Pip Squire

Pip Squire

Head of Sustainability

Ark Data Centres Limited
Share
The data centre industry faces an inflection point, balancing skyrocketing demand with urgent environmental concerns and the need for a cultural shift

Data centres are the backbone of our digital infrastructure, processing and storing the vast amounts of data that fuel our modern lives. However, as our reliance on digital services grows exponentially, so does the environmental footprint of these data powerhouses. As a result, the data centre industry now faces a critical challenge: how to meet the rocketing demand for data services while minimising its impact on the planet.

Ark Data Centres has been at the forefront of addressing this challenge since its inception in 1999. At the helm of Ark’s sustainability efforts is Pip Squire – today the company’s Head of Sustainability – whose journey with the company spans over two decades. 

“My history with Ark Data Centres goes back to before Ark was Ark in 1999,” he says. “So through our evolutionary journey over the last 20-odd years I have been Engineering & Projects Director, Design & Build Director, Head of Design, Energy & Innovation, Head of Energy & Sustainability – a finger in just about every pie.”

This wealth of experience has positioned Pip uniquely to lead Ark’s sustainability initiatives. “We've always had sustainability at the heart of what we do,” he says, “and that started out in the early days with a real focus on energy efficiency.” 

The hidden cost of our digital lives

The average person might not realise the environmental implications of their digital activities. Every photo shared, every video streamed and every document saved in the cloud contributes to the energy consumption of data centres worldwide. 

“Data centres are big beasts. We use a lot of energy, absolutely, but compared to the rest of the internet that we are supporting, it's very small,” Pip explains. “50% of all the energy required to run the internet, including end-user devices, is consumed by those devices themselves. 25% of the energy is used sending the data from that end-user device to a data centre. The last 25% is used in the data centre itself. Of this last 25% used in the data centre, 80-85% is used by the servers supporting all our data needs, the remaining 15% is what the data centre consumes to support the servers. In other words, the data centre itself only uses 4% of all the energy we consume to meet our data needs from end to end.”

This breakdown highlights an often-overlooked aspect of digital sustainability: the role of consumer behaviour and end-user devices in the overall energy consumption picture. While data centres can represent an easy target for criticism due to their large, centralised nature, the reality is that consumers’ personal devices, data transmission networks and the servers supporting our data demands play a far more significant role in the environmental impact of our digital lives, than a data centre.

“In the old days, you took photographs with a 35mm camera,” Pip continues. “You had 36 shots on a roll of film, and you were careful about how you took those pictures. You probably printed four and put them in an album and the rest got binned. Now, for every photo, we take two because one might not be perfect. And we don’t delete the one that’s not perfect, we store it in the cloud and leave it there - forever.”

This shift in behaviour has led to an exponential increase in data storage requirements. “People expect things to happen instantly,” Pip says. “When I started out in engineering back in the late 1970s, if I went to a site, I communicated with the head office by telex machine. You’d go to the post office, type four words to report your progress, and get a response back maybe the next day. Now, people want an instant response. Someone sends a WhatsApp message and expects an immediate reply. That is all data, and it’s all being kept and stored.”

Read the full article HERE.


Make sure you check out the latest edition of Sustainability Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series - Sustainability LIVE 2024​​​​​​​


Sustainability Magazine is a BizClik brand

Ark Data Centre - Spring Park
Ark Data Centres Site
Ark Data Centres - Cold Zone
Ark Data Centres - Cody Park Site
Share

Featured Interviews

Featured

Craig MacFadyen

Director of Offer Strategy and Portfolio Management at Munters Data Centre Technologies

Meet Craig MacFadyen, the Director of Offer Strategy and Portfolio Management at Munters Data Centre Technologies

Read More

Andrew Kimball

President & CEO

How New York City Economic Development Corporation’s Green Economy Action Plan and harbour revamp have sustainability at their centre

Read More
New York City’s green economy will host nearly 400,000 jobs by 2040, becoming the anchor of a prosperous, equitable and just future for New Yorkers.
Andrew Kimball
President & CEO

Olivier Blum

EVP Energy Management at Schneider Electric

Olivier Blum, Schneider Electric’s EVP Energy Management, on how the company strives to be influential in sustainability in theory and in practice

Read More

Kevin Dunckley

CSO at HH Global

Kevin Dunckley, CSO at HH Global, tells why he has a ‘spring in his step’ as he drives sustainability for the company, its clients and their suppliers

Read More

Chris Shanahan

VP Global Sustainability Supply Chain

Chris Shanahan, Alyssa Caddle and Matthew Yamatin lead procurement and supply chain sustainability at Thermo Fisher Scientific

Read More

Craig MacFadyen

Director of Offer Strategy and Portfolio Management at Munters Data Centre Technologies

Meet Craig MacFadyen, the Director of Offer Strategy and Portfolio Management at Munters Data Centre Technologies

Read More