Latest / Technology Now / How to make our IT more sustainable
Transcript
- Aubrey Lovell (00:09): Hey everyone, and welcome back to Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise where we take what's happening in the world and explore how it's changing the way organizations are using technology. We're your hosts, Aubrey Lovell. Michael Bird (00:21): And Michael Bird. Now, sustainability is a big topic in the tech industry. It can mean anything from sourcing sustainable energy in the supply chain to simply turning off the lights in our data centers. But in this episode, we're drilling into something that's arguably under-discussed; how to make IT itself more sustainable through the lifecycle of its products. We'll be asking what changes are being brought about with the rise of AI and we'll be discussing why it's important to think about sustainability at every step of the product's lifecycle. Aubrey Lovell (00:58): All right, everyone, you know the drill. If you're the kind of person who needs to know why what's going on in the world matters to your organization, this podcast is for you. And if you haven't yet, subscribe to your podcast app of choice so you don't miss out. All right, Michael, let's get into it. Michael Bird (01:12): Yeah, let's do it. Aubrey Lovell (01:16): Now, sustainability is obviously more than just a buzzword in tech. It's something our organizations are increasingly having to take seriously to meet our own corporate goals and international regulation and, of course, to help save our environment. Michael Bird (01:29): Yeah, that is all right, Aubrey. Now, according to the International Energy Agency, data centers worldwide accounted for 1% of global electricity demand. And we've linked to that in the show notes. And it may surprise you, but according to reports, the IT industry produces a comparable amount of greenhouse gases to the aviation industry. And we've also put a link to that in the show notes too. (01:50): So, what are we doing to make sure that we are focusing on the right things to make sure tech as an industry is as sustainable as possible? Well, to find out more, I recently had a chance to meet with Karim Abou Zahab, Principal Technologist for Sustainable Transformation at HPE's Living Progress Organization. (02:10): So Karim, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. I'd love to start off with the big question, can investing in more sustainability put you at an advantage? And if so, how? Karim Abou Zahab (02:22): Yeah. So it's a very interesting question because from what we're seeing, what we're hearing from our customers, there are multiple drivers for them to adopt sustainability. And it starts with, especially here in Europe, first and foremost, we have a lot of regulations that are coming in at the data center operators, namely one of them being the EED, or the energy efficiency directive, which was just put into law just this year. Basically, it was put into effect. (02:49): And one way that data center operators are actually adopting IT sustainability, or choosing to adopt IT sustainability, is to be proactive when it comes to these regulations. So to be ahead of the wave, basically. Secondly, we're seeing a lot of change in the whole ecosystem on a global scale. And from what we're seeing is that a lot of consumers, so the end customers of our customers, are requiring more sustainable products. And that doesn't mean only in IT, but we're talking in FNB and everything across the whole spectrum basically. And our customers, or data center operators, are choosing to adopt more sustainable practices in order to appeal to the growing part of the consumers that are requiring more sustainable products. Michael Bird (03:38): So when it comes to IT infrastructure, what's the difference between sustainable and non-sustainable? Are we talking about waste, recycling, power consumption, that sort of stuff? Karim Abou Zahab (03:48): Yeah. So in the team we're not a very big fan of framing it as sustainable versus non-sustainable. That's why we prefer to use the term sustainability of the IT itself. Michael Bird (03:59): Got it. Karim Abou Zahab (04:00): Because there are a lot of decisions that could be made to make the IT more sustainable throughout the lifecycle. And this is where in HPE we try to take a really holistic approach when it comes to that, starting with the beginning. So we have our Design for Environment program, which last year celebrated its 30 years of existence. So we have been thinking about that for more than 30 years in HPE. And now we have our Design for Sustainability program, which includes our own taxonomy as well as we're trying to integrate sustainability within our business units for them to be thinking about including a sustainable factor in the design and development of their future products. (04:42): After that, and as we know, most