are typically twice the price or more of their petrol equivalents,” explains Dalgas. “From an IT perspective, when energy costs were cheap, owning your own data centre and running traditional on-premises servers and storage arrays was seen as the lowest cost option for running IT even though the carbon emissions impacts were high. This can be considered to be the IT equivalent of petrol cars. Public cloud (think electric cars), was perceived to be more sustainable but more costly.”

However, the IT industry has recently seen increased price shocks which have disrupted the traditional IT infrastructure cost model. Energy costs have risen three or even fourfold compared with the ten-year historical average.

“Owning and operating your data centre has become much more costly in terms of capex and red tape. The complexity of owning your own data centre and infrastructure can lead you more exposed to ransomware attacks such as the recent British Library attack in October 2023, which can lead to a bill in multiple millions,” shares Dalgas. “All of this has combined to make the business case for a more sustainable IT platform much more palatable.”

TCO Development was part of a report from PwC on circular electronics that came out in 2023; ‘Future Proofing the Electronics Industry – the case for circular business models.’ The report showed that new circular models provide both better cost efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.

“PwC’s analysis showed large financial gains for those daring to challenge the business models,” reveals Nobell. “The most advantageous is a product-as-a-service (PaaS) model, providing a product as an ongoing service, rather than selling them as physical goods. A transition to a PaaS model would mean a reduction in operational costs for the global electronics industry by an average of 31% until 2035. In addition, the carbon dioxide impact from the industry is reduced by 15%. Without a change to circularity, the operational costs in the electronics industry are expected to increase by at least around 15% until the year 2035.”

The role of HCI

One solution to meet growing sustainability pressures and emissions targets is hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). With it, enterprises can benefit from improved resource utilisation, scalability, and reduced physical footprint.

“Customers moving from the traditional IT model with five-year-old storage arrays to the public cloud HCI model can expect an 80% or more reduction in Co2 emissions based on AWS data,” reports Dalgas. “As well as the underlying architecture which eliminates the need for a storage area network (SAN) and reduces the physical footprint when compared to owning storage arrays, HCI enables IT operators to achieve higher resource utilisation.”

HCI can help deliver more sustainable IT, particularly since the software defined approach avoids the need to buy extra infrastructure and uses AI to predict future capacity needs.

Nobell believes, however, that while HCI can play a role in meeting binding emissions targets, it’s not the only viable alternative: “cloud computing, virtualisation, and adopting renewable energy sources also contribute to reducing emissions in IT operations. The choice between HCI and other alternatives depends on specific organisational needs, existing infrastructure, and long-term sustainability goals.”

Ultimately, meeting sustainability goals will likely require a combination of strategies tailored to the specific needs and constraints of the enterprise. While HCI can play a role in optimising IT infrastructure and reducing emissions, it should be part of a broader sustainability strategy.