Environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations are forcing companies to be accountable for (and reduce) their contribution to carbon emissions and climate change. Achieving ESG goals is an additional burden for individual organisations as they face a whole host of other business pressures in a challenging economic climate. Luckily for our clients, our data centre facilities in Farnborough and Manchester not only provide a secure and resilient location for their business-critical IT and workloads, but actually help them realise their ESG ambitions.
Reducing environmental impact is a key priority for the Datum Group as we strive for data centre sustainability. Unlike many on premise data centre facilities, which can be difficult (and expensive) to upgrade and streamline in line with changing requirements, our purpose-built facility in Farnborough (FRN1), and the two new data centre facilities in the pipeline (FRN1 and MCR2), are designed with energy efficiency at their core. They are equipped with best-in-class cooling and power management systems that minimise energy consumption and carbon emissions, and we run ongoing sustainability initiatives at our facilities to ensure that our sites continue to be as energy efficient as they can be. This is an enormous benefit to our clients who may not have the time or resources to closely track the environmental footprint of their on-premise facilities in the face of other more immediate challenges.
Some key sustainability headlines from across the Datum Group
Outstanding energy efficiency
- Maximising energy efficiency at our data centres makes economic and environmental sense – the less we consume, the better it is for the environment and for our clients to whom we can pass on savings through our efficiency initiatives. We have the infrastructure to run extremely efficiently and the economies of scale to secure excellent power contracts, and our sophisticated Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) system provides complete visibility and insight into the data centre environment and helps us to identify areas where efficiency improvements could be made.
Energy-efficient adiabatic cooling
- The energy efficient adiabatic cooling solutions at our Farnborough facility are designed to maximise energy efficiency using cost effective, state-of-the-art technology. It enables extremely energy efficient, predictable cooling for high and low densities, whilst removing the cooling plant and associated water service risks completely from the IT space.
Power from renewable sources
- Our flagship Farnborough facility (FRN1) has been using power from renewable sources for many years and added full carbon offsetting to that contract in 2020. We are in the process of securing a similar renewable energy contract for our Manchester facility.
Our data centres as a platform for more sustainable IT transformation
- The process of rationalisation and consolidation of equipment that takes place upon migration to our facility (and beyond deployment), means that many clients actually reduce their footprint over time, which reduces their environmental impact. We have made the initial capital investment, which means that our clients don’t need to. Instead, we facilitate a move towards a more manageable OpEx arrangements for our clients.
Innovative battery storage at our Manchester site
- Our Manchester facility is the only colocation facility in the UK to use an energy enhancing 2MW battery storage system with voltage optimisation, which stores electricity from the national grid at times of low demand and discharges it during the most beneficial periods, acting as a reserve during peak tariff times. This reduces unnecessary energy wastage and optimises the incoming power supply.
The use of HVO (one of the world’s purest and greenest fuels) in our backup generators
- Our Farnborough facility was one of the first data centres in the UK to from red diesel to HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil) for our backup generators - a fossil-free environmentally friendly alternative to mineral diesel.
Striving for the most sustainable provision of essential data centre services
It is undeniable that data centres are huge consumers of power (DCs currently use around 1% of worldwide electricity) but as part of the UK’s core data infrastructure, they are essential to the functioning of businesses and the economy. The rate of demand for data centres is expected to rise exponentially as data and computer use to soar, so we have an obligation to improve efficiency and become more sustainable. Technological advances in the data centre sphere have served to significantly reduce the environmental impact of DCs and by continuing to strive for the most energy efficient and sustainable way of providing essential data centre services, we can continue supporting our clients’ business goals whilst minimising the negative impact on our environment.
To find out more about our colocation data centres, please get in contact.
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