The impact of carbon emissions from industries like manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, and energy is quite apparent. However, the environmental impact of technologies used every day is often overlooked. Data storage today also represents 2X the carbon impact of the global airline industry and is growing. In 2023 alone, there was a staggering 120 zetabytes of data generated. And that rate will only grow and compound.
IT leaders have the power to reduce data and technology’s impact on the environment. This blog explores three strategies that lower the carbon emissions of the cloud: Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
#1 Reduce data.
Removing data duplicates is one strategy to reduce carbon impact by cutting down on the amount of data stored. Redundant copies eat up valuable capacity on local hard drives, servers, and cloud storage, leading to higher costs and more energy drain.
Imagine a department with 10 terabytes of data, and 10% is duplicative. That’s a terabyte of wasted storage, which could translate to significant costs, especially if it’s in cloud-based primary storage versus archival storage.” (Source: Oracle “Data Duplication Implications and Solutions” Sep 4, 2024.)
There is the importance of creating data duplicates for archiving, safeguarding, and security. However, innovative technologies like the distributed cloud help organizations achieve redundancy without replication. This reduces data and drastically lowers cloud costs from multi-region storage.
#2 Reuse existing capacity.
Utilizing existing data storage is a key strategy for reducing carbon. Legacy cloud providers build their capacity to cover for peak demand, which means their cloud resources often run below 40% of their maximum potential utilization capacity.
IT leaders need to maximize existing storage and compute resources. Creating more data centers and manufacturing hard disk drives has a detrimental impact on the environment. The amount of power needed to run data centers on a global scale is estimated to be 416 terawatt-hours per year, according to C&C Technology Group research.
Using distributed infrastructure uses spare capacity and compute resources that are already powered and spinning. By optimizing the use of existing hardware, incredible carbon reduction can be achieved. It takes almost no additional electricity to run a drive at 80% capacity versus 20% capacity. Plus, using spare capacity delays the need for carbon intensive mining and manufacturing of new hardware.
#3 Recycle used hardware.
To ensure data is not lost, legacy cloud providers typically depreciate hardware long before it fails. However, manufacturing 1TB of HDD results in 20 kg of carbon. When organizations extend the life of hardware, this further avoids carbon intensive mining and manufacturing.
The distributed cloud can use hardware decommissioned by the hyperscalers, while ensuring that data is always available—even when equipment fails.
Another example of recycling technology is on-demand GPU computing. GenAI is very GPU and resource heavy and one of the main catalysts behind the increased pace of carbon emissions from data centers. Manufacturing more data centers, hardware, and chips is not an environmentally sustainable approach. However, on-demand GPU computing democratizes AI innovation for organizations of all sizes to access the latest GPU processors from spare capacity available. On-demand GPUs, combined with globally distributed cloud storage, enables users to take advantage of spare GPU cycles around the globe.
Be a part of sustainable innovation.
The maxim of reduce, reuse, and recycle still holds true today and can be applied to innovatively approaching how we use technology. Distributed cloud technology from Storj is helping to put these sustainable strategies into action and lowers the carbon emissions of cloud services by up to 83%. Watch this short educational video on lowering carbon emissions from the cloud.
Want to learn more about reducing or avoiding carbon emissions in IT? Storj is a founding member of the Digital Sustainability Alliance, which promotes digital sustainability and shares strategic insights on sustainable technology practices and solutions. As a sustainable technology innovator or user of cloud technology, you can make a difference in building a greener tomorrow.
