New study: Data centers in Europe – opportunities for sustainable digitalization

Data centers are tasked to collect, store, process, and distribute large amounts of data. They are at the heart of digitalization, but they can also make a significant contribution to sustainability and to achieving the climate targets in Germany and in Europe.

A new study “Data Centres in Europe – Opportunities for Sustainable Digitalisation” provides an overview of the sustainability effects of data centers in Europe. The direct impacts of data centres on energy consumption and CO2 emissions are considerable. But while the demand for computing power has increased tenfold over the past 10 years, the energy consumption per gigabit in data centres is 12 times lower today than in 2010.

Reducing emissions and expanding the use of renewables

Download the study to learn more about:

• the sustainability effects of data centres
• the current market developments in the area of data centres, especially the impact of cloud computing and colocation
• the development of the energy efficiency and energy consumption of data centres
• the relationship between energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions

In addition to the efforts of European countries to reduce CO2 emissions from power generation, the initiatives of individual data centre operators to expand the use of renewable energies also contribute to reducing emissions. As part of the digital infrastructure ecosystem, data centers can contribute immensely to ecologically sustainable digitalization in Europe.

Download the study “Data Centres in Europe – Opportunities for Sustainable Digitalisation” now.

Sustainability potential of data centers

The study was commissioned by the eco Association for the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, supported by the Vodafone Institute, and conducted by the Borderstep Institute. Part two of the study on the sustainability potentials of data centres will be published in late 2020. In addition to the energy efficiency potentials, it will also examine concrete case studies for energy and resource efficient data centres in Europe.