Tokyo, Japan – July 20, 2023 — Pure Storage® (NYSE: PSTG), the IT pioneer that delivers the world’s most advanced data storage technology and services, today shared the findings of a survey it commissioned among sustainability program managers from across all industries in Japan to gauge the level of understanding on how IT can contribute to sustainability initiatives. The findings show that more effort needs to be made in elevating sustainability in corporate objectives especially with regards to lowering energy usage in technology infrastructure.
Survey Highlights:
The Pure Storage-commissioned survey, conducted by Macromill, reached out to 220 sustainability program managers and found the following:
Sustainability still not a top priority for many organisations
- Only 30% of respondents indicated that their management was prioritizing sustainability initiatives the highest.
- 52.7% said that sustainability was viewed as part of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and 9.5% said it was part of public relations.
Role of IT in sustainability efforts
- 42.7% of respondents did not think technology infrastructure was a priority in sustainability initiatives.
- Only 38.6% said that carbon emissions and power consumption was an important criteria in adopting technology with 65.5% saying that sustainability was not a top consideration when selecting technology vendors.
Sustainability considerations in Digital Transformation
- Only 37.7% of respondents indicated that sustainability was a top priority in Digital Transformation (DX) projects.
- Only 32.7% of respondents said that sustainability was being adequately considered in DX.
Industry significance:
According to the energy supply and demand report from Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, data centers accounted for 2.1% of the total domestic power consumption of 913.5 billion kWh in 2020.
However, due to the rapid expansion of data utilization as a result of the acceleration of DX and the proliferation of AI and other emerging technologies, the amount of data is expected to increase exponentially. The Ministry of the Environment estimates that data centers' share of total power consumption will exceed 10% by 2030. Data centers will be required to take further energy-saving measures in the future.
Reducing the power consumption of data centers and IT infrastructure, as well as reducing the carbon footprint generated by digitization, is an increasingly important part of an organisation's sustainability strategy. Achieving sustainability goals requires a sustainable IT infrastructure that is characterized by high efficiency, scalability and simplicity.
Within an organisation, IT departments in particular play an important role in sustainability efforts. Pure Storage recommends that careful consideration of sustainable technology infrastructure that significantly reduces power consumption, cooling power, and waste is an important first step.
Executive insight:
“With data continuing to grow, energy and space efficiency must play a stronger role in IT and data centre technology selection. IT leaders can and should play a bigger role in their organisation’s sustainability initiatives by improving their data storage strategies.” — Rob Lee, Chief Technology Officer, Pure Storage
“As data volumes grow exponentially, it becomes increasingly important to reduce the environmental impact of data infrastructure. Digital transformation need not suffer as a result of sustainability targets. With the right technologies, organisations can continue to pursue digital transformation while reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.” — Yoshiyuki Tanaka, President, Pure Storage Japan
