 Hello, everybody. This is JSA TV and JSA Podcasts, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Jamie Skado-Katya, and on behalf of my fabulous team here at JSA, thank you for joining us for what is our most well-attended virtual roundtables so far this year. We are so excited. We have over 330 registrants for today's events. So thank you, everyone, for joining us. Such an important topic. We appreciate you. As you know, we host these JSA virtual roundtables every six weeks where we round up top thought leaders from our digital infrastructure space for relevant timely insight on trending topics. And today, friends, with Earth Day just 15 days away, we are talking to our industry's finest on getting our data greener. And it is such a critical and timely topic. And what a turnout. I am so inspired by you all. Thank you. And I have to say, you may have noticed, this is not Zoom. We host our virtual roundtables on this new platform to encourage more interactivity and engagement. So please go ahead and remain on after our discussion and join a table to meet and network with our speakers and other attendees immediately following this. And during our roundtable, feel free to share emojis, type in your questions, chat with others, even pop on video live if you want to ask your question to our panel if time permits. All right. And for the first 100 of you who registered, we have provided a lunch or gift card to a local restaurant. So for those of you who have received, please enjoy your JSA lunch as we get started here. All right. Today, we are talking greener data, best innovative new ways to reduce carbon footprints this year and beyond. And I gotta say, these amazing industry innovators here today, not just innovators and bot leaders, but also co-authors. They have each contributed a chapter to our new book entitled Greener Data. Do out on Earth Day, the 22nd. And so today's roundtable is a preview of their more in-depth research and real life examples that are in this book, topics including new energy efficiencies, technologies, plans that are underway right now in and by our industry in our global pursuit of going green. All right, guys, let's get started. We're gonna go around the circle and introduce ourselves and our organizations, and particularly defining your organization's objectives in getting greener. Sean, can you kick us off? Sure thing. Thanks, Jamie. Hello, everyone. Sean Farney, director of Data Center Marketing at Kohler Power Systems. We're excited to be part of this effort and be in this roundtable today. We are focused on sustainability in the sustainability imperative, the full line of power products focusing on how we can reduce our carbon footprint and impact. We've been doing it a hundred years and we want to make change. That's why we contribute to the book and that's why we're here today to share all the knowledge. We're so grateful you are. Bill? Hey, everybody. I'm Bill Klayman, EVP of Digital Solutions over at a awesome company called Switch. And if we could put green and sustainability into the name of our company, we would, but then it would just get too long. Since the first day that we started, we've been building green, sustainable, 100% renewable powered digital infrastructure. These aren't small facilities. These are millions of square feet. We don't just look at power, we look at things like water conservation, being good neighbors in the community. So for us, sustainability from the very, very beginning, the first time we break ground to when we turn on the power, it's an essential part of what we do every single day and then also our customer's benefit. So we're really excited to be a part of this book. It was great and a lot of fun to write the chapter for you and really just excited to see what the future is gonna look like and hopefully it's a much greener one. Yeah, from your lips to God's ears. Philip? Yeah, hey everybody. Philip Marangela here. I'm the Chief Marketing Officer over at EdgeConnect. First off, thank you, Jamie. Thanks for having me take part in this fantastic effort. Hats off to you for driving this and a very honor to be included with all these great folks like Bill and everybody else who's taking part today and who's also been an author of this. In terms of EdgeConnect, like many in the data center space, we also have aggressive goals with regards to our sustainability efforts. And we really try to be think holistically around this and have comprehensive goals so that by 2030, we have not only a carbon neutral, but also a water and waste neutral data center platform globally powered entirely 100% by renewable energy. So definitely lofty goals, but certainly absolutely necessary, given what's going on with the climate and so forth. And again, this is why it's imperative that we as an industry and collectively as a community really kind of drive these efforts and educate and communicate and learn from each other in the process. Well said, well said. Dean? Hey, Jamie, how you doing? Thanks for having me on. I'm the founder and chairman of Infrastructure Masons. We're a professional association focused on uniting the builders of the digital age on education, diversity, inclusion, technology, and of course, sustainability. Our sustainability vision is to make every click improve the future and we believe a digital infrastructure should benefit the economy and society without harming the planet. Well said, Bram. And also we should note, Bram is coming in 13 hours forward here, so in the middle of the night in Hong Kong. So thank you for your time, Bram, and welcome. Oh, you're welcome. If I look drowsy, you know why. So I'm Bram Singh, hi folks. And I'm the CEO here at BDX. We have data centers in Nang Ching, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Singapore, and now in Jakarta. As with all data centers, we have to