This old and useless data saved in the clouds has an environmental cost equal to that of transport and energy
Transport and energy have a very important environmental impact , but there is a sector that has an equal or even greater impact in some cases which is that of digital data processing and storage . There is a particular category which is that of dark data that are saved in the clouds and are no longer used.
The preservation of data in digital memory has an environmental cost which is by no means negligible. In particular, only large companies have to rethink the organization of their digital data and eliminate useless files .
The ecological footprint of the clouds is due to three main factors: the electricity used to run the servers, the water used to cool them and the life of the servers themselves (the shorter their duration, the greater the impact that the components of the themselves have on the environment as pollutants).
Digital pollution deserves as much attention as that related to energy and transport. In 2020 digitalization generated 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions while data centers are responsible for 2.5% of carbon dioxide emissions globally. Considering that the digital world is growing, the consumption related to it will also increase accordingly.
The decarbonisation of digital should therefore become a fundamental aspect for achieving the emission reduction objectives.
- What is dark data? Why do we need to delete them from servers? (focus.it)
