{"id":2422,"date":"2013-04-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otava.test\/data-center-industry-lowers-carbon-footprint\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T06:34:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T06:34:15","slug":"data-center-industry-lowers-carbon-footprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/data-center-industry-lowers-carbon-footprint\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Data Center Industry Lowers the Carbon Footprint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Data Center Industry Lowers Carbon Footprint<\/strong><br \/>\nFor many years, the data center industry has received a bad rap for being energy hogs.\u00a0 In 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned everyone that data centers and servers would consume 3% of the nation\u2019s energy by 2011. &#8211; <em>This prediction did not happen. It is actually around 1.5%<\/em> &#8211; Then last year, the New York Times published a damaging article \u201cPower, Pollution, and the Internet\u201d claiming that most data centers wastefully consume a lot of energy.\u00a0 Read <em><a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/blog\/how-the-cloud-is-changing-the-data-centers-bad-reputation-for-energy-inefficiency\/\">How the Cloud is Changing the Data Center\u2019s Bad Reputation for Energy Inefficiency<\/a><\/em> for a response to some of the major points of the article. What organizations and experts fail to understand is how data centers are actually lowering the carbon footprint.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lowering the Carbon Footprint<\/strong><br \/>\nI had a chance to sit down with Yan Ness, co-CEO of Online Tech to discuss his thoughts on how the data center industry has impacted their carbon footprint. Watch the video below:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RlGuz4HURkc?list=UUM8ZIzbuHrrqH6u0jdcNBhA\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Every piece of hardware consumes some energy.\u00a0 And for data centers this hardware consumes a lot of power.\u00a0 As a result, the data center industry has begun using technology to make hardware more efficient.\u00a0 \u201cWe can do more today than we could three or five years ago,\u201d says Ness.\u00a0 \u201cWe use less energy to do more work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ness also uses the following example:\u00a0If you take all the hundreds of companies who are consuming energy to power their servers and air conditioning and move them into a centralized location there are important advantages.\u00a0First, the data center is much more efficient than any of the office buildings that were running their servers.\u00a0Secondly, there is one centralized company paying for all of the power consumed by the servers and other equipment. Now, it makes economical sense for that data center to make capital investments and become more energy efficient; whereas it would be very unlikely that any of these companies could make these types of investments.<\/p>\n<p>Data centers are in the business to store data.\u00a0It does take power to run the servers, run the equipment, and run the air conditioning to keep the servers cool.\u00a0And this power costs money.\u00a0What people fail to consider is that it is in the data center industry\u2019s best interest to become as energy efficient as possible. There is a direct benefit to constantly monitor the energy use of their facilities and make investments to improve efficiencies since it affects the bottom line.<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Data Center Energy Efficiencies<\/strong><br \/>\nThe data center industry has made great strides in incorporating technology and investing in capital improvements to lower their carbon footprint.\u00a0In 2012, Online Tech invested $1 million dollars into their <a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/operations\/locations\/michigan-cloud-and-data-centers\/\/locations\/mid-michigan-data-center\">Mid-Michigan data center<\/a> and received an EPA ENERGY STAR certification for their energy efficiencies.\u00a0This improvement resulted in Online Tech being in the top 25 percent of facilities in the nation regarding energy performance.\u00a0Read how <a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/blog\/investing-in-data-center-efficiencies-part-one\/\">Online Tech has incorporated other energy efficiencies<\/a> in their <a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/operations\/locations\/michigan-cloud-and-data-centers\/\">Michigan data centers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Related Articles:<br \/>\n<em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/blog\/the-next-generation-data-center-how-michigan-data-centers-fit-the-bill\/\">The Next Generation Data Center: How Michigan Data Centers Fit the Bill<\/a><\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nWouldn\u2019t it be cool to have a time machine like Marty McFly in \u201cBack to the Future\u201d to see what technology will be in 20 and 30 years from now? Unfortunately, that\u2019s only possible in the movies. In What will \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/blog\/the-next-generation-data-center-how-michigan-data-centers-fit-the-bill\/\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/blog\/could-wind-farms-power-michigan-data-centers\/\">Could Wind Farms Power Michigan Data Centers?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nGlobally, data centers are seeing increases in their power consumption as well as higher energy costs. If you combine these factors together, you can understand why CIOs and data center operators are looking to alternative energy resources to reduce energy \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/blog\/could-wind-farms-power-michigan-data-centers\/\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/blog\/michigan-data-center-operator-online-tech-expert-interview-what-is-high-availability\/\">Online Tech Expert Interview: What is High Availability?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nUsing a High Availability (HA) architecture can greatly reduce the risk of losing revenue and customers due to a loss of Internet connectivity or loss of power. However, how much do you really understand about a high availability infrastructure? What \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/otavawebsite.wpengine.com\/blog\/michigan-data-center-operator-online-tech-expert-interview-what-is-high-availability\/\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Data Center Industry Lowers Carbon Footprint For many years, the data center industry has received a bad rap for being energy hogs.\u00a0 In 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned everyone that data centers and servers would consume 3% of the nation\u2019s energy by 2011. &#8211; This prediction did not happen. It is actually around 1.5% &#8211; Then last year, the New York Times published a damaging article \u201cPower, Pollution, and the Internet\u201d claiming that most data centers wastefully consume a lot of energy.\u00a0 Read How the Cloud is Changing the Data Center\u2019s Bad Reputation for Energy Inefficiency for a response to some of the major points of the article. What organizations and experts fail to understand is how data centers are actually lowering the carbon footprint. Lowering the Carbon Footprint I had a chance to sit down with Yan Ness, co-CEO of Online Tech to discuss his thoughts on how the data center industry has impacted their carbon footprint. Watch the video below: Every piece of hardware consumes some energy.\u00a0 And for data centers this hardware consumes a lot of power.\u00a0 As a result, the data center industry has begun using technology to make hardware more efficient.\u00a0 \u201cWe can&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"other_category":[],"class_list":["post-2422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How the Data Center Industry Lowers the Carbon Footprint | OTAVA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Explore how the data center industry is reducing its carbon footprint through green technology.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/data-center-industry-lowers-carbon-footprint\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How the Data Center Industry Lowers the Carbon Footprint\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Explore how the data center industry is reducing its carbon footprint through green technology.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/data-center-industry-lowers-carbon-footprint\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OTAVA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-29T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-14T06:34:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Irma 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