acknowledge the fact that our industry is a huge guzzler of power, so that puts sustainability right in the forefront of what we do. And in BDX, the solutions we've adopted are based around automation. And we're using automation and AI to drive us towards being carbon neutral, water-based neutral like Edge Connect by 2030. We really don't have a choice as discussion progresses, we'll learn why we have no choice. Yeah, yeah. Karim. Hi, Jamie. Hello, everyone. I'm Karim Sheikh, CTO at Virtual Power Systems. I'm probably representing a different angle than majority of the panelists here, but I'm really excited to be here with them. Our goal at VPS is to provide software that actually helps data centers fully utilize the power infrastructure that they've already built. So our vision is to eliminate probably 37 to gigawatts of power infrastructure across the data center industry that has been built and is not actually being used. So we also wanna prevent that from ever happening again in the green field. So I'm really excited to join my fellow panelists and be at this roundtable. We are so thrilled to have you. And Virtual Power Systems, unbelievable work you guys are doing. And Wes, welcome. Thanks, Jamie, appreciate it. I'm Wes Swenson, CEO of Nova Data Centers, a fairly recent entrant to the market based in Salt Lake City, Utah. And our focus as we do, everything we're doing is really kind of a new build. And we're really focused on renewable energy, drawing that from our energy providers. It's also placing solar. And then we also do completely waterless cooling design. So we're zero water on our usage. And to what Phillip mentioned, really holistic approach to sustainability, including water usage, recycling, waste, local vendors for lower emissions, anything that we can impact, we try. And we also selective catalytic reduction on generators, even if it's not required by communities, it's at the forefront of the way we design data centers. So glad to be here. Well, we're honored that you are. And guys, I'll tell you that this multi-author book, Greener Data, it's a total of 20 chapters written by 24 authors. So we have a representative group of authors today, of our total author base. And some of us, other amazing authors, thank you for joining us and listening in today. And we'll see you in those networking tables. But when I think about this, I found this multi-author book a perfect format to really showcase the many different perspectives from around the world, as you heard, just in our brief intros, and how we can battle this difficult and timely task of going green company by company and collectively. I have personally learned so much from reading your pages, understanding how we are each approaching this responsibility of going green, based on our unique locations, environments, passions, talents, technologies, and of course, access to renewable energy sources. And I think almost any reader from the head of IT of a large multinational company, a new data center company owner on the brink of building a new facility, an existing facility owner who wants to turn her existing assets into something more sustainable, a technologist trying to innovate software, hardware or both like BPS, help us get there faster, can learn from these pages, be inspired by each of our writers. So guys, my big question here, what was your inspiration for writing your chapter and what is your particular focus within your chapter? And Bill, I'm gonna go ahead and start with you. Absolutely, you know, I had a chance to sort of discuss from a high level what's happening in our industry, how we need to be able to drive change. And interestingly enough, I had a chance to tell like my story of how I got started in technology which began in my home country in Ukraine. You're gonna have to read the book to get more details, I don't wanna spill it here. But realistically speaking, I spoke about human ingenuity and our creativity and really our capability to do some extraordinary things in the world. I talked about tidal turbines, talked about floating solar panels, I talked about even possibly nuclear power data centers, but what I really wanted to make sure people knew is that the future can be more green. We just need to take action today. And throughout the entire chapter I discussed the strides that we've been making today, what industry is doing and how people can truly begin to make a difference in our future. Because some of the things I've seen from, for example, the UN Climate Council and some of these other ones is that our future could be very different depending on what we do today. And that's where we need to take action and that's what really what we're talking about in this book. So well said. Yes, and I love your chapter. Phillip, my friend. Yes, so inspiration, look, I think we all, as you've heard, have robust goals, right? We're already well active and have been doing this for a long time. I think what's important is to have this unified voice as an industry. Because there's obviously data centers and the entire kind of digital supply chain gets a bit of a bad rap in terms of being large power consumers and so forth. But at the same time, we are so proactive as an industry and we collaborate as an industry. Dean's organization is a perfect example, right? In terms of what the eye masons are doing, right? Everybody throughout the industry, from networks to data centers to infrastructure companies to networks and so forth, come together as individuals and we talk about how we can do better, right? How can we, and we learn from each other, right? This is one thing where all competitors are an open book and we're all trying to work together to solve the common problem. There is no competition here. And so being transparent, being collaborative, learning from my fellow authors and colleagues about what unique