Pure Storage survey details role of IT in global sustainability initiatives

Pure Storage®, the IT company that provides the world’s most advanced data storage technology and services, has released a new report in collaboration with Wakefield Research identifying the critical impact of IT on environmental sustainability and the challenges present in addressing the urgent and growing demands for IT to be accountable change drivers.

The new report, “Drivers of Change: Pure Storage IT Sustainability Impact Survey 2022,” looks at how IT professionals can work with enterprise sustainability directors to reduce their organizations’ environmental footprint.

The survey reveals the following highlights:

• Half of Sustainability Managers Are Behind on Sustainability Goals: The majority of sustainability managers (78%), believe their company’s leadership prioritizes sustainability initiatives, with the majority planning to meet sustainability goals within three to seven years (56%). However, only about half of those polled (51%) believe they are on track with their goals.

• Technology Plays a Critical, Growing Role in Driving Sustainability Initiatives: An overwhelming 86% of sustainability program managers agree that companies cannot achieve their sustainability goals unless they significantly reduce the energy usage of their technology infrastructure. This issue will worsen in the coming year, with 81% expecting the impact of technology infrastructure on a company’s carbon footprint to increase.

• Misalignment of IT and Sustainability Teams in Purchasing Decisions: Even as the carbon footprint of technology grows, 59% of respondents believe that vendors’ sustainability is likely to be overlooked during the vendor selection process. This could be alleviated by involving sustainability managers earlier in the process, but nearly two-thirds (64%) say they only become involved after the technology purchasing process has already begun.

• IT Team Support of Company Sustainability Initiatives is Dire:  More than any other function (i.e. finance, leadership, operations), IT was identified as not taking the necessary steps to support their company’s sustainability goals (34%). Only about half (51%) say their IT team is taking proper considerations about sustainability when making decisions about technology purchases.

An overview of the industry’s significance:

Data centers currently consume 1% of total global electricity consumption. According to the World Economic Forum, digitization generated 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 alone; however, if scaled up, digital technologies could reduce emissions by 20% by 2050.

Data centers and digitization are indisputable components of any corporate sustainability strategy. While sustainability managers work to achieve critical environmental goals, they cannot do so without more sustainable IT infrastructure that is efficient, scalable, and simple.

As a result, IT professionals have a fantastic opportunity to assist their organizations in reducing their environmental footprint. IT teams have the potential to make a significant and immediate impact by building and adopting sustainable technology infrastructure, supported by innovative, efficient, and scalable IT vendors, by using technology engineered to use significantly less power, cooling, and waste.
“Responding to the climate crisis is everyone’s responsibility and for those of us in the tech sector, it’s imperative that we do what we can to mitigate the environmental impact of data infrastructure,” commented Omar Akar, Regional Vice President for Middle East & Emerging Africa at Pure Storage.

“As sustainability and energy savings become increasingly critical to organizations around the globe, Pure is continuing to invest in helping customers achieve their environmental and energy reduction goals. Our all-flash technology and unique Evergreen portfolio of subscriptions allows customers to lower their power and cooling consumption, reduce their overall data center footprint and reduce e-waste.”