Sustainability starts with data

With all my years working in the technology sector, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the biggest issues defining our industry. But since joining NetApp, I have a new appreciation for the world of data—and how fundamentally it is going to shape the future of sustainability and our planet.    

We’re living through an exponential increase in data creation that is so monumental, we’re finding new ways to describe it.   

To put it in terms a consumer can appreciate, a video game aficionado with a top-of-the-line setup might get a four-terabyte drive for their computer—that’s going to house all the games they have, and probably all the games they could want, for the foreseeable future.     

Now consider that the world’s data footprint for next year is expected to be about 175 zettabytes. That’s the equivalent of 175 billion terabytes. And by 2030, that number is expected to balloon to 1 yottabyte. What the heck even is a yottabyte? That’s the equivalent of 1 trillion terabytes of data.    

This is data on an unfathomable scale, one that’s being driven by advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Our existing digital infrastructure is simply not equipped to handle it.   

To use a plumbing metaphor, we’re going to have to expand our existing data “pipes” and create new ones to help manage the load. And here’s where sustainability comes into the equation: this data infrastructure is going to come with massive energy demands that—if we’re not careful—could come with massive consequences for our planet.    

We already know how this story could go. It wasn’t until 200 years after the start of the Industrial Revolution that we started to consider the environmental impact of the world’s economic transformation. Pollution simply wasn’t priced in as a cost of doing business. Today, of course, we know the carbon debt we racked up—and we’re in a race against time to address it.     

Today, we’re standing on the precipice of a data revolution that will be no less significant than industrialization—and we risk making the same mistake we did back then. Data is currently so cheap that we don’t worry even about wasting it. How else to explain the fact that two-thirds of the world’s data is never used? Storing this so-called ‘dark data’ is currently creating carbon emissions at the same level of the entire global airline industry.  

Businesses can’t afford this. Our planet can’t afford this. So, what can we do?  

 First, let me be clear: I don’t consider data to be some boogeyman. The answer isn’t to downsize data, or to ask people to make do with less. On the contrary, big data—coupled with those advancements in AI—have the potential unlock solutions for many of the most pressing and urgent sustainability challenges we face.     

Instead, we need to focus on creating data infrastructure that bakes sustainability into its DNA. This sort of intelligent data infrastructure is what NetApp specializes in. We help organizations get a holistic view of their data footprint so they can, in turn, reduce their carbon footprint. It’s a virtuous three-step cycle:    

• First, we use observability tools to capture the scope and scale of an organization’s entire data estate, including its energy use and carbon emissions.    

• Second, we use data classification tools to determine what data is being used, what data can be discarded, and what data can be moved to more sustainable locations.    

• Third, we store an organization’s data in the most efficient locations possible, whether that’s on prem or in the cloud.    

Then, the cycle can start all over again—only this time, with reduced energy use, fewer carbon emissions, and lower operating costs. Win-win-win.   

There’s no question that data is going to define our future. Whether that influence is positive or negative will come down to the choices we make today. By prioritizing intelligent data infrastructure, we can ensure that data works for a sustainable future—not against it.  

Learn more about why NetApp is serious about sustainability.