things they might be doing that are different. And vice versa, that's what's part of it. And one fantastic part of being involved in this is the collaborative nature of all these efforts that we're undertaking. Yeah, so true. And that's a great leadway actually to Dean by Measons. Yeah, thanks, Jamie. And look, I've been in this industry now 32 years and my sustainability journey started in 2008 at Sun Microsystems when, you know, before green was cool. And it's just been interesting to watch and I've been very inspired with how we've been tackling this, but things are different right now. There is a serious problem and people are rallying behind it. And what's important from an Measons standpoint is that what I believe is that the sum are greater than the parts. No matter what, when we bring people together, we're gonna compound our ability to be able to solve this problem. And so as Philip was saying, you know, when we start to bring these minds together, we leave our companies at the door connected as individuals because we have influence across the board in our decision making, right? Our designs, as everybody's been outlining here, our operations. And so those things actually drive market behavior. And so we can do things to change the way this is done. So that's my motivation here, is that I'm all about community and bringing these people together to make sure that we can combine our efforts and actually making real difference. So my chapter is about defining the digital infrastructure because one of the biggest problems we've got right now is lots of these efforts, but where are we starting from? How are we measuring this? What's the... We have to have a starting point so that we can actually see the progress and know if we need to adjust or to do things, but that requires us to come together on a standard definition on a taxonomy and then a mechanism to go back and actually measure embodied carbon in products and materials and the actual carbon associated with energy from power. So all those things come together, we can actually now have something we can measure and drive forward to really make a difference. The layer of detail, I so appreciate in your chapter. Thank you. And Brahm. Yes, so my inspiration folks has to be the multi-billion dollar carbon trade that's been, that was hit off in Kyoto in 1997. The first carbon credit was sold in 2005 and within a couple of years after that, just a few companies in India were doing about $200 million in carbon credit trade. Today it's a billion dollar business and they tell me by 2030, it's gonna be almost $100 billion. So just think about it, $100 billion trade and zero reduction in greenhouse gases. And what can be more interesting than that to write about? And that's what my chapter is about. And as regards the focus of the chapter, it's showing that the technology exists to sort this out. We use it in BDX ourselves. We have automated systems. We have a blockchained SaaS platform connecting to all our data centers and feeding us information on the power management and on the carbon footprint. And this is not rocket science, it's there. It's there for not just the data center community to adopt, but for the wider emitters of greenhouse gases to adopt and make this whole thing happening at Kyoto and the COP26 and the Paris Accord a little more meaningful, yeah. Well said. Karim. Jimmy, so data centers have been focused on becoming green for many years using renewable energy and innovations in mechanical and electrical systems. So what we wanted to actually highlight was another aspect that I don't know if you're paying enough attention to which is the major underutilization of the power infrastructure that's already built in the data center. That means we are building data centers that we don't actually need because we think we're running out of power. So what we wanted to do was bring that to the surface and address it through software and automation to be able to turn this stranded power in the data centers into new capacity. So this book was a great opportunity for us to actually highlight this concern that of the lack of utilization and also the ideas of an autonomous digital infrastructure that actually helps turn this into new capacity and create sort of cloud-like flexibility on premise. So new type of SLA products that actually make this possible. So I think we have a solution that's really a win for tenants and win for COLOs and a win for the environment. So using this book as an opportunity, we wanted to really highlight and make everyone aware of this possibility. So as we can probably realize, the most sustainable data center is the one that's not actually built. And that's what we want to highlight. And it's actually a really great transition to Wes who just completed a phenomenal campus down in Utah, Wes. Yeah, I mean, so when I wrote to my chapter, it was really to focus on the larger spheres of sustainability around a new data center and that included site selection, choosing sites that accompany better cooling, right? Even, I think that one of the challenges in the industry is that there can be a lot of greenwashing, right? That we do or say things or more that we say things versus actually implementing it. But I just, I really focused really on the major spheres of indirect emissions from how you can influence your energy provider to waterless cooling all the way down to recycling water stations within the data center, very holistic. Even local vendors providing a lot of your gear to reduce their carbon emission footprint from transportation. So really holistic high level, I wouldn't say it's extremely layman's view, but I think it's fairly approachable, at least in the way I wrote the chapter, just to give some general ideas about what you can do. And I'm really quite optimistic about the future with data centers. I think we are, for the most part, purveyors of change in the industry. And I think that because our focus is constantly on efficiencies, we're most prepared to engage that. So I had a lot of fun writing the article and seeing the other authors is, I'm just really optimistic about the future. And Sean? We're really inspired by the importance of data. It's become the currency of the fourth industrial revolution. And Kohler started making agricultural equipment for farmers in 1873 and now our gear runs some of the biggest data centers in the world. It's fascinating. But with this growing importance, expectations around reliability are climbing, particularly when technology like medical wearables and autonomous vehicles are making data mission critical again. So backup power systems are essential, but we have this carbon sustainability challenge and we must answer it. It's here, it's critical. So what Melissa Brad and I explore as an answer to the sustainability challenge was the incredible base of knowledge capital and the critical environments space in data centers, operations. How can we leverage this operational base of expertise that's been acquired over the last 20, 30 years to reduce our carbon footprint? So really sustainable operations are what we looked at, what we're inspired by. And it's a lot of asking questions in particular, why do we test generators once a month? Is this habit? Is it just because that's what the mop says? So as a particular example, we explore technology with our engine series to reduce one of the limitations of wet stacking, accumulation of moisture in an engine system that requires operators to run monthly regular testing at certain loads. And we question that premise and we propose that we can do things like this with engineering and operations, question fundamental practices and procedures that we've been performing for a long time in the industry to reduce, optimize and really take a look at the energy we expend to do some of these things. So very, very exciting to innovate in this space and take a really an evolutionary approach to solving sustainability. Well said, well said. And no question that our physical network infrastructure has a real responsibility to get greener and now. One of our fellow authors, Vicky Warden, who's the president and CEO of Green Building Initiative, she cites in her chapter in IEA report stating that approximately 2.5% of global energy is used serving data centers and data transmission networks. And that this number is projected to rise quickly. In fact, it's projected that the percentage of global energy usage consumed by data centers alone will rise eight to 10% by 2030. In other words, data and telecom not only consume a larger amount of energy already, but that the amount is projected to increase exponentially year over year. And this is one of the very many scary stats in our book. Clearly there's a consensus in all of our chapters at the time is now and our industry is at the heart of it as our industry powers so many industries and the pandemic in particular really exasperating that situation, greatly advancing the timeline of many businesses digital transformation. So stakes are really high and time is certainly ticking. So my fellow authors, what can you suggest to businesses and facilities and networks who may only have the ability to make one change in 2022? One step towards sustainability, what should that be? Phillip? By the book. Good one. I mean, kidding aside, right? I mean, there's some great perspectives and varying perspectives from all of us that took part, right? And I think the biggest thing is get involved, right? You might get overwhelmed with those stats and just like, hey, I won't make a difference. But what is demonstrated in part and parcel of the book is as a collective, we are doing a lot that is actually making a material difference, right? Of being more efficient, being greener, right? And being smarter about how we operate a data center, how we build a data center, how do we interact in our communities and be better stewards of the environment. But again, I think you got to start somewhere. There's a ton of organizations. Again, I referenced the I-Masons, but in Europe, there's the Climate Neutral Data Center pack and there's SIBA. There's all kinds of organizations where you come together collectively and you share and you get inspired just like I am with my fellow authors on kind of what they're doing. And so yeah, you might think you can't make a difference but you got to start and then you got to team up and then take it from there. And then you begin to start to see some material changes and differences and improvements. Well said, well said. Dean? My chapter I outline very similar stats from the IEA. There are seven million data centers. They have 104 gigawatts of bill capacity. They consume 594 terawatt hours of energy and that translates to 2.4% of the global energy draw. So if you think about that across the board, what you were mentioning, if that grows to 8% to 10% of global energy draw, we must do something different. Like we just can't continue. And Kareem mentioned the stranded capacity. There's a lot of opportunity inside of these data centers. And so of that 104 gigawatts, there's 37 gigawatts that's never used at a minimum. So there's a significant amount of capacity that because of the tenant's behaviors are basically locked up. So what I would say is the one thing that people can do, whether you're a consumer or whether you're a provider, I would say that the end users out there require carbon labels. And when I say carbon labels, as I'm talking about this in my chapter, it simply is we'd like to know the embodied carbon of that building, so materials. And we'd like to in the products in it and we'd like to know the carbon, embedded carbon inside of the actual products we put