Recently, multiple high-profile corporate advocates of environmental issues have started rowing back from earlier ‘green’ commitments: Volvo has trimmed its target for all-electric vehicle production by 2030 from 100% to 90%; in March, Shell ‘updated’ (downwards) its 2035 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target; Unilever has also scrapped earlier goals for cutting plastic pollution.
The highest profile ‘oops’ moment keeps recurring amongst hypserscaler cloud services providers. The explosion of generative AI onto the market drove up demand for super-scale, super-fast and super-resource-hungry data centres, blindsiding substantial commitments made to greenhouse gas emissions reductions across their estates. AWS has been removed from the UN-backed SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative); Microsoft’s carbon emissions have risen 30% since 2020; and Google has reported that AI has driven its 2023 emissions to be 48% higher than in 2019.
Robert Pritchard, principal analyst, enterprise technology and services at GlobalData, observes: ‘This is not just bad public relations – it’s bad for the planet. You don’t want to end up with your data centres being cooled as a result of rising sea waters and needing more cooling as a result of ongoing global warming. Look at the news. Climate change is real, taking lives and damaging economies.
If hyperscalers are truly committed to tackling climate change they need to prove it by using their market power to compensate for their GenAI-driven accelerated impact on the environment. There is more demand than supply for their cloud services, so they should stipulate in any customer and supplier contracts that certain sustainability goals are included, helping reduce Scope 2 and 3 emissions. Scope 3 emissions may be indirect, but they can be strongly influenced by the buyer, and they account for the majority (at least 70%) of emissions.
Of course, this is not some sort of ‘carbon offset’ activity, rather proof of true commitment to emissions reduction. If done voluntarily, it will also stop regulators from taking control – and as it stands, getting permission for new data centres is becoming more of a bureaucratic challenge as politicians try to preserve water and energy supplies for their electorate.’
For some time now, GlobalData has been highlighting these fundamental challenges to hyperscalers and data centre service providers – and the need for imaginative solutions (beyond reopening mothballed nuclear power stations). This would seem like a good opportunity to redress the balance a little in their favour before regulators, climate disaster, or popular reactions do it for them.
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