How do you see the evolution of sustainability practices in data centres?
Once seen as power-hungry infrastructure giants, data centres are undergoing a dramatic sustainability transformation. With rising energy costs, intensifying regulatory pressure and growing customer demand for greener services, operators are accelerating efforts to reduce environmental impact while maintaining performance.
The evolution of sustainability practices in data centres is being shaped by a confluence of innovation, necessity and corporate responsibility. From hyperscalers to colocation providers, many operators are now adopting ambitious net-zero strategies and prioritising energy-efficient design from the outset.
In recent years, this has meant turning to renewable energy sources, investing in high-density servers that reduce physical footprint, and exploring alternative cooling techniques such as liquid immersion and free air cooling.
The push for greener operations is no longer confined to environmental departments – it’s become a boardroom priority. Enterprises want partners whose infrastructure choices reflect their own ESG commitments, and governments are tightening regulations to ensure compliance. In Europe, for example, the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact commits operators to ambitious targets by 2030, while similar frameworks are being proposed globally.
Crucially, sustainability no longer comes at the expense of efficiency. Thanks to advances in AI-driven monitoring and predictive analytics, data centres can now optimise energy use in real time, detecting inefficiencies before they escalate. Meanwhile, circular economy principles are influencing everything from equipment procurement to end-of-life asset management.
However, there are still barriers to overcome. In some regions, access to renewable energy is limited, while the rapid pace of digital growth – from IoT to Artificial Intelligence – is driving relentless demand for compute power. Balancing growth with green goals remains a central challenge.
Ultimately, the evolution of sustainability in data centres is not a one-off project but an ongoing journey. The industry is moving from intent to action, with innovation and accountability at its core.
Anna Kristín Pálsdóttir, Chief Development Officer, atNorth
As demand for AI and other high-performance computing accelerates, the data centre industry is expanding rapidly. At the same time, evolving ESG legislation and client expectations are pushing data centre operators to demonstrate stronger sustainability credentials. Operators now face a critical challenge: how to grow responsibly while supporting the environment and reassuring local communities.
Sustainable design and environmentally conscious construction are fundamental, but data centres can also actively contribute to resilient local infrastructure and the economy too. atNorth believes that the creation of data centre ‘ecosystems’ will be key to the future evolution of the data centre industry as a whole.
The presence of data centres often spurs investment in power and connectivity networks that benefit the wider community. Data centres can further help stabilise power grids by offering Fast Frequency Reserve (FFR) services or storing surplus energy in backup batteries to feed back into the grid during peak demand.
Heat reuse is another essential consideration. Modern data centres should be fitted with heat capture technology to repurpose excess heat from the infrastructure cooling process to meet local needs – such as heating homes, powering greenhouses, or supporting community facilities like swimming pools.
atNorth has partnered with several businesses in the vicinity of some of its Nordic campuses to utilise recycled heat. With local agriculture constrained due to climatic conditions, two data centres supply heat to local greenhouses, enabling fresh vegetable production. A further site heats its neighboring Kesko superstore. These practices reduce both the carbon footprint of the data centres and the partnership businesses alike.
To further minimise environmental impact, atNorth advocates for the promotion of renewable energy generation near data centre campuses, along with biodiversity and rewilding initiatives as part of land development.
Community integration is equally vital. Data centres generate long-term job opportunities during both construction and operation phases, and local hiring should be prioritised. Their presence also supports the growth of nearby businesses – restaurants, shops, hotels and services – and contributes to regional economic development.
Responsible operators can go further by investing in local education and skills training for data centre-related careers and supporting community programs and charitable initiatives.
With proper consideration given to environmental responsibility, energy efficiency and community integration, it is possible to create data centre ecosystems at the heart of the societies in which they operate – securing a sustainable future for our industry, for our local communities and our planet.
Aron Brand, CTO, CTERA
Hybrid cloud is quickly becoming the default strategy for modern IT, and it’s driving a fundamental shift in how data centres are built and operated. By running workloads where they’re most efficient – on-prem when it makes sense, in the cloud when it doesn’t – organisations can streamline operations and significantly reduce their environmental impact. Using strategies like cloud bursting and smart workload placement enables companies to avoid keeping excess infrastructure powered up. This translates to real energy savings; studies show this approach can cut operational emissions by up to 35%.
The public cloud side of the equation, especially hyperscale data centres, is a big part of why this works. These facilities are built for efficiency. Compared to legacy on-premises environments, which often have Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) around 1.84, hyperscale data centres are hitting 1.15 or better, often running on 100% renewable energy. They can deliver over four times the energy efficiency of older infrastructure. For organisations looking to shrink their carbon footprint without sacrificing performance, hybrid cloud – anchored by hyperscale – makes a strong case.
Helen Munro, Head of Environment & Sustainability, Pulsant
A data centre is more than a bland industrial shell. It is a heavy, precious, complex and intense space through which an immense volume of information flows and transforms. It is almost magic.
But then, so is nature.
Both are deserving of respect. And yet, while we have lost almost three-quarters of our wildlife since 1970, digital infrastructure continues to grow, creating both tensions and solutions in restoring abundance in the ecosystems on which we fundamentally depend.
In our energy system, the consolidation of technologies in data centres creates focused and constant electricity demands – these are increasingly challenging for our transitioning energy infrastructure to meet. As electricity generation becomes more volatile with intermittent and distributed sources of generation, it creates patterns of abundance and scarcity.
The ability of an energy consumer to change their consumption patterns accordingly will become increasingly valuable. Today’s metrics often focus on operational efficiency – like Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) or the Renewable Energy Factor (REF) – but we must also come to understand time-and- location-specific abundance of energy.
Beyond energy, we must also re-evaluate the physical foundations for our digital world. Digital systems rely on hardware and infrastructure which are highly complex and emissions-intensive, yet their technological value is fragile and relatively brief.
At the beginning of this is the story of mining. An estimated 50% of critical mineral supply being on or near Indigenous or land-connected peoples, with associated deep histories of social and environmental pressures. Respecting this value chain means maximising the lifespan of hardware, designing for reuse, and ensuring that end-of-life materials re-enter sustainable supply chains.
Navigating towards sustainable digital infrastructure needs intelligence. We already have databases, carbon and biodiversity impact calculators, and green building frameworks that guide builders and operators on what actions they can take and how to explain the services impact to clients.
However, while 47% of digital infrastructure providers have a net zero emissions goal, only 34% have estimated their scope 3 emissions – those tied to upstream infrastructure, goods and services. For the remaining two-thirds, not fully understanding scope 3 means an uncertain path to improvement and a missed opportunity to educate users on their role in responsible digital consumption.
We must interrogate ways forwards, understanding the dynamics of the power system and the imperative to maximise value of our digital systems relative to their material impacts. This will take greater intelligence but also a reinvigorated sense of respect for the resources throughout collaborators in the digital value chain.
Rebecca Gilstrap, Senior Director of Strategy, Legrand Data, Power and Control
Sustainability has finally made the crucial shift in joining uptime and scale as critical priorities for data center owners and operators. Today’s data centres are transforming the sustainability landscape by pushing the envelope of efficiency, circularity and technological innovation.
A confluence of factors is driving this transformation, including rising energy costs, power limitations, heightened regulatory pressure, investor interest and above all, an industry commitment to leading with purpose and continuous innovation. Consequently, sustainability is no longer merely a box to check, but rather a competitive differentiator. Legrand and our customers continue to be at the forefront of this movement. We see sustainability evolving across three core dimensions: energy efficiency, resource management and innovative technology.
Efficiency through design and measurement
Energy efficiency is foundational to data centre sustainability. The industry continues to refine how efficiency is measured, extending beyond power to water use with WUE and carbon with CUE. The Open Compute Project (OCP) is even proposing a new metric, Infrastructure Utilization Effectiveness (IUE), where Total Active Computational Power is divided by Total Active Server Power. The metric helps with the goal of minimising stranded capacity, improving total cost of ownership (TCO) and guiding infrastructure design and operational decisions.
As a market leader enabling advanced power monitoring, Legrand helps customers measure and improve efficiency metrics with intelligent power solutions by Starline, Raritan and Server Technology. A more detailed explanation of how our advanced power quality measurement aids in efficiency and sustainability can be found in the white paper: Improving Data Center Reliability and Efficiency by Solving Power Quality Pain Points.
Expanding the scope of sustainability
Through resource management, sustainability has expanded to cover everything from e-waste recycling to heat reuse and supply chain emissions. At Legrand, we aggressively pursue waste reduction strategies and have seen tremendous success. For example, in 2023 we reduced over 757 tons of product packaging weight.
We are constantly looking for new ways to drive sustainability further, whether it’s how our products are manufactured or how our products support the energy efficiency and sustainability efforts of the environment in which they live. By helping our own suppliers reduce GHG emissions 30% by 2027, we enable our customers to decarbonise upstream.
Innovation as a catalyst
Innovation is key to making gains in sustainability. Legrand is leading the way through eco-design, reducing the energy used by our solutions and in turn, improving data centre efficiency. By 2027, our eco-designed products will enable our customers to avoid 20 million tons of CO2 emissions. Innovation also flows into manufacturing, packaging and shipping. Through the electrification of manufacturing equipment and the addition of green energy at our production sites, Legrand has reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions 53% since 2021.
Legrand has also embraced green building certifications. We’ve achieved ISO 14001 certification across 18 North American facilities and have committed to the Science Based Targets initiative to cut energy-related emissions by 30% by 2030 and 75% by 2050.
The evolution of sustainability in data centres is no longer about meeting minimum expectations – it’s about leading by design.