inside. So if you start doing that, you're gonna actually see where you are. That carbon measurement, then you can be able to say, how am I making a change? Because as I said before, we need a starting point. So if you can now measure it, you can improve it. Simple as that. But if we don't have some way to standardize in which we are going to be able to measure the embodied carbon and then the actual consumed carbon or the power consumption for in the associated carbon, we're not gonna make the progress we need to. Well said. I love your carbon label. It's brilliant. You know, in my chapter, I talk about many calls to action. I think are very useful in dealing with the lack of utilization of the power infrastructure. So what I would ask for is to take a look for data sensors to take a look inside the data center and evaluate their redundancies and buffers to prevent tripping or even how their tenants actually underutilized even the contracted capacity. So even though it seems like the whole thing has been sold, but it's really underutilized. So while economically it may be okay, but environmentally we're really not utilizing it fully. So we can think of this as sort of a power capacity effectiveness, sort of like the PEUE, but the idea is how much of the infrastructure are you actually utilizing every day? And you'll probably find that 99% of the time we are at 40% or 50% in some of the data centers, right? So once you measure that, I think that's the first step towards saying, okay, what opportunity do I have here without having to build another data center? And we at VPS have created tools that can help assess and measure and say, okay, just identify the opportunity. And I know that there's a general concern about the risks to the data center or not. So we have actually addressed all of those. So there is an exploration that couldn't be done to say, how do I take advantage of this stranded power without actually realizing any risk that I am building all these redundancies for? So that's the kind of a conversation that I think I would encourage data centers to have this here. And I think that opens the opportunity for looking at things in a different way towards going to the data. Appreciate that. Brahm? Sorry. So, Dean brought up the matter of changes that have to be, that we should all be adopting. But really all of that needs a change in mindset. It needs a change in the way we lead our lives. So clearly the big ticket item, the big ticket solutions aren't working. If you study what's happening in the Paris Accord, what happened in Glasgow, it's struggling. So that leaves it to us. I mean, we have to find our own solutions. It's not gonna come from, it's not gonna be imposed from those guys sitting and working out the Paris Accord. Now, if we are able to do half the stuff Dean spoke about, that in itself would be huge, right? It will also put the pressure on these guys who are sitting there and working out the mechanics of the larger accords to control climate change. Now, everything they do ends up with a compromise. So, Kyoto has literally been muted because of the compromises. And the more we do at our level, the more data centers discipline ourselves, other industries, we don't be, you know, we get a bad rap, but I think one of my co-panelists said that at least we are at the cutting edge of, we are disciplined enough to keep enforcing efficiencies. I don't know how many industries do that. So everyone did that. If all of us sure ourselves to be aware, then the guys out there in those COP26 meetings, at least they won't compromise as much as they do. Which is really one of the reasons why we are in this mess today. It's not us, we do our bit, but then their system allows people to game it. And my articles, my chapter writes about it. You know, we can do everything Dean has said we should do. And still, still, data centers will, you know, we can be as efficient as ever. And the greenhouse gas is not going to be impacted because there are others who are giving the system and that can only be sorted out by those fellas not compromising and that happens and we become more aware. And not just us. I think your question was, what do we do as individuals, each of us has to change our lifestyle. We change our lifestyle, it then enforces the company to change its lifestyle and then that pushes up the message to these guys there to do something, to put in some regulations with feet in it so that there's no more gaming of the system. Yeah, well said. And Wes, you are sort of proof, right? And from concept to completion, sustainability has been a hallmark for your data center campus. Yeah, I mean, if I think about one thing that can be done and it's quite immediate, in many cases, but, you know, a lot of times it comes down to economics, that the client, so we get a portion of clients that want renewable energy and they want us to retire that renewable energy for them and give them a certificate and go through that process. And we deal with both retail and wholesale clients. Some clients are more interested in being on renewable than others and some are interested in 24-7 renewable credits. Some are interested in different projects and then a lot of people are not. I think clients, like Dean was saying, you know, a carbon certification, if you will, clients should request it, but they should also know it comes at a slight increasing cost. And data centers can also reward them back with creating a process to create these renewable certificates and give them the win, if you will, for going to renewable. A lot of times we get pushback on the increased cost of going to renewable. But, you know, I think data centers can make a better argument to the clients that it's more sustainable, it'll add longer life to these data centers. And it does lower the impact on the environment, whether you install