The Ethical Future of Data Centres?

"A 5 year goal for 100% Sustainable Servers across all data centres worldwide - every server we operate should be running on sustainable energy"

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were defined in 2000 to “produce a set of universal goals that meet the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges facing our world”. They're bold, uncontroversial targets for the human race including “zero hunger” and “clean energy” - and they're working:

“More than 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty and child mortality dropped by more than half” - The United Nations on their SDGs

In our judgment, tech ethics requires setting such demanding goals, which benefit all humankind, for tech.

There are many ethical goals we could set ourselves but we reckon one of the highest impact, most achievable targets is 100% Sustainable Servers.

About Sustainable Servers
Data Centres use 2% of the world's energy. That's roughly as much as all of aviation. We can fix that.

"We could offset the entire aviation industry" - Anne Currie, Container Solutions

Imagine a world where our data centres were carbon neutral. We would offset every plane flight and, as wealthy and reliable consumers of renewable power, we would drive new investment and innovation in energy generation. We'd be amazing.

That's the world we want to build. But how can we do it?

• Google have reached 100% renewable energy for their Cloud and data centres.

• All of Apple's data centres worldwide are 100% renewable.

• Since 2013, all of Facebook's new data centres have been 100% powered by clean and renewable energy.

Most of us don't build our own data centres but there are still simple things we could all do to help deliver 100% Sustainable Servers, for example:

• Sign our petition to show you care.
• For on-prem, demand a higher mix of sustainable electricity for power.

• For new public Cloud, choose a sustainable provider like Google or Azure.

• For existing Cloud, transition to sustainable regions. AWS's regions in Ireland, Oregon, Canada and Frankfurt are 100% carbon neutral (but only those public regions).  

• Whenever you use a new service, make sustainable servers a major factor. That's why this site is hosted on 100% renewably-powered Blogger.

We need Sustainable Servers. The tech industry must drive it. Google and Azure appear to have secured reliable power for their data centres for years ahead; now the rest of us need to catch up - Sustainable Servers are the new "Gifee": Google Infrastructure For Everyone Else. 

"Servers run on electricity., which could be renewable" - Anne Currie, Container Solutions

For years, many of the world's most successful and forward thinking companies have been quietly switching over to sustainable electricity. They have achieved this by buying renewable power (Google is now the world's biggest corporate customer of renewable energy) and by improving the design of data centres (Facebook have helped found the Open Compute Project to share their improved energy efficiency DC designs). Read our forthcoming whitepaper on Sustainable Server Transition for ideas, help, and guidance. But, you are the expert in your own systems. How could they be cleaner and more energy secure?

We propose the tech industry sets a 5 year goal for 100% Sustainable Servers across all data centres worldwide. Every server we operate should be running on sustainable energy. This is achievable and it will benefit everyone - including ourselves through more secure energy sources. Google, Facebook and Apple are showing the way. Let's do it.

"100% Sustainable Servers by 2024"

Sign our petition.