Almost 150 people attended the first major data centre event of the year, "A Thirst for Innovation?" on 18^th January 2024. Delegates, led by RiT Tech, voiced a unified call for an effective response to the new and developing regulatory requirements - specific to the rapidly expanding data centre industry. With projections indicating the industry's growth to a staggering US$340bn in 2024, the sector is facing increasing regulatory pressure in multiple countries and regions, alongside scrutiny and criticism from the media in relation to increasing energy consumption worldwide.

The data centre industry, a critical backbone of today's digital economy, currently operates under a patchwork of non-data centre specific regulations. United Kingdom examples are the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, the Energy Performance of Buildings (England & Wales) Regulations 2012, and the Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme Regulations 2014, along with the EU/UK Emissions Trading Systems legislation. Recent additions like the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and CSRD for non-financial reporting based on the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centre Energy Efficiency and the ISO/IEC 30134 series of standardised KPIs, underscore the evolving landscape of industry standards and practices. These regulations emphasize governments’ focus on data centre resource consumption, particularly in relation to facility power and cooling systems, but there is a crucial need for consistent and accurate reporting based on reliable data and information derived from multiple disparate data sets across the sector as a whole.

The event highlighted a growing frustration among industry leaders over the lack of cohesive direction. The diverse panel, facilitated by Mark Acton, featured key voices including Mark Butcher from Posetiv, Romain Tranchant of CBRE, Rich Kenny from Interact, and Colm Shorten of JLL. The discussions underscored the industry's chaotic approach brought on by a siloed team culture across the data centre ecosystem and the fact that many operators are not utilising the data they already have available and often hiding the truth behind flawed performance metrics.

Rich Kenny, Managing Director of Interact was most focal when it came promoting the need for a holistic approach to performance measurement: "For too long the industry has adopted an outside-in approach to efficiency measurements. Focusing on the building alone leaves our single biggest opportunity, the IT, unaddressed. It was great to see this aspect discussed in detail with feedback and thoughts from so many well-regarded experts!”

Mark Butcher of Posetiv Cloud, known for his direct views on the importance of transparency to enable change, added: "It was an engaging panel that showed the industry's commitment to working together on data centre sustainability. There's a strong desire to improve our environmental impact, but to truly start reducing IT emissions and related waste, we need clearer metrics and measurements as well as a willingness to be more transparent and open with the data."

RiT Tech's lead in this event, especially as a vendor, underlines a real commitment from the entire eco-system to ensure dialogue continues around the need for clear, effective, and informed responses to new and emerging regulations and the importance of collecting, collating, and analysing available data to provide accurate reporting and actionable management information.

For more information about A Thirst for Innovation? or RiT Tech's role in the data centre industry, please contact Susan Anderton, Head of Global Marketing [email protected]

About RiT Tech

RiT Tech is a leading provider of converged IT infrastructure management and connectivity solutions for over 30 years. Pioneers of Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM), which is now integrated into ISO/IEC 18598, RiT Tech's data centric approach facilitates intelligent solutions to complex business problems.

It’s DCIM product XpedITe is deployed around the world in data centres, large corporations, government agencies, financial institutions, telecommunications, airport authorities, healthcare organizations and educational facilities.