News
Green issues becoming more important for European datacentre
providers
30 April 2008
A poll of senior decision makers in European datacentre companies has
found that environmental issues will grow in importance over the next
two years, but that there needs to be clear industry standards to
maintain the momentum.
Digital Realty Trust, an owner and manager of corporate and Internet
gateway datacentres, has published a report entitled, "How Green is
Green?" focused on determining the depth of the Green movement in the
European datacentre market.
The release of the survey report follows the publication of a
parallel study of the North American datacentre market. This European
study is based on a recent poll of senior decision makers who are
leaders in datacentres or influence significant decisions related to
datacentre operations at large European companies. The surveyed
companies come from a wide range of industries, a quarter of which are
from financial related services.
Key findings from the research study and additional data points are:
- 60% of respondents have a declared green strategy;
- firms with a green strategy are largely holistic in nature and
think their strategy must include both the facility as well as the
equipment operating within it;
- datacentre carbon footprints are a key area of concern: over
60%of respondents include the purchase of carbon credits in their
overall green strategy;
- less than 50% of respondents require vendors to have a green
strategy;
- less than 35% of survey participants know of a datacentre
partner with a declared green strategy. The lack of clear vendor
strategies leads to leniency; and
- the need for vendors to articulate a green strategy will only
continue to grow in the next 13 to 24 months: over 60% of
respondents indicate that this need will continue to increase within
the next two years.
Jim Smith, Vice President of Engineering at Digital Realty Trust,
said, "At the same time that we conducted this survey of European
companies, we did a study of green datacentre trends in North America.
There are some interesting findings that I believe have relevance to the
European market. The North American survey indicates that forward
momentum of green datacentre initiatives has stalled or even lost
ground. The primary culprit appears to be the lack of clear industry
standards for green datacentres,"
"European companies expressed similar concern about the lack of
clear, practical industry standards, and that could be a harbinger of a
similar green 'slowdown' in Europe. Companies are looking to the
datacentre industry for leadership and clarity on how to define, design
and operate a green datacentre. The industry must make this a key focus
this year."
A number of additional findings from the research study are as
follows:
- respondents feel that there are many potential standards bodies
to choose from but there is still no clear leader. The key factor
for this is that the definition of 'green' is not universally
adopted;
- no clear definition of green exists and multiple components are
currently viewed as green. At the moment survey participants feel
that coalescence is required around a defined set of principles.
Almost 70% see efficient power usage as the greenest component;
- being green will become an essential selection criteria for
vendors within the next 24 months: almost 70% of respondents
indicated that this will be an important selection criteria in the
next 24 months; and
- green strategy is expected to grow as a requirement for vendors
in the next 12 to 24 months, forcing datacentre firms to articulate
and clarify their green strategies.
"Digital Realty Trust takes great pride in being an industry leader
in green datacentre design and operations. We are also committed to
supporting industry-wide initiatives to increase datacentre efficiency,"
said Jim Smith. "One of the key ways we are doing this is by sharing
energy efficiency data. We are the first company in the datacentre
industry to do so, in response to customers and other end-user
organizations who are seeking data and benchmarks that educate them
about the energy efficiency of competing facilities and about how their
datacentre can support their corporate green strategy."
Smith added, "We are also supporting industry-wide green datacentre
initiatives by continuing to be an active member of The Green Grid,
which is doing excellent work establishing standards and best practices
for data centre energy efficiency. We will continue to be a leader in
applying LEED and BREEAM specifications to our building design and
operations. Although these specifications are not designed specifically
for datacentres, they have tremendous value for institutional building
owners like Digital Realty Trust. These specifications provide a
holistic view of how buildings impact our environment and a proven
methodology for minimizing that impact."
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