Is your Data Centre Clean or Dirty?

Gargantuan amounts of energy are needed to power our personal devices, data centres and surrounding infrastructure. And demand is only increasing.  

Telcos and IT services consume approximately 4% of Australia’s electricity – equivalent to 580,000 homes, more than all the homes in Adelaide. 

The good news is that 98% of the reported carbon emissions of telcos and data centre companies comes from electricity, which means most of these companies can cut a massive swathe through their carbon pollution – simply by switching from coal power to 100% clean electricity.

And it’s happening!

Tech giants Google, Apple and Facebook have led the way and run their entire global operations on 100% renewable electricity! Other major tech and telco companies like Telstra, TPG Telecom, Global Switch and Equinix have followed suit, committing to be powered entirely by the sun and wind by 2025 or 2030.  

But there are still a few major electricity users lagging behind… 

Find out who’s leading the way in the Tech, Telecom and IT sectors here.

NEXTDC, Optus, DXC Technology: green electricity or greenwash?

Among those yet to make a firm commitment to 100% renewable electricity are Australia’s second biggest telco Optus, and data-centre companies like NEXTDC and DXC Technology.

NEXTDC claims it is carbon-neutral – and heavily promotes its climate credentials and plans to its customer base – but the company relies on dubious carbon offsets to make its claims. 

Similarly, Optus has set a goal to be net-zero by 2050, but like NEXTDC, has not committed to end its reliance on polluting fossil fuels – the #1 driver of climate change. 

DXC uses 33% of purchased or generated electricity from renewable sources but has made no indication of going 100% any time soon.  

Many companies propose to rely on carbon offsets to meet net-zero targets. But carbon offsetting is riddled with problems and in many cases is no more than corporate greenwash.

Here are just some of the issues with companies using offsets to reach net-zero with no plan to commit to 100% renewable energy.

  • It delays meaningful action. Companies use offsets as a ’right to pollute’, purchasing cheap credits while not setting more credible plans to reduce their own emissions at source. This can divert resources from investing in genuine solutions.
  • There’s just not enough land. There is simply not enough land to ‘offset’ emissions from the burning of fossil fuels – we’d need around another ten Earths to fit all the trees! We need to be protecting and restoring forests and eliminating fossil fuel consumption
  • It’s not a permanent solution. Given risks of fire, disease and drought, forest based schemes are not able to guarantee carbon is stored permanently. Eg. forest offsets in the US purchased by BP and Microsoft recently went up in smoke following intense forest fires.
  • It doesn’t always make a difference. Many schemes cannot demonstrate that the carbon savings would not have happened anyway. Eg. overseas renewable projects are positive, but are likely to get finance without the purchasing of credits. 

Find out more on the problem with carbon offsets here.

For companies like NEXTDC and Optus to live up to their climate leader ambitions they need to phase out energy from fossil fuels and switch to 100% renewable electricity by 2025. 

It’s time for Australia’s biggest electricity using companies to move from being part of the problem, to part of the solution.