of the energy that a server, for example, utilizes comes from its use phase and not from its embedded carbon, so to speak. This is where our practice comes in, HPE Sustainable Transformation team. Our practice basically meets up with customers where we share best practices with them on how to achieve better efficiency in their IT operations or while running their IT. What we do as well is that we go around and when we find a topic that is of interest or that helps customers achieve IT efficiency, and we don't find any resources or material about it, we go ahead and we write a white paper about that subject. And this is basically what we do. (05:27): So we have a series of white papers dedicated to the five IT efficiency levers that we basically made, which is our framework, which is over two decades old. And these include data efficiency, software efficiency, equipment efficiency, energy efficiency, and last but definitely not least, resource efficiency. And then, it also doesn't stop there. So what we do at HPE, if we have customers that are interested or if we have data center operators that are interested in looking further and thinking about how can they achieve their sustainable IT operations or IT sustainability, we have a whole wide offering from our advisory and professional services, and these range from helping our customers, even benchmarking. So Energy and Emissions Reporting tool, for example. We can also help them in water usage analysis and basically to help them with the regulatory landscape that is happening now. (06:25): We also have what happens to these assets at the end? And going back to what I mentioned earlier, you can take choices at every single stage of the lifecycle and what happens to those assets when me as a customer or as a data center operator, I do not need them anymore. It doesn't mean that we have to throw them away, of course. And this is where HPFS has been making strides in that space, basically. Michael Bird (06:52): So to have a sustainable IT infrastructure, a sustainable data center, it doesn't happen by accident. It requires some careful planning, probably years before you're even going to start putting any equipment in. You really need to think about it. Is that what you're sensing at the moment? Karim Abou Zahab (07:07): You're exactly on point. So from our conversations with our customers, we're seeing a lot of IT organizations are struggling with how to include sustainability as part of their strategy. So we wrote a six-step workbook on how to implement a sustainable IT strategy. And the first step that we actually included in the workbook is setting up your strategy. And this is where we are trying to help our customers to include that as part of their wider IT strategy. And next after that, step two is gathering the partners, the right partners to help them on that journey. I'm not going to spoil the workbook for you. That's where you need to check it out by yourself. Michael Bird (07:50): So have you seen the attitude to customers change? I don't know, even in the last five years, has it gone from a perspective where you're banging a drum but nobody's listening to now customers are coming to you to say, actually this is something that the business is coming to me on and I need to do something and I don't know what to do? Are you starting to see a shift in customer attitudes? Karim Abou Zahab (08:14): Yes, absolutely. Our engagements have been increasing year-over-year every time that we check. And it's not only our sustainable transformation, our own team's engagements, but also we're getting more and more questions from our customers that are directly related to IT sustainability, whether it's on the embedded part, so the carbon footprint of that IT before they purchase it or before they get it, or how can they actually enhance the way or improve the way they run their it. So their use phase. And we're seeing that, again, driven by regulations, the ecosystem. (08:52): But also very important to mention is that every single time, every time our customers achieve more efficiency in their IT, that, most of the time, results in cost efficiency so that they can actually lower the cost while implementing IT sustainability measures. And from what we're hearing from our customers, a lot of the times they have an internal agreement with their wider business organization that they can actually keep that part of the budget that they're saving up and use it to drive innovation in other places. Aubrey Lovell (09:28): Thanks for bringing us that, Michael. And we'll have more from your interview with Karim shortly, so don't go anywhere. Michael Bird (09:36): Okay. Well, now it is time for today, part of the show where we take a look at something happening in the world that we think you should know about. Aubrey, what do you have for this week? Aubrey Lovell (09:47): So