CIOs could improve sustainability with data center purchasing decisions — but don’t

CIOs can drive change

Even though it’s difficult to calculate an organization’s carbon footprint, CIOs and IT purchasing leaders trying to reduce their environmental impact can influence data center operators, experts say.

“Customers have a very large voice,” Seagate’s Feist says. “Don’t underestimate how powerful that CIO feedback loop is. The large cloud accounts are customer-obsessed organizations, so they listen, and they react.”

While DataBank began using renewable energy years ago, customer demand can push more data center operators to follow suit, Gerson says. “For sure, if there is a requirement to purchase renewable power, we are going to purchase renewable power,” she adds.