Making data centres more sustainable

What are data centres? 

Data centres are physical locations, with employees, computing machines, hardware equipment, security and more. They contain the infrastructure necessary for IT systems such as servers, data storage drives and network equipment. This is where organisations store their digital data securely. 

How sustainable are data centres?

Data centres require significant energy to run. They often rely on fossil fuels, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. They also use water for cooling so that equipment doesn't overheat. Many organisations are trying to improve the sustainability of their data centres by looking for ways to make them more sustainable. 

One company working on improving the sustainability of their data centres is Amazon. Amazon Web Services has a data centre which uses a combination of wind, solar, battery, and even nuclear power to provide power to the data centre for operations. 

Who works in a data centre?

There are a variety of roles needed at data centres. To ensure the data remains safe there is a security team on site who would be alerted to anyone trying to physically break in. There are also roles focused on cyber security to handle and deter online threats to keep networks, data and devices protected.

There are a variety of engineering roles within AWS data centres, such as engineering operations engineer, networking engineer and many more. These engineers work alongside other teams and colleagues to ensure IT systems within the data centre run smoothly. 

Reducing water consumption at data centres

Data centres use water to cool and prevent equipment from overheating, AWS has a commitment to be water positive by 2030, to return more water to communities than used in direct operations. To achieve this, the company is using recycled water and rainwater harvesting, supporting in community reuse and funding replenishment projects in areas they operate in. 

Amazon's water replenishment programme has multiple projects, each project tackles local water challenges like restoring ground water, improving water quality or expanding access, focusing on solutions which are measurable and impactful to the communities they serve. 

Engineers will be making data centres more sustainable in various ways, from civil and mechanical engineers that develop and maintain ground water systems, to chemical engineers developing smart learning and machine learning to detect leaks and optimise usage.

Reducing carbon emissions

Power from wind and solar energy can be used to help power data centres, and this can also add new sources of carbon-free energy to the grid. 

Reducing embodied carbon

Embodied carbon is the carbon dioxide emitted when we extract raw materials, manufacture products, transport materials and construct buildings. Reducing embodied carbon means lowering the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere during the making of materials and products. 

Amazon is using lower-carbon concrete and lower-carbon steel to produce buildings. In 2023, AWS built 36 data centres with lower-carbon concrete and 21 data centres with lower-carbon steel. 

Working towards net zero 

Amazon aims to cancel out the carbon it emits by removing an equal amount from the atmosphere. It is working towards this goal using a variety of techniques such as carbon capture, reforestation and renewable energy.