[LINK] Survey of IT pros .. sustainability just ain't a priority

[Stephen Loosley]

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We polled thousands of IT pros – and sustainability just ain't a 
priority right now

The planet can wait, pal, we've got other problems

By Tobias Man 28 May 2024 
https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/register_it_sustainability/


SURVEY RESULTS While Big Tech wrings its hands about things like 
greenhouse gas emissions, IT teams out in the trenches aren't nearly as 
concerned about the eco-sustainability of their infrastructure.

In fact, just 16.7 percent of the 2,869 IT professionals surveyed around 
the world this season by The Register considered sustainability a top 
issue, and only 38.7 percent considered it a priority at all. That said, 
the sentiment on environmental friendliness varies by region.

An El Reg survey found U.S. IT organizations cared the least about the 
sustainability of their infrastructure

The survey found that US enterprises cared the least about the 
environmental impact of their IT infrastructure with less than a third 
rating it as a priority. Meanwhile sustainability ranked slightly higher 
in EMEA and APAC. This is possibly due to generally higher operating and 
power costs in these regions, which focus the mind on doing more with less.

In fact, it shouldn't come as a surprise that, of those organizations 
investing in sustainable IT practices and infrastructure, most were 
doing so out of economic convenience rather than out of concern for 
Mother Nature.

It seems that most enterprises investing in IT sustainability are doing 
so in a bid to cut costs

More than half of respondents (53.9 percent) cited reducing operating 
expenses as their primary motivator, followed by curbing their 
environmental footprint and minimizing energy consumption in second and 
third place.

Just over a third cited regulatory requirements and improving customer 
perception as motivating factors. We don't imagine many enterprises have 
datacenters capable of consuming so much water or power that they feel 
the need to distract customers, let alone regulators, with massive solar 
or wind projects. It seems that greenwashing is still a game for the 
biggest IT infrastructure providers.

The majority of respondents said they were opting for a combination of 
energy efficient hardware and virtualization to curb energy use.
As for how IT teams are actually tackling sustainability issues, over 
half said they were prioritizing energy-efficient hardware and software 
and using virtualization and other datacenter consolidation techniques 
to reduce their footprints.

Rack consolidation, through a combination of higher core count CPUs and 
virtualization or container technologies, has become a major talking 
point among chipmakers in recent years. During its 4th-gen Epyc launch, 
AMD boasted that just five, dual-socket Epyc 4 systems could take the 
place of 15 Intel Ice Lake systems. Since then, chip vendors including 
Ampere and Intel have made similar consolidation claims.

While more efficient hardware can replace multiple legacy systems, it's 
also bound to generate more waste, to Register readers' minds.

Worryingly, roughly a quarter of respondents said they didn't have a 
formal process for managing e-waste

Asked about how they're handling e-waste, 45.9 percent of respondents 
said they were donating or repurposing aging equipment, while 39.8 
percent said they were giving their systems a second lease on life 
through refurbishment. Between 30.2 and 38.8 percent said they either 
handled some form of recycling program or were partnered with an e-waste 
management firm.

Worryingly, roughly a quarter of respondents said they didn't have a 
plan for managing their e-waste at all, something that in 2024 you'd 
think folks would have figured out. It's not 1999. You can't just drag 
that ancient laser printer out back and take your revenge on it Office 
Space-style any more, and you certainly shouldn't leave its corpse to 
leach heavy metals into the soil.

Microsoft's carbon emissions up nearly 30% thanks to AI

Intel's green dream is chips without any dips in Mother Nature's health

However, more efficient gear is only one way to reduce the carbon 
footprint of your infrastructure. A little over a third of respondents 
said they were implementing power management policies and utilizing 
renewable energy sources.

While the latter can be rather tricky to predict, since green energy 
sources often depend on environmental factors like whether the wind is 
blowing or the sun is shining, power management features are something 
industry experts have been arguing in support of for years.

Schneider Electric has previously encouraged operators to embrace a 
variety of management systems, including ones related to electrical 
power, amid the surge in demand for AI compute capacity.


Meanwhile, at the platform level, most CPU vendors have put some kind of 
power management system in their latest generation of chips to help 
reduce idle power. However, fears over application instability or 
performance losses mean these features often end up getting disabled.

As for how environmental impact factors into purchasing decisions, it's 
kind of a mixed bag.

Generally speaking, larger enterprises are more likely to factor 
sustainability into their purchasing decisions

As you might suspect, as enterprises grow larger, sustainability does 
appear to factor in who they do business with - at least to some extent. 
The main outlier observed was among the smallest businesses, which 
appear to be prioritized green gear at the second highest rate.

The survey found that the biggest consideration, when it came to 
sustainable suppliers, whether they were actively trying to reduce their 
environmental impact through things like renewable energy use or green 
datacenters.

While respondents don't seem worried about public perception, it seems 
their suppliers ought to.

Other considerations included whether vendors had committed to ethical 
and fair labor practices, had documented sustainability policies like 
ISO 14001 or B Corp certifications, or releasing things like annual 
environmental, social, and governance reports.

So while respondents aren't all that worried about public perception, 
their suppliers ought to be. ®

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