Earth Day 2021: Data Centers Move Beyond Power to Be More Sustainable

Tomorrow is Earth Day 2021 featuring a theme of “Restore Our Earth,” which focuses on natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems. The data center industry has started expand its use of green technologies beyond power production and reduction to technologies to conserve water, build buildings more efficiently and use batteries with less environmental impacts.

Data Center Frontier covers the companies, individuals and technologies making data centers more environmentally-friendly. For Earth Day 2021, we’ve compiled recent articles, guest columns and research.

Beyond Green Power: New Frontiers in Data Center Sustainability
As the drive for data center sustainability enters a new and more urgent phase, what are the next frontiers beyond efficiency and energy sourcing? Here’s a look at the technologies, strategies and best practices we are watching at Data Center Frontier.

Data Center Operators Look to Cooling Strategies for Greater Efficiency
A closer look at data center cooling strategies, including tips on balancing power efficiency and water usage — a process that is unique to each data center and is affected by continual technology change.

Tackling Data Center Water Usage Challenges Amid Historic Droughts, Wildfires
Data center water use has broad impacts. It affects the quality and availability of local water supplies, particularly when groundwater is involved. This special report series  examines data center water usage amid historic droughts and wildfires in California and beyond.

Voices: Data Center Sustainability: Evolution or Revolution
There is no doubt that data centers’ voracious appetite for ping, power, and pipe will continue to grow – even accelerate due to unheralded force majeure events. Therefore, sustainability must have Board-level priority and investment across the entire data center ecosystem.

Water Scarcity: How Data Centers Can Help
Water scarcity is a looming global crisis. Kris Holla, Group Vice President, Channel Sales, Nortek Air Solutions, and Michael Lesniak, AVP Global Corporate Accounts, Global Data Center Solutions at Nalco Water, discuss how data centers can conserve the planet’s diminishing fresh water supply and practice water stewardship.

Reduce Your Water Footprint Cost-Effectively: Three Tips for Data Centers
Cem Candir, CEO of Chemstar WATER, provides three tips for data centers looking for cost-effective ways to reduce their water footprint.

Check out DCF tomorrow for more coverage of Earth Day 2021 and sustainability in the data center sector.