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EDITOR’S QUESTION
MARC GARNER, VICE
PRESIDENT, SECURE POWER
DIVISION, SCHNEIDER
ELECTRIC UK&I
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C
oncern over the effects of climate
change are forcing the data centre
industry to pay greater attention
to sustainability. This cannot be done by
individuals, companies or the industry in
isolation; collaboration is essential to deliver
a viable, sustainable and digitised future.
Examples of formal collaborative efforts to
address sustainability at an international
level include the Climate Group’s global
EP100 and EV100 initiatives, which bring
together companies committed to improving
their energy productivity and the transition
towards electrical vehicles; and the RE100,
a group of major companies that have
committed to using 100% renewable power.
These initiatives reflect two key concerns: how
do we generate energy more sustainably; and
how do we use it more efficiently?
For the latter, the data centre sector plays
an important role in improving processes
and efficiency across today’s technology
industries. The Internet of Things (IoT)
depends on a resilient digital infrastructure
to deliver on that promise. Here, the industry
must set an example, driving process and
energy efficiencies in its own operation,
while assisting the next generation of
technology professionals to do the same.
For data centres, this can be achieved
in several ways: through more stringent
management of industry processes and
adherence to new standards; deployment of
next-generation data centre infrastructure
management (DCIM) systems, which utilise
AI and cloud computing to deliver increased
insights into performance metrics and
energy consumption; and via pre-integrated
products or solutions that leverage
www.intelligentcio.com
open technologies and allow vendors
to collaborate on established industry
standards, while competing only on the
merits of their products.
Greater standards and pre-integration will
also drive interoperability of industry-leading
technologies, ensuring customers deploy
only the most energy efficient solutions,
which at the data centre level will comprise
power, cooling, security, processing and
networking equipment. This becomes even
more important with the advocacy of 5G,
where it is well documented that telco
energy usage across the Edge Computing
environment is set to dwarf that of current
data centres. Therefore, a new set of
standards, potentially similar to PUE, must
be created for the Edge and telco.
When combined with next-gen DCIM
software, these Edge Computing solutions can
themselves be deployed more sustainably,
efficiently and with lower energy usage.
“
COLLABORATION
IS ESSENTIAL
TO DELIVER
A VIABLE,
SUSTAINABLE
AND DIGITISED
FUTURE.
Schneider Electric is committed to following
UN Sustainable Development Goals,
with 75% of our turnover in the Digital
Transformation of energy management,
which delivers greater efficiency and reduced
CO 2 emissions. Between 2015–2025, we will
invest €10 billion in R&D and innovation,
aimed at sustainability and to-date, our
carbon neutrality programme has resulted
in Schneider Electric customers saving 100
million tons of CO 2 through our offers. Our
target is to achieve carbon neutrality across
all our sites by 2025 and to achieve net-zero
operational emissions by 2030.
Most importantly, we intend to have net-zero
omissions throughout our entire supply
chain, including suppliers, by 2050. Such
ambitious targets are not achievable by
one company acting on its own, meaning a
collaborative approach is essential to achieve
these goals.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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