Decarbonising the Tech Sector

Digitalisation World – Issue 1, February 2025

Sustainability Feature

Most enterprise data centre owners and colocation operators are well aware of the necessity to implement carbon emission savings strategies. Leading operators now offer customers 100 percent renewably sourced energy options and are leveraging more intelligent water and energy saving cooling solutions. A few are evaluating new types of fuel sources including cells and even vegetable oil in place of diesel for backup generators. Direct connection to solar and wind energy via on-site battery storage is a further welcome initiative. Adherence to sustainable practices for buildings construction, operation, and maintenance - BREEAM for example - is also increasingly common in the industry.      

However, to reach carbon neutrality by 2030 in line with the EU Climate Change Pact Agreement and amid an increasingly rigorous regulatory landscape, there’s still much to do. Meeting Scope 1 and 2 is one thing which is largely within the control of the enterprise organisation or a data centre operator in terms of direct and indirect emissions produced from energy owned or purchased. But Scope 3 emissions reporting calls for accountability across the entire supply/value chain.  

Those that fall short may risk the potential of fines, reputational damage and losing business. By the same token those that succeed in comprehensively managing and continuously proving their carbon emission reduction credentials, stand to gain significant competitive advantage.        

The challenge

The solution lies in achieving a fully sustainable, truly circular and accountable technology lifecycle management regime. This remains the major untapped area for the IT industry to decarbonise and comply with Scope 3. 

However, this is a major challenge. While owners of on-premises data centres may have direct control over purchasing of ICT assets compared to third party operators whose customers and/or lease finance providers are responsible for sourcing the kit, all data centres are heavily impacted by the sustainability policies and actions of the technology hardware manufacturers and those of their suppliers, distributors, systems integrators and resellers. These are all part of the supply/value chain and need to be more accountable. After all the pre-use product lifecycle phase (product manufacturing to final delivery) accounts for 70 – 90% of total hardware equipment embodied carbon.     

Unfortunately, too many manufacturers are still lacking when it comes to offering modular upgrades of equipment, leading to the rip and replace culture for hardware assets such as servers, PCs, laptops, network kit and cabling every 3 – 5 years. The underlying issue so far is there’s little or no incentive (financial or legislative) for manufacturers or their customers to facilitate asset reuse or recycling.  Therefore, they remain vested in selling ‘net new’ rather than conserving or extending the life of existing hardware equipment. Adding to the growing mountain of e-waste is the conventional approach to disposal of data which all too often results in the destruction of serviceable hard drives, even though there are proven, secure and compliant software solutions available for wiping old data rather than wholesale hardware destruction.

Such wastage is amplified by a prevailing strategy to minimise the cost associated with IT disposal rather than find ways of maximising reclamation of components and precious metals which, increasingly are in finite supply or the subject of geopolitical friction. Putting this into context, the UN  has stated from the 62 million tonnes (Mt) of e-waste produced globally in 2022 (up 82% from 2010 and on track to rise to 82 million tonnes in 2030), less than one quarter was documented as having been properly collected and recycled, leaving US$ 62 billion worth of recoverable natural resources unaccounted for and increasing pollution risks to communities worldwide.

Reinforcing the point, according to UK data , recycling one tonne of PCB boards can contain 40 to 800 times more gold – and 30 to 40 times more copper - than can be mined from one tonne of ore.  But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, a single PCB can contain as many as 60 metals!       

To address this, ‘bioleaching’ that harnesses naturally occurring bacteria to oxidise and leach out the metal content is emerging as a potential game changer, and an area that Bioscope is developing at industrial scale. Crucially, the PCBs we process to reclaim the metals are extracted without the use of harmful acids or smelting and is cyclable. 

The way ahead 

Clearly, any data centre striving to meet its own decarbonisation goals and obligations cannot do so singlehandedly. It is largely beholden to the supply chain stakeholders upstream. At the same time their customers/users tend to accept ever shortening usage periods as the norm. Often, they overlook the benefits of achieving greater product longevity and optimal cost of ownership through the implementation of product maintenance, refurbishment, and reuse programmes.   

This is where the data centre, as a focal point for the enablement of enterprise IT, colocation, cloud computing and carrier connectivity is ideally placed to take a much more active role in decarbonising the tech industry: by lobbying manufacturers, educating users and customers about the necessity and benefits of changing conventional linear practices in favour of circular IT lifecycle management and recycling solutions. Such an approach will not only help decarbonise data centres but the entire tech industry supply chain and help conserve precious materials.

In this regard, engaging directly with or facilitating the services of technology lifecycle and licensed WEE asset disposal (ITAD) providers, such as our sister company, n2s, can add significant value. These will help extend typical three-to-five-year IT asset lifetimes by as much as another five years. And the majority of materials recovered from end of life products will be returned into the manufacturing supply stream including those precious PCB metals and rare earths. There is also the added bonus of financial returns from residual product and component resale values.    

Reporting

Underpinning any circular IT solution must be the ability to accurately measure and audit the entire Scope 3 CO₂e lifecycle for IT at the asset level. However, until recently there has not been a data lake available that joins ICT product carbon emission lifecycles together - prior to, during and post-use - to enable organisations to form a net zero position. This is changing with the emergence of granular reporting tools that provide a full understanding of the environmental position. These will enable data centres to drive decisions that support their own sustainability reduction targets as well as help inform those of their customers from equipment procurement to retention and at the disposal stage. 

In summary, with the world’s growing e-waste problem it’s essential for ICT equipment manufacturers and their supply chains to take more responsibility in helping address it - at scale and in a wholly sustainable way. At the same time, data centre owners and operators are uniquely positioned to play a larger role by facilitating and promoting circular IT product lifecycle management to users and customers, including sustainable recycling and disposal best practices. 

 I 2024 UN Global e_Waste Monitor report

 II Business Waste UK