According to the International Energy Agency, data centres and data transmission networks around the world contributed around 300 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020 (including embodied emissions).

The agency identifies that emissions since 2010 have only grown modestly despite rapidly growing demand for digital services as a result of energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy purchases by ICT companies and broader decarbonisation of electricity grids.

However, the IEA still notes that emissions must halve from their current state by 2030 to get on track with the net zero scenario. To achieve this, organisations must reduce energy usage by employing more efficient technologies and eliminating any inefficiencies within pre-existing systems.

In this National Technology News podcast, editor Jonathan Easton is joined by Marcus Maddox, global alliances manager at Hitachi Vantara and James Terry, sales specialist, global strategy at Cisco to discuss the hidden carbon costs of the cloud and what organisations can do to reduce the energy consumption of their data centre usage.