Michael, I know you've got an EV. Michael Bird (09:47): I do. Aubrey Lovell (09:48): So you'll absolutely love this one. Get ready. So, according to new research from the UK, electric vehicles have almost the same lifespan as internal combustion engine vehicles. The report, published in the journal Nature Energy, which we've linked to in the show notes, contradicts one of the most common criticisms about EVs, that they are built to be disposable and don't have the lifespan of their fossil-fueled counterparts. (10:12): The analysis, based on nearly 300 million road worthiness tests, shows how the gap between electric and petrol-powered vehicles has closed in recent years. On average, the study found that the battery electric vehicles last 18.4 years, which is very close to the 18.7 year lifespan of internal combustion vehicles. And what's even more impressive is that the electric vehicles have a bigger total lifetime mileage when compared to their petrol counterparts. (10:39): The study also underscores the importance of sustainable battery recycling as electric vehicles gain popularity. One of the challenges highlighted in the report was that high battery replacement costs could impact adoption. Michael Bird (10:51): Absolutely fascinating. Right. Well, now it is time to get back to my interview with Karim Abou Zahab, Principal Technologist for Sustainable Transformation at HPE's Living Progress Organization. (11:05): There's been a lot of geopolitics going on over the last few years that have meant actually the cost for energy, particularly in my native UK, it's gone up massively. And so I guess there is a big cost saving with using less energy that maybe wasn't the same case 10 years ago where energy was significantly cheaper. Karim Abou Zahab (11:24): Yeah. And we're seeing not only that it's a cost saving measure. We're also seeing in other places, such as in Ireland for example, where the grid or the utilities cannot handle the amount of data centers that are being built. And we're seeing that in Ireland. We're seeing that in Singapore as well, where previous licenses to build data centers are being revoked by the government. And now we're only talking about energy. What about water? And with the advent of AI, for example, we know that water usage is spiking up because of the implementation of AI in a lot of different spaces. So water is also something that we should be focusing on from a resource perspective in the IT world. Michael Bird (12:07): Yeah. Because it's this balance of IT will enable us to do more. And I know when I've spoken to other people, they've talked about how IT can enable an increase in sustainability, but AI uses more everything to be able to do it. So there's that balance there to strike, isn't there? Karim Abou Zahab (12:26): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's good that you mentioned that, because the way that we see it is that we have IT sustainability, which we're talking about, and we also have IT for sustainability. IT can be used as a force for good. Michael Bird (12:39): Absolutely. Karim Abou Zahab (12:40): And AI is no exception to that, basically. In 2015, Hewlett Packard Labs came up with the five AI ethical principles in HPE. And that is AI should be responsible, AI should be human-driven, AI should be robust, AI should be secure, and most importantly, AI should be inclusive. Because we know that there's a lot of unconscious bias, for example, that is getting passed on to the algorithms. Michael Bird (13:07): Yeah, totally. Have we sort of solved sustainability? Is there going to be any innovation over the next few years? Karim Abou Zahab (13:14): I wish things were that easy, to be honest. So the way that we see it is that it's really a journey. There is no end, let's say, result that we're going to achieve and we're all going to sit down and celebrate that we have achieved IT sustainability. With the adoption of newer technologies, of course these technologies at HPE, we try to make them more efficient or more focused on IT sustainability with each time, of course. But at the same time, our customers should be thinking that efficiency is a journey that does not stop. (13:48): So for example, if I have the best equipment there is to run that specific workload, or to run AI for example, that doesn't mean that the cooling in my data center is optimized. That's where, for example, terms such as PUE, power usage effectiveness, comes in. And that's why really thinking across the board, from a data perspective, from a software, energy, equipment and resource perspective. And then why stop there? But looking also beyond the data center. (14:18): So here in the EU, the EED again mandates heat reuse for data centers of a certain size. And as we announced in Discover Las Vegas, we actually announced our enhanced modular data center along with our new partnership with