The topics of the environment, climate change and the impact of production activities on the biosphere are on the agenda. The European Commission, with its Green Dealhas introduced a series of proposals which should lead to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. These proposals also include measures aimed at improving energy efficiency and the performance of the circular economy in the cloud computing and in data centers. This means that the choice of suppliers who, within the supply chain, adopt the principles of the circular economy can no longer be postponed. If the digital transformation it is an imperative, so is the sustainable transition of processes, activities and business. It is a binomial, often indicated with the expression Green&Blue, which identifies the two pillars of change. At the heart of this change lies the data center, an element that system integrators, ISVs and companies that offer technological solutions cannot ignore. Even more so in current scenarios in which the “cloudification” of IT environments involves the entire value chain. Along this chain, although the responsibilities are divided among all the players who are part of it, the complete fulfillment of those sustainability requirements which are required of everyone cannot be delegated downstream or upstream. In other words, tech companies must opt for those providers whose data centers guarantee not only to be “blue”, i.e. performing and cutting-edge, but also “green”, i.e. sustainable in particular from the point of view of energy consumption. Suffice it to say that it is estimated that the electricity consumption of data centers on a global level already exceeds 205 Terawatt hours per year (the annual Italian one is just over 300 TWh). If we then consider that at the moment only 61% of the world‘s population is online, it is easy to predict a growth in world energy demand by 2030 which fluctuates between 7% and 20%.
According to the Datacentermap.com index, there are 4990 Data Centers in the world located in 130 countries, of which 86 are in Italy. Our country, with a market share of 9% in the EU, is in fourth place in the ranking of European countries, together with Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. From hyperscalers to cloud and colocation service providers, the challenges they are called to face for sustainable management of business workloads concern the design, location, power systems and energy management strategies. Challenges that can no longer be postponed under pressure from investors, customers and regulators. In Europe, for example, the expansion projects of Meta, AWS and Microsoft were interrupted in their respective countries where they should have been carried out precisely due to the risk of excessive energy consumption. But the adoption of practices of green computing it is not only intended to optimize energy needs. It also has to balance the “blue” benefits of digitization with the “green” protection of the environment. For this it is necessary to correctly size the servers to avoid underutilization and energy waste, carefully monitor the temperature to reduce the load on the HVAC systems, as well as introduce a series of indicators connected to sustainability. It is clear that these requirements leave little room for greenwashing as the same tech companies that have to select cloud service providers want to have all the elements to choose the most “virtuous” ones. A choice dictated both by legislation such as the European directive mentioned at the beginning, but also by objective criteria of responsibility which everyone – business, citizen, public administration – must comply with. So much so that in the future a virtuous circle will tend to emerge in which organizations will collaborate above all with those partners who will ensure principles of sustainability throughout the supply chain.
That it is not a question of an exclusively regulatory nature, but also of self-regulation of all subjects, can be deduced from specific initiatives such as the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact (CNDCP). Established in 2021 with the support of the European Commission, the Pact brings together more than 80 data center operators and cloud infrastructure service providers, as well as 22 industry associations representing the main players in the European market. The signatories are committed to achieving a series of sustainability objectives concerning energy efficiency, the use of green energy and the judicious use of water, and the reuse of heat produced by data centers (where possible). Objectives which, taken together, can contribute to achieving climate neutrality by 2030 for data centers on the old continent. To avoid signatories limiting themselves to a mere declaration of intent, but concretely demonstrating the actions they are implementing for this purpose, the CNDCP has prepared a special Pact Auditing Framework. The framework contemplates an audit process, conducted in this phase by Bureau Veritas or other third-party auditing agencies, which guarantees objective and measurable metrics against the objectives set by the CNDCP. It is precisely these days the news that Arubathe most important Italian cloud provider, has successfully passed the compliance audit of a first data center, thus giving the entire supply chain made up of partners and customers the opportunity to be able to unequivocally identify a supplier who has decided to place the sustainability at the top of its priorities.
“The audit carried out against the requirements of the Pact confirms that we have the processes and measures in place to meet the objectives set for 2030 and represents a concrete step within a broader path that will see ever greater commitment on our part”- commented Giancarlo Giacomello – Head of Data Center Offering of Aruba Enterprise and Board Member of the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact “This is also demonstrated by Aruba’s growing investments in proprietary infrastructures, in conceiving them green by-design and according to the highest safety standards”.
A vision also demonstrated by the adhesion to the European Green Digital Coalition (EGDC) which brings together among its members 37 ICT companies willing to “invest in the development and dissemination of greener and more energy efficient digital technologies and services and of materials” reads the Statement underlying the EGDC.
Aruba’s participation in the European initiatives mentioned above goes hand in hand with the company policies pursued on the front of all-round sustainability. The last intervention, in chronological order, refers to theacquisition of two new hydroelectric plants for a total power of 2 MW in the province of Bergamo, near the Global Cloud Data Center of Ponte San Pietro. The two plants share the same water intake structure on the Brembo river and are joined by a private supply channel. They add to the one already present in the Global Cloud Data Center and to the other four acquired by the company in 2020 on the Lambro, Astico and Fella rivers. In this way, the entire network of Aruba’s hydroelectric plants can count on a total capacity of 9.2 MW for the production of clean energy.
The increase in the production capacity of energy from renewable sources is one of the factors that contribute most to reducing the impact on the environment and making the activities of the whole group sustainable. In fact, in addition to the hydroelectric plants, the two new Data Centers inaugurated at the end of 2022 on the Ponte San Pietro campus are covered by photovoltaic systems new generation plants which have a power of 1.2 MW and 1.3 MW respectively, in addition to the pre-existing plant on the same site capable of a power of 2.4 MW. The data centers under construction on the company’s new Rome campus will also be covered with photovoltaic panels on all surfaces with sufficient solar exposure. One more reason for system integrators, ISVs and tech companies in general to prefer a provider that, like Aruba, is moving towards the climate neutrality that anyone will have to achieve between now and the end of the decade.