Despite their status as critical national infrastructure (or, perhaps, because of it), data centres face heavy and constant scrutiny regarding their power consumption and environmental impact. As such, the data centre industry must increasingly demonstrate how it can reliably support digital demand whilst doing everything possible to operate sustainably. Might the solution lie in adopting the principles of the circular economy?
Data centres in a circular economy
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Balancing data centre demand and sustainability
What is the circular economy?
A circular economy is an economic model designed to minimise waste and make the most of available resources – it offers a sustainable approach to managing resources, reducing waste, and improving operational efficiency. Instead of the traditional linear model of ‘take, make, and dispose’, the circular approach focuses on keeping materials, products, and resources in use for as long as possible.
Because data centres are energy-intensive facilities that rely heavily on complex hardware, infrastructure, and energy resources, they are perfect candidates for adopting these circular principles.
Maximising resource efficiency
Power and cooling are two of the most resource-hungry elements of data centre operations. Transitioning to renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric power, allows facilities to grow without reliance on carbon-intensive fossil fuels, whilst deploying energy-efficient cooling systems can dramatically reduce the power required to maintain optimal server temperatures, directly lowering facilities’ overall energy demands.
Lowering operational costs
By implementing energy-efficient systems, data centre operators can significantly reduce their long-term operational costs. Heat recovery systems like the heat reuse capability we built into our recent Manchester data centre construction project (MCR2), serve as an excellent example of circularity in action. Servers naturally generate heat, which facilities traditionally vent outside. A circular approach captures this waste heat and repurposes it to warm nearby commercial buildings, homes, or agricultural facilities. This turns a costly waste byproduct into a valuable resource and creates new efficiencies.
Designing for lifecycle management
Effective lifecycle management is crucial for maintaining a sustainable data centre, and involves carefully managing how physical assets, from server racks to cooling infrastructure, are renewed and written off. The best-case scenario involves designing data centres from the outset with appropriate, forward-looking technology that prioritises sustainability. Doing so ensures the facility can handle increasing computational loads without requiring expensive, highly disruptive capital upgrades later.
Meeting rigorous sustainability standards
Building a new greenfield data centre enables operators to incorporate cutting-edge sustainable technologies and circular designs from the outset. However, it demands significant raw materials and land. Upgrading a legacy brownfield site, meanwhile, comes with its own challenges but fits well into a circular economic system. Retrofitting older facilities with modern, energy-efficient technology requires meticulous planning but repurposes existing buildings and infrastructure. For example, at MCR1 in Manchester, we upgraded an existing office building, while MCR2 involved demolishing a derelict job centre on our secure campus. Similarly, our ongoing FRN2 project in Farnborough is redeveloping a car park within our existing boundary, which helps reduced embodied carbon through fewer enabling works and shared infrastructure. We conduct full embodied carbon assessments for all data centre constructions to measure and minimise emissions associated with the build in order to move towards a more circular and resource-efficient system, and we are part of the GRESB scheme, which allows us to measure, benchmark, and improve our ESG performance.
Even backup systems can align with these sustainability goals. While data centres must maintain backup power to guarantee uptime, they no longer need to rely on diesel fuel. We’ve been using hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) in our backup generators since 2022 to cut greenhouse gas emissions and support our broader sustainability targets.
The path forward
The demand for digital infrastructure will only continue to accelerate. By embracing the circular economy, data centre operators can continue to provide the critical digital infrastructure global economies require whilst minimising their impact on the environment.
If you would like to find out more or arrange a tour of our Manchester and Farnborough data centres, please get in touch with our team today.