Sustainability

Our world continues to change, and with it the systems that support and impact our society.

Hyperscalers have committed to carbon neutrality, but their commitments rely on carbon offsets purchased from other businesses rather than their own efficiencies. Data center operators have experienced well-publicized fires, plus power shortages directly attributable to global instability have created significant price power hikes. In the USA, wildfires, water shortages, and power grid outages in the West and South are disruptive, signaling future unsustainable conditions for data centers in population-dense cities where future temperatures will spike.

According to the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are becoming increasingly critical across all industries. They go on to assert that “In the latest McKinsey Global Survey, 83% of C-suite executives and investment professionals believe that ESG programs will generate more shareholder value in five years’ time than they do today. And in Accenture’s research on responsible leadership, companies with high ratings for ESG performance enjoyed average operating margins 3.7 times higher than those of lower ESG performers. Shareholders also received higher annual total returns, outpacing poorer ESG performers by 2.6 times.” For organizations of any size seeking a competitive advantage, it’s essential for their operations to have stellar uptime ratings, a low cost of consistent power, access to flexible software tools, application expertise, and all the other things a modern enterprise strives for. But if it is not sustainable for the planet and the people that live on it, it’s a pyrrhic victory.