There’s an odd dichotomy in how data centers are built and operated. While every piece of equipment that goes into a DC has to meet stringent standards for quality, performance, recyclability, etc. and DCs are required to be built to local building codes, there is scant regulatory oversight of how DCs are operated when it comes to environmental friendliness.

By and large, governments and industry organizations do not require DCs to operate to a minimum standard of sustainability. One exception is the city of Amsterdam, which requires new DCs 5MVA and up to have a PEU of 1.2 (very efficient) and practice nature-inclusive construction. In the Asia Pacific, Singapore, which has had a moratorium on new DCs for two years, recently announced it will be more selective of which DCs it can accommodate.

The island state seeks to anchor DCs that are “best in class in terms of resource efficiency and which can contribute towards Singapore’s economic and strategic objectives". The country, which hosts 70 data centers totaling around 1000MVA, plans to achieve net zero emissions in the second half of the century. It also will put in place measures to raise the efficiency of existing DCs over time, according to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Thriving Green DC market
Given the large amounts of energy DCs consume, more countries and large cities will want to limit and regulate the construction of new DCs and, in the future, their energy efficiency and other sustainability factors. In anticipation of such measures and to achieve their own sustainability objectives, DC owners and operators have in recent years increased their efforts to reduce power consumption by deploying more efficient hardware and to source renewable energy for their facilities.

In fact, by 2025, IDC predicts that 90% of global 2000 companies will mandate reusable materials in IT hardware, require lower energy use and develop carbon neutrality targets for their DC providers’ facilities. Valued at US$53.19 billion in 2020, the green DC market is expected to reach a value of US$181.91 billion by 2026, with the Asia Pacific segment projected to grow the fastest.

DC owners and operators do have best practices and processes to manage their energy needs, but these vary from organization to organization and industry to industry, with no common targets to work toward. And even though the green DC market is expected to register robust growth in the Asia Pacific, there is no concerted effort by DC owners and operators in the region to operate DCs more sustainably.

Europe takes lead
In the area of DC self-regulation, Europe has taken the lead. In early 2021 25 companies representing leading industry players in cloud infrastructure and DCs in the region, together with 17 associations, agreed to a self-regulatory initiative to make DCs in Europe climate neutral by 2030.

Called the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact, it was developed in co-operation with the European Commission and supports both the European Green Deal, which aims to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050, and the European Data Strategy.

The pact commits signatories to ensuring their DCs are climate-neutral by setting ambitious targets for 2025 and 2030 in five areas: prove energy efficiency with measurable targets, purchase 100% carbon-free energy, prioritize water conservation, reuse and repair servers, and recycle heat.

Asia Pacific next?
The Climate Neutral Data Center Pact is an historic and unprecedented commitment by an industry to proactively lead the transition to a climate neutral economy. The concerted undertaking is an admirable one, one DC operators and trade bodies in the Asia Pacific would do well to emulate.   

Of all of Earth’s geographical regions the Asia Pacific is the most vulnerable to climate change. That and rising energy costs should be motivation enough for DC operators and trade bodies in the region to take a serious look at self-regulation, with a view to making their facilities greener. Moreover, a number of the 42 signatories to the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact have operations in the Asia Pacific and may even have DCs here so it’s a matter of time before the practices and processes for meeting the green targets for 2025 and 2030 in Europe will trickle down to this region. As well, the pact signatories’ supply chain partners in the Asia Pacific will be affected in a similar manner.

The other ‘choice’ is to wait for governments and large city administrations to mandate greater energy efficiency and so on in new and operating DCs sometime in the near future and hope that one’s own facility can make the mark.