Schneider Electric, working with 451 Research, Forrester and Canalys collected data from more than 3,000 global participants, include the largest colocation and cloud providers, IT solution providers and IT professionals across many segments and organisation sizes.
Overall, they said their findings "consistently demonstrate that across the data centre and IT industry, there is discrepancy between where companies think they are and implementing full lifecycle sustainability programs across their IT infrastructure".
According to the findings by 451 Research, which surveyed 1,100 IT professionals responsible for core and distributed IT, 26% of participants self-identified as having a full lifecycle sustainability programme covering all the infrastructure, yet only 14% are taking the actions to have implemented the schemes.
Further, 22% were identified as not addressing sustainability "as a major focus", although they may have efficiency initiatives to improve specific areas of operations.
“Data centres play a critical role in driving Electricity 4.0 which we believe is the key to changing the trajectory of climate change," said Pankaj Sharma, EVP of secure power division at Schneider Electric.
As an industry, we have a responsibility to drive forward our environmental commitments with extreme urgency. We’ve made some progress but to avoid a major energy challenge, all data centres – including distributed edge data centres -- must be more sustainable, efficient, adaptive, and resilient.
Sharma continued: “The research is clear – the industry knows sustainability needs to be prioritised but challenges still exist to taking action and will take a collaborative effort to overcome. The good news is the technology to take action in sustainability exists today. Now is the time to act.”
The conclusions echo those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said in early April that climate targets will be missed without urgent and unprecedented action around the world.
Off the back of its research, Schneider Electric has unveiled its new Easy Modular Data Center All-in-One solution, which combines power, cooling, and IT equipment into a single, pre-configured solution, providing exceptional value for businesses seeking to implement an edge computing strategy.
On 8 June at 3:00pm CET/ 9:00 am ET, Schneider Electric is holding a LinkedIn Live event where company executives will discuss Electricity 4.0.
