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New Pure Storage Survey Details the Critical Impact of IT on Global Sustainability Initiatives

90% of sustainability program directors say companies cannot reach sustainability goals without significantly reducing energy usage of technology infrastructure

London, UK. – December 7, 2022 — Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG), the IT pioneer that delivers the world’s most advanced data storage technology and services, in partnership with Wakefield Research, released a new report identifying the critical impact of IT on environmental sustainability and the challenges present in addressing the urgent and growing demands for IT to be accountable drivers of change.

The new report, “Drivers of Change: Pure Storage IT Sustainability Impact Survey 2022,” examines the opportunities for IT professionals to collaborate with enterprise sustainability directors to navigate reductions in the environmental footprint of their organisations.

Survey Highlights in the UK

The survey, fielded among 1,000 sustainability program directors, saw consistent results in all global markets surveyed, including the U.S. (400), U.K. (200), France (200), and Germany (200).

Highlights from the “Drivers of Change” report include:

  • Half of Sustainability Managers in the UK Are Behind on Sustainability Goals: Most sustainability managers in the UK – 73% – say their company’s leadership is treating sustainability initiatives as a priority, with the majority planning to meet sustainability goals within three to seven years (55%). However, only about half (51%) of those surveyed in the UK say they are on track with their goals.
  • Technology Plays a Critical, Growing Role in Driving Sustainability Initiatives: An overwhelming 90% of sustainability program managers in the UK agree that companies cannot reach their sustainability goals without significantly reducing their technology infrastructure energy usage. This problem will grow more dire as 76% predict the impact of technology infrastructure on a company’s carbon footprint will increase in the next 12 months.
  • Misalignment of IT and Sustainability Teams in Purchasing Decisions: Even as tech’s carbon footprint grows, 63% of respondents in the UK say vendors’ sustainability is likely to be overlooked during the vendor selection process. This could be allayed by getting sustainability managers’ input earlier, but nearly two in three (64%) say they only become involved after the technology purchasing process has already begun.
  • IT Team Support of Company Sustainability Initiatives is Dire: More than any other function (i.e. finance, leadership, operations), IT was identified as not taking the necessary steps to support their company’s sustainability goals (33%). Less than half (46%) say their IT team is taking proper considerations about sustainability when making decisions about technology purchases.

Industry Significance

Data centres currently account for 1% of global electricity consumption today. The World Economic Forum estimates that digitisation generated 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 alone, however, if brought to scale digital technologies could reduce emissions by 20% by 2050.

Data centres and digitisation play an undeniably important part in any corporate sustainability strategy. While sustainability managers are working towards meeting critical environmental goals, they can’t do so without more sustainable IT infrastructure marked by high efficiency, scalability, and simplicity. 

As a result, there is a tremendous opportunity for IT professionals to help their organisations make strides in reducing their environmental footprint. By building and adopting sustainable technology infrastructure, supported by innovative, efficient, and scalable IT vendors, IT teams have the potential to make a significant and immediate impact through technology engineered to use significantly lower power, lower cooling, and far less waste.

Executive Insight:

“Businesses can drive the green transition by leveraging the right technology and partners to support sustainability initiatives. This inaugural report on the central role that IT can play in overall sustainability can be an important tool for IT leaders to improve their data storage strategies. Modern sustainable infrastructure that requires less power, less cooling, and generates far less waste can have a significant and immediate impact on reducing an organisation's carbon footprint.”

Wes Van Den Berg
Regional Vice President, UK & Ireland, Pure Storage

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About Pure Storage

Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG) uncomplicates data storage, forever. Pure delivers a cloud experience that empowers every organisation to get the most from their data while reducing the complexity and expense of managing the infrastructure behind it. Pure’s commitment to providing true storage as-a-service gives customers the agility to meet changing data needs at speed and scale, whether they are deploying traditional workloads, modern applications, containers, or more. And with a certified customer satisfaction score in the top one percent of B2B companies, Pure's ever-expanding list of customers are among the happiest in the world. For more information, visit www.purestorage.com.

Press Contact
Daniel Beattie
Pure Storage
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