Bringing data into the circular economy: reducing its negative impact on the environment and on people while making sharing more efficient
Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past!
Data is called the new oil of tomorrow, because both raw materials can be monetised through intelligent use. But unlike oil reserves, which are shrinking, the quantity of data is growing exponentially.
A hundred years ago, to answer a shortage of durable packaging materials, oil solved the problem through an innovation called “plastic”. Today, the durability we once sought has become a scourge — an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of waste polluting the oceans.
To avoid repeating the same mistake with oceans of data, we must enter a circular economy now — one that shifts the paradigm away from the so-called “linear” economy by limiting the waste of environmental resources and increasing efficiency at every stage of the digital economy. We must recycle our data now!
The illusion of dematerialisation
We are entering a new era, that of all-digital. Cloud computing is now a vector of major change in the real world, including the corporate world, which is becoming hyper-connected. The hyper-connection of consumers and the hyper-personalisation of services are transforming how we live, learn, work and consume.
Data is a valuable asset for public and private organisations alike.
Yet the acceleration of the “dematerialisation” of our so-called immaterial economies mechanically increases the number of services available, which in turn increases the need for physical infrastructure — generating enormous effects in the real world.
The storage and energy impact of data centres
Our bulimia of data production and consumption currently translates into compulsive storage, complicating the governance and management of the data lifecycle. It shows up as:
- Collection and production of data for some hypothetical later use
- Duplication to manage development, integration and delivery quality
- Massive copies made for various purposes: data warehouse, data lake, experimentation, exploration (artificial intelligence, marketing…)
- Non-selective archiving (with no purge)
- Backups of every environment including production (one to six times, depending on practice and sector)
- Siloed operations, transfers of data to third parties, and so on
- Processing run on inactive data
Infrastructure and technology are currently insufficient to absorb the colossal growth in data. The process of deploying new data centres in France is too long, even slowed down, while digital uses and needs grow and evolve ever faster. Moreover, the measurement of storage impact has not been sufficiently anticipated.
Even though new regulations such as the GDPR encourage awareness of the need to rationalise and delete data whose purpose has been fulfilled, it is more than necessary for all stakeholders to build quickly a “right-sized” information estate of quality, in the spirit of data altruism.
The urgency of a new mindset
Contrary to what people think, the digital transition is also one of the drivers of climate disruption, well beyond its ability to prevent it. Its impact will show the steepest increase in our ecological footprint in future, because of the intensified use of data.
We must measure and limit the environmental impact now, in terms of:
- Consumption of rare earths and water, and the environmental and social damage in extracting countries; the significant embodied energy expended.
- Energy and land consumption.
- Electronic waste, and the environmental and social damage in the countries affected by landfill and recycling.
Data is everyone's business, across every layer of the organisation. To change the models, we must transform the ways we operate, produce and consume data at scale. To be sustainable, the exploitation of data must incorporate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — more specifically SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production, which sets a dedicated target for recycling that it is crucial to apply to data.
Technology has a central role to play in delivering that goal, provided it is used in an eco-responsible way and with a logic of digital sovereignty.
Establishing suitable governance, transparent and virtuous practices, and engaging stakeholders who are aware and involved will enable the responsible management of the information estate needed to build smart territories.
Recycling is good for the planet and for your budget
Data Recycling®: the first sovereign, eco-responsible and transparent data recycling platform, answering the carbon, energy and storage impact of data centres — the cornerstone of our new data-driven economy.
It allows data producers to recycle their immaterial “waste” and rationalise their data estate through selective archiving, reintroduction for new uses and permanent destruction.
Data Recycling® answers the pillar that goes unaddressed today — energy and land consumption — making it possible to achieve, depending on context, up to a 50% reduction in the carbon, energy and storage footprint of data centres.
Enough talk: time for action.
Business EFFICIENCY: doing MORE with LESS to reduce the carbon footprint and achieve a better distribution of value.
Article published by Archimag
Reviewed and commented by Jawaher Allala, CEO of Systnaps
Let us make efficient data our ally in reaching wisdom, our compass.