solar and solar storage or you do it through RACS or even to the degree you go PPAs. But I do think data centers can influence both the client and the energy provider. Influency, if the energy provider doesn't provide RACS, put pressure on them to bring it online, to back solar projects, when farms, whatever geothermal, whatever it is for that particular region, you can be an influence on it, but I encourage clients to request it of their providers. Eventually, you know, I think that even, clients of the cloud and private clouds, they should be requesting of their providers to be on renewable. It does make a difference. It is an influence, it doesn't, we don't just ignore it. I mean, we listen to it if that's what the clients want, but it's also what we want. Our employees live in every location we have a data center, and we want them to have the highest quality of life as well. And that does come sometimes at higher cost, but I do predict that over time, we'll see that those renewable programs come down in cost, and even be lower cost providers than what we see in their current carbon footprints. Well said. Sean? Atomic habits, day-to-day behaviors, or operations for those of us who have run data centers, because the things you do every day have the greatest impact. So what are the elements of your operations and maintenance routines? How do they add or subtract the overall carbon footprint and really just ask the why? We are in the critical environment side of the business, we're a very conservative crowd and we need to be, we need to keep the lights on, that's our job, and we hope that to be very important. But we sometimes get stuck in ruts. As a former in recovering data center manager, I like to chive my colleagues and say, so do you test your sprinkler system every month? No. Why? Well, it's really important, but you do proper maintenance and testing on the back end, and you know that will work in an emergency. So let's ask the hard why. Why are you running your generators every month? Do you not trust them? Do you not charge your batteries properly? Do you not have pre-start systems that are reliable? So that's a big why. And I lead with the joke, but it's a very serious topic. What if instead of running generators monthly across hundreds of thousands of units in gigawatts of consumption with all the affiliated fuel burn in particular emissions, what if we reduce that to once a year or twice a year? What if we have reliable engine systems that obviated wet stacking? We had proper pre-start systems, so we wouldn't have to worry about them starting up. That is a why that could have massive impact from our numbers and our studies as much as an 80% reduction in fuel burn in particular emissions. Real numbers, real impact. So ask the why. Look at your atomic habits and ask your operations in critical environments teams. Why are we doing things? Is there a way we can do them better? And is our principles and our philosophy on operations and maintenance just, does it need a refresh and a reboot? Really, really exciting stuff. Brilliant, brilliant. I think Karim is probably going, yes, yes, yes, absolutely. All right, Philip, tell us what's our action? What can we do? Bill? You asked me, Jane? Oh, Bill, sorry. Philip can talk for me. He doesn't really know I'm not up anyway. No way he can talk for me. Sorry, Bill. I'm gonna build a little bit on what's been talking about here a little bit. I love how we're starting to bring this down into like the contextual level of what organizations can do. My chapter is literally called powering the fourth industrial revolution. If this is a new term for you, came out from the World Economic Forum. And the entire concept aims to blur the lines between physical, digital, and the biological spheres. Sounds very inventive. I'm not about to throw any more marketing terms into here. But we are about to experience a shift in how we all communicate, collaborate, and live, play, everything. And this immersive embodied internet, realistically speaking, is gonna become a large part of our future. There was a really interesting Wall Street Journal article said that to meet global energy demand and climate aspirations, investments in clean energy would need to grow from 1.1 trillion this year to 3.4 trillion until 2030. These advancements would advance technologies, transmission, storage, and amongst other things. Jamie, your question is very specific. What can we do? What can other people do in this industry to sort of understand their impacts on this world? And it's a very reflective, introspective question. And then everybody listening and everybody who's gonna read this chapter, we've been discussing some really important things, but the simplest concept is that digital waste equals physical waste. Be aware how every click you make has an impact on this planet. A single Google search can power a 100 watt light bulb for 11 seconds. And so becoming more conscious of these clicks, of these streams, of these cat videos, whatever you're streaming today, it's important to know that there's an impact to this somewhere. And whether you call it the metaverse, Web 3.0, cloud computing, we forget that all of it has a home. And that's the infrastructures and facilities that all the wonderful people here build and support. So I challenge everybody to start by looking beyond your own organizations, challenge your partners, challenge your suppliers, know that things like ESG and investing in greener solutions are not just vapor talk or just irrelevant. These are key ways to ensure that your business becomes healthier in a new type of connected digital greener economy. So, and that's something that we talk about in our chapter and throughout this book is how you can start to approach that really small, introspective perspective, really, of how you can truly begin to make a