Building a greener future with sustainable innovation

With sustainability now on the top 10 list of CEO priorities, with some saying it is one of their top 5 priorities, organizations need a strategy for operating more efficiently and reducing carbon emissions. If your company operates in the European Union—or you run a non-EU-headquartered company at the global level—a critical component of that strategy is adhering to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).  

CSRD requires you to disclose comprehensive information regarding the full spectrum of sustainability topics, including environmental, social, and governance. This information is “intended to provide insight into a company’s sustainability impacts, risks, and opportunities, including its sustainability strategy, targets and progress, products and services, business relationships, and incentive programs.” 

By integrating comprehensive CSRD reporting into your overall business strategy, your organization can look forward to reaching sustainability targets as a proactive organizational objective, as well as improving customer confidence and trust.  

However, if your company fails to comply with the CSRD, fines and/or criminal penalties could be levied against you, and it could send negative indicators to stakeholders regarding your commitment to transparency or sustainability—resulting in damage to your corporate reputation and less relevancy in today’s accountability-driven economy. 

What do you need to ensure compliance? 

To ensure compliance, you need a comprehensive strategy that clearly defines your approach to sustainability. For example, your sustainability strategy should include:  

• new data management practices designed to help you reduce data waste 
• processes that enable visibility into all your data, no matter where it resides, to ensure you comply with evolving data regulation standards 
• the ability to classify data and remove duplication 
• systems that store only the data you need in the most carbon-efficient location 

We are in the midst of the “data revolution,” with artificial intelligence (AI) at the epicenter. AI is growing so fast that it’s expected to drive a 160% surge in data center power demand— resulting in soaring consumption, costs, and carbon emissions. 

Surprisingly, though, 68% of all data created will never be used again. This means businesses like yours are needlessly burning IT budgets on storage and energy consumption. 

The solution is to become a proactive player who helps break this wasteful cycle. Rather than continue to use aging IT infrastructure to advance toward sustainability targets—while also managing skyrocketing volumes of data created by AI and other power-hungry, heat-generating applications—you need an intelligent data infrastructure that will help you reduce waste, cut costs, and operate more efficiently.

The world is beginning to align around accepted standards for measuring sustainability initiatives, and SBTi is one of those standards. NetApp adheres to this important benchmark to continue delivering value to our customers. 

Meeting greenhouse gas (GHG) targets approved by SBTi 

To reach new SBTi targets, NetApp is going far beyond reducing its own carbon footprint. We’re explicitly aligning our product development roadmap with sustainable outcomes, making us the first company in our space to do so. This alignment means you can count on NetApp innovations to help manage your data, while also reducing your overall energy usage and costs.  

Dedicated efforts are being made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through science-based targets approved by SBTi. From NetApp’s FY20 baseline, it’s Scope 1 and 2 emissions have already been cut by 31%, aiming for a ~42% reduction by 2030. Additionally, there’s a goal to achieve a 50% reduction in Scope 3 emissions intensity within the same period. The validation of these decarbonization targets by a globally recognized organization like SBTi highlights a strong commitment to advancing sustainability and long-term decarbonization. 

Using clean, renewable energy 

Dedicated to reducing its carbon footprint, NetApp’s strategy is to use clean, renewable energy to power its offices around the world wherever possible. Currently, 90% of NetApp's global sites meet the stringent ISO 14001 certification standards, and boosted its renewable energy usage by 113% compared to the FY20 baseline. 

Adhering to sustainable product design, efficiency, and lifecycle

NetApp is committed to sustainable design, including sustainability in packaging. Foam-free, fully recyclable packaging made from 100% recycled materials was introduced in FY24. Along with reducing shipping materials and improving shipping efficiency, a Product Take-Back Program was also launched, offering free pick-up of NetApp or competitor equipment to divert 99% of e-waste away from landfills. 

Additionally, carbon lifecycle footprint reports for products are available through the Product Attribute to Impact Algorithm (PAIA). And to help your organization to build and operate an efficient, resilient, secure, and performant hybrid multicloud data estate through a single control plane, we offer the NetApp BlueXP sustainability dashboard. 

By delivering sustainability now and continuing to work hard to prepare you for what’s next, NetApp is the intelligent choice for reducing carbon emissions. NetApp is committed to creating practical solutions that are both efficient and environmentally conscious. By focusing on smarter data management, we aim to help your business reduce waste and use resources more effectively.  

If you're looking to align your data strategies with sustainability standards like SBTi and CSRD, we offer tools and resources to support your efforts every step of the way. This includes adopting comprehensive sustainability approaches that incorporate data management practices to minimize waste, ensuring end-to-end visibility across data landscapes, effectively classifying data to remove duplication, and storing data in the most carbon-efficient locations. 

With an intelligent data infrastructure from NetApp, you can take meaningful steps toward a greener and more sustainable future. 

To see how customers like you are tackling carbon emissions, check out the AGL customer story and learn more about sustainable technology. Also, have a listen to the episode, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle of The STEMINISTS.