Danfoss, which utilizes those heat pumps, which optimizes it for heat reuse. Next one is still one of the best ways to mitigate the carbon emissions of your IT is by utilizing renewable energy whenever it's possible. And then after I utilize renewable energy, I should be aiming for 24/7 coverage of that renewable energy. And the third point of that is lifecycle services. Again, what happened to that asset after I'm done with it, after I'm done with its first life? Michael Bird (15:05): So a final question that we always ask all of our guests. Why should organizations care about sustainable IT? Karim Abou Zahab (15:14): Well, I would say, first and foremost, the Earth. Data centers are one of the big contributors to the global energy demand. And that's not going to stop, especially when you factor in AI. So AI is really supercharging that energy use and water use at the same time. So we need to think about the environmental impact of what we're doing, of how we're conducting our operations in tech. Next up, what I previously mentioned is basically gaining that competitive edge. So us as consumers on a day-to-day basis, when we go to supermarkets, when we go anywhere and we make these daily decisions, we're trying to focus on more sustainable products. And that's being cascaded all around the line. (16:01): So customers or data center operators should be focusing on becoming more sustainable because it's also more appealing to the wider range of the human population. Again, a gain in efficiency means a gain in sustainability, which means I get to lower my cost, therefore I can actually raise my margin. So everybody's happy. The IT organization is happy because it's contributing to the wider organization sustainability goals. The CIO is happy because they're actually using their IT and making a better use of it. And the CFO and CEO are happy because basically they're getting better cost efficiency throughout their organizations. Michael Bird (16:45): Amazing. Karim, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Technology Now. Karim Abou Zahab (16:49): Thank you so much, Michael, for having me. Aubrey Lovell (16:51): Thanks so much, Michael, for bringing us that interview with Karim. It's been a fascinating conversation, and you can find more of the topics discussed in today's episode in the show notes. (17:02): Okay. Well, we're getting towards the end of the show, which means it's time for This Week in History, a look at monumental events in the world of business and technology which has changed our lives. Michael, what do you have for us today? Michael Bird (17:14): Well, the clue last week was, "It's 1977, and this flight boldly went but it was not alone." Aubrey, do you have any idea what it was? Aubrey Lovell (17:14): I do not. Michael Bird (17:24): I think last week you said, "I think it's something to do with space." And you were correct, because it was the first flight of the space shuttle Enterprise, named after the iconic sci-fi vessel. Now, the Enterprise was ironically never meant to leave Earth. Instead, it was built as a testbed to establish how well space shuttles would handle Earth's atmosphere. Now, to test this, the shuttle was strapped to the top of a jet airliner and underwent a two and a half hour flight to prove that the concept worked and the spacecraft could survive atmospheric flight. Now, the test was successful and led directly to the first orbital shuttle launch, STS-1, with the space shuttle Columbia on April the 12th, 1981. Enterprise would conduct four more tests before being moved to a museum in 1985. I think I've been to that museum. What's the clue for next week, Aubrey? Aubrey Lovell (18:19): Well, the clue for next week is, "It's 1902, and this invention sucked." Any ideas, Michael? Michael Bird (18:26): It has to be some sort of vacuum cleaner. Maybe. Aubrey Lovell (18:30): That's what I'm thinking. Michael Bird (18:31): If it's not, then I've got no ideas. Aubrey Lovell (18:32): Well, we'll have to find out next week. And that brings us to the end of Technology Now for this week. Thank you to our guest, Karim Abou Zahab from HPE's Living Progress Organization. And to you, our listeners, thank you so much for joining us. Michael Bird (18:44): Technology Now is hosted by Aubrey Lovell and myself, Michael Bird. And this episode was produced by Sam Datta-Paulin and Lincoln Van der Westhuizen, with production support from Harry Morton, Zoe Anderson, Alysha Kempson-Taylor, Alison Paisley, and Alyssa Mitchell. Aubrey Lovell (18:58): Our social editorial team is Rebecca Wissinger, Judy-Anne Goldman, Katie Guarino. And our social media designers are Alejandra Garcia and Ambar Maldonado. Michael Bird (19:07): Technology Now is the Lower Street production for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. And we'll see you at the same time, the same place next week. Cheers.