Digital Data Carbon Footprint

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Three things you need to know about your digital carbon footprint

At times, the climate crisis can feel overwhelming.
It’s natural to wonder how individual actions can make a difference when there’s a global issue, especially when the world’s carbon footprint continues to grow.
However, there is power in small changes.
They all add up to make a collective difference.
One area where you can lead the charge is your own personal carbon footprint.
By now, we’re all familiar with the benefits of recycling and reducing our car use – but have you ever considered how your digital activity plays a part?
Whether you’re already a digital eco expert or haven’t ever considered it, read on to find out three things you need to know.

Download, don’t stream

Experts estimate that video streaming is responsible for around 75% of global data traffic.
Whether it’s streaming a show on TV, watching Youtube or simply scrolling through endless reels, our devices are constantly connecting to the internet and pulling fresh entertainment for our enjoyment.
To combat this, try and download shows and podcasts where you can.
This isn’t always possible on a TV, but if you’re watching shows on your phone, you can download several episodes at a time, which will reduce the amount of energy required.
Doing this might feel inconvenient, but you’ll soon get used to it – just make sure to download enough for your journey if you’re travelling.
You can also reduce autoplay on social media, as many apps have a ‘use less data’ setting which stops videos loading until they’re selected.

Your emails matter

Many of us have email inboxes that are jammed full of messages.
We read them, reply and then move on, often without deleting anything.
The result is a huge amount of storage becoming required, which uses energy to function. By regularly clearing out your emails, you can reduce the strain on the server, as well as reducing the energy your phone uses to load your inbox.
The type of messages you send makes a difference too.
The average footprint for an email is 0.3g CO2e.
However, longer emails have a bigger impact, increasing to 17g CO2e for a message that takes ten minutes to write and three seconds to read.
This only gets worse if you add an attachment or an image, going up to 50g CO2e.
By making sure you’re only sending essential information, and cutting images such as email signatures, you can decrease your impact.

Renewable energy could make a big difference

Of course, energy is an essential part of technology, and technology has become an essential part of everyday life.
It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to stop using phones or laptops at all, especially when they do offer plenty of benefits.
One big change you could make is to consider using a renewable energy supplier.
Even if you don’t produce your own energy at home via renewable sources, you can still choose a green tariff that increases the amount of green energy in the grid.
If we all did this, suppliers would be forced to increase their investment in renewable sources, improving the outlook for technology in public places and businesses too.

You have the power to make change happen

By making small adjustments and being more mindful with your technology use, you can reduce your carbon footprint.
Together, we can make significant collective change.

Ariah Nunn

As both an interior designer and someone who is passionate about sustainability, Ariah loves to share her knowledge and help others make a difference. She also enjoys listening to music while strolling through the woods with her two dogs, Bert and Ernie.

GBE Editorial Comment

Data Centres are significant consumers of electrical energy.
The energy demand includes computing power and air-conditioning to keep the space cool for computers to operate efficiently.
The preoccupation of data centre owners is to boast about how much capacity they have which correlates to the energy demand.
Designing and equipping Data Centres gives an opportunity to reduce some of the energy demands whilst maintaining data deliver functions.

Renewable Energy Photo Voltaic PV & Wind Turbines

Since their energy demand is so high it will be worth investing in locally generated and locally consumed renewable energy from solar PV farms and wind turbines on the same site if solar access and wind access is tested and found good.
Spreading the electrical generation over as much of the 24 hour cycle will help to match the 24 hour demand.

Solar PV

In the Northern Hemisphere not close to the equator: a number of options present themselves: in order of preference best to worst (also expensive to cheapest).
Raised above space for animals to roam below to maintain the landscape below.
3D Solar tracking support system, it is possible to have the panels facing the sun from dawn to dusk.
2D Solar tracking support system, it is possible to have the PV panels mounted on hinges that run north-south and the panels face east in the morning, upwards/south at midday and face west in the evening.
Vertical PV panels that run north-south and face east and west but get less sun midday when they will overheat and perform less well.
Vertical PV panels that run east-west facing midday sunlight to the south and midday daylight from the north
Sloping PV panels facing south sloping to face midday sun
By adopting a mixture of the above options can achieve a closer match between supply and demand.

