It’s no longer a surprise to hear organisations pushing their ESG credentials, particularly around sustainability. It’s become part of the corporate lexicon and so it should. In the aftermath of Cop26, keeping a 1,- degree increase in global warming within reach has kick-started many organisations to focus on setting net zero goals and laying out a plan to achieve them. Cop27 has served to keep focus on this critical measure.
By Anthony da Silva, country manager: South Africa at Pure Storage
A recent Oracle study found that 57% of South African respondents believe businesses can make more meaningful change on sustainability than individuals or governments alone. Additionally, 76% said they were willing to cancel their relationship with a brand that does not take sustainability and social initiatives seriously.
With a lack of guaranteed electricity supply in South Africa, organisations are looking for solutions which consume less energy – it’s another reason this issue is being pushed higher up the corporate agenda.
Unfortunately, there is a continued disconnect between many organisation’s public facing efforts and internal action. Pure Storage recently conducted research* of an international group of sustainability program directors which found that while 70% of survey respondents had committed to be net zero by 2030 or sooner, only 51% were on track with their sustainability goals.
This gap has got to be closed. There’s a lot of enthusiasm and willingness to make change, but a lack of clarity on where to start. Where should the C-Suite direct their attention? Here are four key areas to focus on and make positive, impactful change.
Measure everything
Many organisations aren’t sure what their energy use costs or statistics are – for example power and cooling costs or how many Mega Watts per hour are used. Some costs are simply accepted without being measured.
Not only is this bad business practice, but it also doesn’t help understand where environmental improvements could be made. If a manager doesn’t get positive feedback from the wider business for implementing energy saving technology, how is this improvement tracked or celebrated?
Organisations should ask for tools to calculate how much power is being used and how much is being saved. It’s a game changer for organisations to demonstrate how sustainable different solutions are.
There needs to be an integrated, top-down strategy to measurement. While it could be hard to get a holistic view, it’s necessary in order to understand benchmarks. For example, in a data centre: what are the technologies which are the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions; what is the power consumption; how can technology choices positively change this? If activities aren’t measured, they can’t be improved and achievements can’t be quantified.
Eliminate legacy systems
After measurement has been carried out, it will become clear where the pain points are and what needs to be done to improve energy use and reduce emissions.
It’s often cited that energy reduction isn’t possible because of the carbon hungry and inefficient existing technologies. Not only do they hold back progress and innovation, but they could also block improvements in emission reduction. However, some technology changes have such a significant cost saving in terms of the energy they use, it’s part of the value proposition in implementing new infrastructure.
For example, Admiral, a Pure Storage customer in the UK, saw data centre power and cooling costs cut by 74%, and reduced power consumption by 56% upon moving to Pure Storage. Italian customer, Elmec, a Managed Service Provider, reduced data centre footprint by 85%, cut power usage in half and has seen faster return on investment due to the reduction in data centre costs.
There are many South African customers having this conversation. Due to load shedding customers are building out and driving a renewable energy charter for their orgnaisation. Additionally, from a business perspective, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to renew HDD and legacy infrastructure because the spend has shifted to keeping the proverbial “lights on” and operations running – using secondary power sources like generators to support key infrastructure. Anecdotally Pure has customers who have seen such a reduction in the energy consumption that the all-flash infrastructure has paid for itself.
In addition, as organisations start to look beyond Scope 1 and 2 emissions and consider Scope 3, it will become clearer that not only do they need to look inwards but find out about external providers’ energy use. Ignorance will no longer be an option and it’s vital to know the specifics. Legacy equipment will have a large impact on scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions so it will pay to address these issues in the short term for long term reductions.
E-waste is another important consideration. What happens at the end of a product’s life? Legacy hardware is often shredded after three or four years, creating a big addition to the environmental impact of technology. The alternative is technology which has longevity built in and not designed for periodic obsolescence. It doesn’t need to be changed every few years, but rather is upgraded to ensure its kept in optimum condition.
Talk about it
Most organisations are figuring out where their efforts are best placed. Be open and honest about progress, otherwise it will be seen as greenwashing. This isn’t a competition where there are winners – it’s about helping the planet. Hearing from others about what they’re doing is valuable. It helps to collaborate and understand both an industry perspective as well as alternate views.
Internally, the entire organisation needs to be involved and invested. We’ve seen more organisations publishing sustainability or ESG reports which lay out their goals, often sponsored by the CEO. It’s a key document to educate employees and prospects and highlight the organisation’s priorities. Additionally, it can be useful as a recruiting tool with younger people being acutely aware of the importance of sustainability.
Recruit a sustainability officer
If an ESG report is a rallying cry, how do organisations harness all the enthusiasm into action? We will see more and more roles focusing purely on sustainability. It’s hard to corral all the different strands of thought and action within an organisation so it makes perfect sense to have a senior sustainability officer take control. They will need to ensure that the overall sustainability strategy is known and understood right across the organisation to maximise the impact of activities and changes.
The role of chief sustainability officer isn’t too far away as we get closer to the date when organisations need to meet net zero goals. It’s a growth area with more awareness and more roles being offered.
Harnessing enthusiasm into action
Being more sustainable is important for people and the planet and it’s essential for organisations to adopt greener practices. There’s a lot of enthusiasm and it’s so important to garner this into impactful action. In doing so, not only are organisations doing the right thing, but if they implement the right processes and technologies, they could quickly save money as well as emissions.
My hope is that one day we won’t be talking about these steps and processes as sustainability initiatives but rather as standard business practice. We need to be open and honest about what action is working and where we can make future improvements for the good of the planet as well as better business.