What Does Earth Day Mean for Data Centres and AI?
Each year on 22 April, Earth Day draws more than one billion people into coordinated action across the globe.
In 2025, the call is clear: accelerate the move to clean electricity.
With the theme Our Power, Our Planet, this year's focus is on tripling renewable energy generation by 2030 — prioritising solar, wind, hydroelectric, tidal and geothermal power.
Data centres confront energy impact
These sources are promoted not just as replacements for fossil fuels, but as practical foundations for climate resilience.
For industries operating at high energy intensity, especially data centres, the message carries urgency.
“This Earth Day, we’re reminded that innovation when used responsibly can be a powerful force for good,” says Sophie Graham, Chief Sustainability Officer at enterprise software firm IFS.
“We see industrial AI playing a vital role in helping high-impact, yet hard-to-abate, sectors like manufacturing and utilities become more sustainable.”
Leaders in the sector are recognising their growing footprint and exploring ways to shift to renewables and cut operational emissions across their supply chains.
With the growing reliance on digital infrastructure, the spotlight is now firmly on data centres.
According to the International Energy Agency, these facilities account for between 1 and 1.5% of the world’s total electricity demand.
The urgency to limit this impact is reflected in various Earth Day initiatives — from coastal clean-ups and climate education campaigns to policy advocacy and low-carbon lifestyle events.
“This Earth Day provides a real opportunity to discuss how data centre owners can go beyond the conversation and turn talk into action,” says Nigel Edwards, Vice President WW Channel Sales & Marketing at Western Digital.
“For a start, improving the hardware efficiency and implementing high-density storage can go a long way in reducing data centres resources. By eliminating extra servers, data centres can lower their overall power and cooling costs and save on floor space.
“Data centres in Europe play a central role in helping the region meet its environmental goals, emphasising the importance of reducing power and energy consumption, emissions, and e-waste to become more eco-friendly.”
Navigating the AI paradox
The same AI tools that consume energy also help reduce emissions when applied to areas like service optimisation and renewable grid management.
“AI offers the ability to optimise resource use, accelerate innovation in renewable technologies and build grid resilience in a way that no other tool can.” explains Sophie
“Our IFS customers are using AI to optimise their service management, resulting in a typical travel time reduction of 37% and helping them towards net zero goals while boosting productivity.”
AI is also proving useful for asset management.
By combining data from multiple sources, companies can improve the reliability of renewable infrastructure and avoid outages.
Green design in action
Start Campus, a Portugal-based data centre firm, is one example of how design and strategy can align to reduce environmental impact.
The company uses seawater cooling to replace freshwater systems and has built SIN01, the country’s largest data centre, fully powered by renewable energy.
“The theme for Earth Day this year, ‘Our Power, Our Planet,’ perfectly aligns with our mission at Start Campus. We recognise that the power to protect our planet lies in the innovative solutions we implement today,” says India Oliveira, Sustainability Manager at Start Campus.
She describes the SIN01 project as both high-performance and environmentally conscious.
Developed to support AI and cloud computing, the facility also includes biodiversity protections.
“But our commitment extends beyond technology. When developing our campus, our commitment to biodiversity is reflected in our comprehensive wildlife translocation programme,” add India.
“We’ve worked alongside academic partners to preserve and study these ecosystems, maintaining the wild character of the surrounding landscape and contributing to scientific understanding of habitat adaptation.
“Earth Day encourages us to reflect on our relationship with our planet, it reminds us that we have both the ability and responsibility to make positive environmental choices.”
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