Ark Data Centres and its CEO, Huw Owen, have been deservedly recognised for their work toward a circular economy in the data centre industry. This comes after Data Centre Magazine featured Owen in its list of the Top 10 CEOs of the most sustainable data centre companies in the world.
With sustainability becoming an increasingly important topic for businesses across all sectors, the need to address the climate emergency has permeated the data centre industry also. How to progress toward a circular economy is becoming an ever more prevalent discussion, with businesses working hard toward their own net-zero goals.
To achieve net-zero, however, efficient leadership is necessary. It is for this reason that Data Centre Magazine looked to give due recognition to some of the top business executives, whose strategies have seen their data centre companies take pride of place among the most sustainable across the globe.
Featuring at number one on the list, Owen [pictured] first joined Ark Data Centres as CEO in 2012, after a year-long stint as the president of BT Global Health. He has also garnered valuable leadership experience working as chief executive of the Atlas Consortium and spent time as a United Nations advisor on Central Asia.
Since taking the helm at Ark Data Centres, Owen has spearheaded a programme to lower operational costs and deliver multiple cloud connectivity, thereby increasing efficiency and sustainability. This has seen the company move to cut down on its water consumption, introduce direct air evaporative cooling to heighten efficiency, reduce energy wastage, and axe the use of diesel from its standby generators to be replaced by a greener alternative in hydrotreated vegetable oil, among other innovative steps.
The business has also made a major statement in its plans to tackle climate change by signing up to the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact [CNDCP], a group of data centre operators and trade associations committed to the European Green Deal.
The coalition of industry operators has pledged to do everything in its power to help achieve the ambitious greenhouse gas cuts outlined in the climate law and to leverage technology and digitalisation to help make a Net Zero Europe a reality by 2050. Given the steps it has taken, it is clear that Ark Data Centres is taking a lead on the issue.
Owen comments: “To ensure that data centres are an integral part of the sustainable future of Europe, data centre operators and trade associations have agreed to make data centres climate neutral by 2030.”
It is the efforts of Owen and businesses like Ark Data Centres that have enabled the wider industry to become even more efficient. Indeed, in 2015, the total amount of energy consumed by the global data centre industry totalled approximately 189 terawatt-hours, with traditional enterprise and colocation data centres accounting for the majority of that at 97.62 terawatt-hours. By 2021, even though global data centre capacity grew significantly by the year, the total estimated energy consumption of the industry remained flat at 189 terawatt-hours.
Aggregate power consumption in the sector has been able to remain flat as the industry transitions towards a cloud-centric model, with capacity, computing power and efficiency all enjoying a sharp rise. Companies such as Ark Data Centres under Owen’s leadership have been at the forefront of this innovation, allowing the sector to flatten operational carbon emissions while meeting ever increasing demand. As the industry seeks to go beyond flattening carbon emissions and moving toward net-zero, firms such as Ark Data Centres will continue to play a major role.