Batteries or mains supply

The closer the match between supply and demand the less need for batteries or reliance on mains back-up.
If PVs just face the sun at midday then they can only serve a small percentage of the 24 hour demands and may result in excessive supply needing mains to feed into or use of batteries to store until needed.
Big batteries have high environmental impact in their manufacture and replacements over the life of the asset.
Mains supply can be complicated if they cannot accept the additional power in a intermittent way.
Mains supply will have a Carbon footprint significantly above site made and consumed renewable energy.
Green tariff electricity can be obtained where an Energy Company generates renewable energy and feeds it into the mains and the data centre purchases the same quantity of power from them; and receive that amount of energy at the Data Centre (there are transmission losses in the mains to account for as well).

Embodied Energy and Embodied Carbon

Depending upon the building function, the materials used in the construction of the building can have more embodied energy and embodied carbon than consumed over the life of the building.
Data Centres being such high energy demand, may actually consume more over their life.
Big sheds with large flat roofs are often made of heavy steel frame which is high embodied energy and carbon
Large grounds floors are likely to be made of concrete which is high embodied energy and carbon and it may be well insulated with high embodied carbon plastic foam insulation.
Alternative materials can be considered for the structure, solid hardwood, glued laminated timber, cross laminated timber panels, light timber frame with high decrement delay insulation within.

Roof Insulation

Large floor area, often single storey, flat roof buildings, offer large external envelope and high form factor.
Large form factors mean high energy demand for heating or cooling no matter how well insulated.
The large roof area offers large area to absorb solar radiant heat from the sun, this radiant heat can enter the building through opaque building fabric as well as through glazing.
The heat can pass through by radiant heat transfer through voids and conductivity through materials.
Using insulation materials with the necessary properties to resist radiant heat is essential to protect the interior from solar heat gains on top of computing heat gains.
The building is likely to be air conditioned, and it will just use more energy to maintain cooler temperatures when solar radiant heat gets in through the roof.
The internal temperature will be set to be constant and energy demand fluctuates according to sun exposure and cloud cover.
The important properties for resistance to solar radiant heat are high density, k value and specific heat capacity; the combination provide decrement factor and decrement delay (how long the radiant heat takes to pass through the building fabric and enter the space below).
Stone wool insulation is often used for its non-combustibility in industrial sheds, after plastics were used and fires love plastics as fuel.
Stone wool and plastics used for conductivity insulation do not have the necessary decrement delay properties to resist solar radiant heat.
Stone wool at fire barrier densities may have sufficient decrement delay but are not normally available or specified over whole roof areas.
Dense wood fibre, cellular glass, cork, cellulose fibre are examples of material with the right properties to resist solar radiant heat entry.

Computer drives and data types

A lot more computers and other devices are now relying on ‘cloud storage’ either as remote back up or even as primary storage.
Many services are also delivered from ‘the cloud’ or data centres.
Older technology included spinning hard disks HD with moving arms to find and copy the stored data to move it into local RAM Random Access Memory to process.
Newer technology includes solid state memory SSD drives with no moving parts using less energy.
If a data centre uses a mixture of HD and SSD then ideally archive, back up data should be housed on SSD drives whilst whilst frequently accessed information could be on constantly spinning HDs.
In the ideal world SSD are as fast to retrieve data as from HD and all data can then be stored on SSD with lower energy demand.

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GBE Links

Cable co uk
how your digital activity plays a part?
My Climate org
responsible for around 75% of global data traffic.
Pawprint eco
average footprint for an email is 0.3g CO2e.

GBE Brain Dump

Building Performance Aspects (Brain Dump) G#21255

GBE Brainstorm

GBE Issue papers

Overheating (Issue Paper) G#145

GBE Projects

Digital Data Carbon Footprint G# 42296 End.

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