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Data Center World 2023
Data Center World delivers expert strategy and insight on the technologies and concepts you need to know to plan, manage, and optimize your data center. Data Center World educational conference programming is focused on the rapidly advancing data center technologies. Click on session titles for full session descriptions. All times noted are in CST (Austin, Texas time zone).
Avoiding an ESG Nightmare at the Edge
Tony Grayson (General Manager, Compass Quantum)
Location: Room 10AB
Date: Wednesday, May 10
Time: 10:00 am - 10:50 am
Pass Type: Industry Conference, Standard, AFCOM Vendor Member, All Access- BUILD, All Access- Omdia, All Access- Workshop
Track: Sustainability & Mission Critical Facilities Management
Session Type: Session
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: All
The way most companies are thinking about sustainability for their edge infrastructure is a disaster in the making. By reflexively carrying over principles from their centralized data centers, they are laying the groundwork for a variety of ESG-related issues. The problem is scale: there will be tens of thousands of edge facilities in the U.S. alone and hundreds of thousands of them globally. The U.S. is covered with rusting, leaking, carbon-heavy telco huts that were built as cheaply as possible with no focus on sustainability. Today, many of them are disintegrating hulks that are environmental liabilities for the companies that own them and the neighborhoods they are located in. Without the right approach to edge infrastructure sustainability, we are going to repeat those mistakes but at an even larger scale.
Tony Grayson, GM of Compass Quantum, will outline a sustainability strategy for edge infrastructure that avoids that ESG nightmare. He will share a strategy for edge facilities that addresses key sustainability factors such as green materials, minimizing concrete usage, optimizing PUE, renewable energy sources like fuel cells and hydrogen, and more. He will also discuss design and construction strategies that factor in the lifecycle of these facilities and minimize/eliminate the permanent footprint in the neighborhoods where they are located. He will also discuss the economics of sustainable edge deployments, proving that a sustainable design & construction strategy is actually less costly than "cheap" designs, which would force companies to do expensive retrofits to thousands of facilities later one.
Takeaway
- Why un-sustainable edge facilities create an ESG nightmare for companies and communities
- A checklist of key design and construction criteria for edge infrastructure at scale
- How edge facilities can become proofs of concept for sustainability technologies and practices that can then be adopted in centralized data centers
- How sustainable designs can also allow companies to do more with less in markets where skilled trades are in short supply.