Sydney, Australia – July 18, 2023 — Pure Storage® (NYSE: PSTG), the IT pioneer that delivers the world's most advanced data storage technology and services, in partnership with The University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF), today released a groundbreaking report which revealed an alarming lack of engagement from Australian businesses about the growing level of carbon emissions caused by IT and data centres.
The report, “IT and Data Centre Sustainability in Australia”, details attitudes among the more than 100 sustainability managers surveyed in April and May this year. The report exposes the reality that whilst sustainability managers believe they can’t meet their sustainability goals without reducing IT and data centre energy use, they don’t have the detailed data to make decisions.
Survey Highlights:
Technology plays a critical, growing role in driving sustainability initiatives: 77% of respondents agreed that organisations cannot reach their sustainability goals without significantly reducing IT and data centre energy usage.
Role of IT and data centres in sustainability still low: Over 70% of respondent organisations had sustainability of data centres on their radar but only 9% were fully considering it. Only 15% of respondents indicated sustainability issues were a critical consideration for their organisation in procurement for data centre service providers. 29% of respondent’s organisations did not consider data centre energy consumption at all. Only 22% of respondents thought their organisation pays sufficient attention to data centre energy consumption
Data centre operators need to improve the quality of sustainability-related data: Only 5% of respondents felt that the quality of sustainability-related data received from data centre service operators was detailed enough. 46% of respondents were receiving no sustainability-related data. In total, 59% of respondents either had insufficient, or no, sustainability-related data from data centre service operators.
Industry Significance:
IT and data centres contribute approximately 1 percent of global electricity consumption and up to 2 percent of global carbon emissions, (equivalent to the airline industry). According to the International Energy Agency, data centres and data transmission networks accounted for 0.9% of global energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The growth in demand for data, including use of artificial intelligence, has the potential to increase the energy consumption of data centre services.
Australia is one of the most densely served economies by data centres per capita, and revenue in the data centre market is forecast in Australia to pass US$5 billion in 2023, with multi-billion dollar long term investment commitments made by some large providers. Australia is considered a global hub for data centre investments, due in part to geopolitical, data sovereignty and geographical factors. The market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 4.5% to reach US$6 billion by 2027.
The rapid growth of Australia’s data centre industry comes at a time of increasing climate risks, and an unprecedented level of focus from regulators, consumers and investors on how companies reduce emissions. It should therefore be concerning that Australian organisations appear to not be taking the steps necessary to incorporate data centre and IT related emissions into account when managing their environmental, social and governance (ESG) and carbon emissions reduction programs. As data centre related energy demands rise, Australian businesses and policy makers need to avoid the risk of adding to the instability of the country’s energy grid, as has been the case in other jurisdictions that have a high density of data centre penetration.
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
