TCO Certified for data center products has been available for almost a year now. Barton Finn, Purchaser Engagement Manager at TCO Development, shares his insight on trends for sustainable data center products and the critical role procurement plays in driving progress.
We asked Barton about what’s important to purchasers if they are to advance the sustainability of data centers in a meaningful and comprehensive way.
“IT sustainability is a growing trend as the impact of this industry has become clear nowadays. Procurement sits at the frontline of the shift to sustainability as a core strategy, with more and more purchasers leveraging their decisions to influence the market towards broader societal goals. Still, one important piece seems to be missing in the picture so far: data centers.
Among the main reasons explaining this situation: the “invisible” and highly complex nature of data centers and the servers and other equipment they contain, which led manufacturers to focus on quick fixes, such as reducing energy consumption… But we are still not hearing much about other sustainability issues: what about supply chain responsibility for the manufacturing phase? Factory working conditions? Conflict minerals? Dangerous chemicals? The list is long, and with the exponential amount of data created each year – set to reach 74 zettabytes1 in 2021 – these questions on the sustainability of the devices handling our datastreams become highly relevant for purchasers.
Supporting the efforts for more sustainable data center products is precisely why we recently extended our certification to cover the hardware used in data centers. After months of initial engagement with purchasers around the use of these new product categories, here are some reflections on how the sustainability of data centers is currently tackled and what is key for moving forward: