{"id":57453,"date":"2021-09-17T15:08:34","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T14:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/?p=57453"},"modified":"2023-05-25T11:31:19","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T10:31:19","slug":"changing-the-world-with-sustainable-business-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2021\/09\/17\/changing-the-world-with-sustainable-business-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing the world with sustainable business practices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Organisations have had to reassess their consumption strategies to ensure they can make more sustainable choices when managing and storing data.<\/em> Marco Fanizzi, Vice President and General Manager EMEA at Commvault<\/em>, offers his advice for organisations to develop more environmentally friendly business practices and make better and greener decisions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s no longer possible to ignore the impact we are having on our planet. That\u2019s the clear message coming out of global politics and climate activists. Events like the recent G7 summit in Cornwall have seen renewed pledges by attending leaders to tackle climate change and preserve world biodiversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we all need to take more action to protect the environment while there\u2019s still a chance to reverse the damage we\u2019ve done since the dawn of the industrial age. We need to abandon our old bad habits and find a way to maintain productivity while respecting and cherishing our planet. Yet, while individuals are being offered tangible advice like taking steps to avoid single-use plastics or carbon offsetting against travel, it\u2019s another story for businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a global level, organisations across every sector could make a massive difference to the environment if they increased their efforts to engage in sustainable business practices. The IT sector has an important role to play. Here, more than anywhere, there\u2019s the potential to rollout new and innovative solutions that could help solve (or at least mitigate the effects of) the climate crisis. But just how is this to be accomplished?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learning from COVID-19<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the start of the pandemic \u2014 and the government order to work from home where possible \u2014 businesses across every sector have been disrupted. There\u2019s been a digital revolution and transformation of IT processes and infrastructure at an unprecedented scale and almost unimaginable speed to counter that disruption. Without it, businesses and \u2014 more widely \u2014 the global economy wouldn\u2019t have survived to the extent that they have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic has led to a surge in Internet traffic and skyrocketing data consumption. This is because organisations have had to pivot rapidly to remote work models. It\u2019s also because although the government is continuing to relax most social restrictions, many people are still spending much more time at home \u2014 whether that\u2019s working from home or dedicating hours to watching the latest Netflix hit show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This upward trend in data consumption is unlikely to change even when COVID restrictions finally lift. One reason is that we\u2019ve started to see big businesses like SAP and NatWest Bank championing hybrid working models. This means that, long-term, more people will be at home for more of the day. NatWest, for example, claims that only 13%<\/a> of its staff will return to pre-pandemic office work. Unfortunately, this continuing boost in Internet traffic and the resulting spike in produced data is not positive news for the environment. Data needs power and energy to store it, maintain it and protect it \u2014 and most of that energy still comes off the back of fossil fuel consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Becoming more environmentally responsible with data is reasonably straightforward for consumers. We can research companies to understand if (or how) their business practices aim to reduce their carbon footprint \u2014 or even make an everyday choice such as SD over HD when streaming TV or downloading music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it\u2019s not quite so clear how businesses can reduce the environmental impact of data. Microsoft, Facebook and Google \u2014 some of the world\u2019s biggest data silos \u2014 have committed to becoming 100% renewable through the RD100 scheme, but there\u2019s a lot more that needs to be done.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t let ROT set in<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data is everywhere. Businesses of every size and sector use it to drive forward, improve efficiency and increase profits. Because of this, it\u2019s key to raise awareness about how companies could better manage their data\u2019s carbon footprint as their data landscape increases and their cloud consumption expands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way is to reduce the enormous volume of data that companies produce. Data centres currently account for around 1%<\/a> of the world\u2019s total energy consumption. That might not sound a lot, but that translates to 205 TWh of global electricity use. More concerning is that analysts suggest that we might experience anything between a five-fold and 40-fold increase by 2030 if things continue to go unchecked. In this context, you can see why many people compare data to oil, given its potential to cause environmental harm if we consume it in excess and without being conscious of its impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tackling ROT data is one way to cut down on data consumption. ROT data is Redundant, Obsolete or Trivial data. It\u2019s data that doesn\u2019t contribute anything to normal business operations. It\u2019s often backup copies of what is often relatively unnecessary, or users\u2019 non-work data like personal photos\/emails. Given that it\u2019s not regularly accessed, ROT data is likely to be stored in a secondary physical data centre and builds up round-the-clock energy consumption. Bad news if you\u2019re trying to get a leaner, greener carbon footprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ROT data isn\u2019t easy to tackle. You can\u2019t just go and run a \u2018clean disk\u2019 tool and wipe the redundant information. It needs a cross-company approach \u2014 ideally championed at board-level but bringing in records management, legal, compliance, HR, and of course, IT teams. Most importantly, it can be achieved with effective, intelligent data management solutions that help IT departments focus on the life cycle of their data from the very edge of the corporate network all the way to the data centre \u2013 and remove ROT data more efficiently with fully integrated data management processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To do this, businesses need to understand the value of their data: does it, for instance, actually need to be retained? And if so, for how long? Where should it be stored for easy use and access? If businesses don\u2019t need to keep it, what should happen to it? Companies that identify the answers to these questions can reduce the data they produce and store \u2014 and create a sustainable, environmentally sound cloud infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Build back greener<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working to develop more sustainable business practices has never been more important. Earth is our home and as a global society, we cooperate and unite so that we take better care of it. A lot of companies are only just beginning their sustainability journeys and though it will take time to see the changes, every step in the right direction is a valuable one. Of course, we can\u2019t escape data growth, but businesses can make more environmentally sound storage, management and access choices that can have a hugely positive impact on our planet\u2019s future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organisations have had to reassess their consumption strategies to ensure they can make more sustainable choices when managing and storing data. Marco Fanizzi, Vice President and General Manager EMEA at Commvault, offers his advice for organisations to develop more environmentally friendly business practices and make better and greener decisions. It\u2019s no longer possible to ignore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":57454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14589,55,36,1489,13,13207,93,24],"tags":[324,4276,112,16466,1336,16467,16468],"class_list":["post-57453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data","category-data-centres","category-green","category-insights","category-main-story-newsletter","category-thought-leadership","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-carbon-footprint","tag-commvault","tag-data-centre","tag-data-consumption","tag-data-management","tag-rot","tag-rot-data"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57453"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57901,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57453\/revisions\/57901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}