difference. And it'll involve obviously ingenuity, creativity, innovation on your part, but sometimes honestly, just like what we've been talking about here, it starts with a simple question. What am I doing? What are my clicks doing? Where do I host my infrastructure right now? Are they really green or, you know, do they just kind of care about making sure that the light keeps blinking green or green or yellow or whatever color you want? And it's important to challenge your suppliers to make sure that they are providing green solutions as well. Because a part of surviving this fourth industrial revolution is not just to build sustainable solutions, but to also counteract the impacts of the previous three revolutions. And really the only way you can do that is if you get creative, you start challenging your partners and suppliers and really making sure that your own business starts small, starts greener, you put your infrastructure in better places, you involve more density, you involve more solutions that are sustainably powered. A lot of ads just asking, are you doing this today and what can you do to make it a greener future? I love it. So inspirational Bill, as always. Thank you. You know, getting the first copy of this and touching it, it makes you start thinking like the second a book goes into print, it really becomes a time capsule in a way stuck in time, representative of a particular time place. And particularly after reading your chapters, I would call each of you futurists. So my question is, what does five years look like from now to you? You know, does this book become a movement, become a tipping point? And we're all inspired to make small but collective changes to effective global transformation and how we think about being green, hopefully or conversely, and sadly on the heels of that IPCC just releasing a warning on Monday that while it's still technically possible to meet the climate goal to keep the planet's average temperature for amazing more than one and a half degree Celsius above its pre-industrial level, that window for technical feasibility, it's rapidly shrinking. They claim it's nearly impossible because we all need to make a collective change quickly. And do we as humans have the capability? Or are we facing, you know, an apocalyptic future? So my question to each of you, what does the next five years look like? What does it look like in five years from now? Brahm? Thanks, Jamie. So you brought up, you know, the question is change in five years. So let's look at the most compromised definition of change is the not more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming by 2030. It's the most comfortable after a lot of compromises in COP26 that came up with that 1.5, right? But here's the funny thing. To just meet that compromised change of not more than 1.5 will require at least 40% of all coal-fired plants globally to shut down. Is that possible? I don't know, you don't know. But what you do know is that in that period to 2030, the carbon trade is going to be a hundred billion dollars. So just think about it. You are not very sure that you're going to reduce the, you're going to be able to shut down those coal-fired plants because if you don't, you're going to have a, you will not meet the 1.5 degree Celsius change. But the carbon trade is going to keep going on. What that means is that carbon trade has to have teeth. That means you have to really earn that carbon credit and get your greenhouse gas down, right? Otherwise you don't get it. So unless you have those teeth, that 1.5 is not going to happen or you cap the whole, make a mandatory, make every country, including the developing countries, India, China, Brazil, all of them have to be kept, right? Then maybe you'll meet that number. If you do that, and if each of us plays our role and if we are done, and it's not as if it can't be done, Jamie, it can be done. You have the technology, as I've mentioned in my chapter, we use it in BDX. We have a blockchained SaaS platform that allows us to see all our carbon footprints in Nenjing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Singapore, Jakarta, and we then manage them, right? If we can do it, those fellows sitting and designing it in COP26, they can do it. Now either we do this and we meet that number you said of 1.5, all really. What's the alternative? We all grow fins and learn how to swim, really. I mean, what else can we do? Seriously. Gosh, scary. Karim. So Jamie, I'll come from my passion and be a little aspirational about what I think it should be. So I imagine that if you do things right, in five years, we have fully utilized data centers with using all of their power infrastructure and we are building less data centers because we're using what we have more fully. I'm gonna leave it at that. From your looks to God's ears, yes. Wes. Yeah, five years, I mean, I've said it before, data centers are like cruise ships and not speed boats. They take a lot of turning radius and if that's the case, where we can focus is on new builds, they need to be as sustainable as possible now, not later, but now. And those older inefficient data centers, they need to be replaced over time. If they can't catch up, you've got to move to these new builds that are more efficient and more sustainable. It's just like you're saying that the statistics you're quoting, it's too big of an impact to ignore. But new builds, they've got to be done better today. I think at least within the next five years, I agree with Bill that we will see fusion, we will see hydrogen and other energy sources beyond the five years to help reduce the carbon emissions, the footprint. But within five years, the best impact we can have is new builds need to be done as sustainable as possible now. Well said. Now too. Sean? Well, it's from a power systems perspective, really exciting time now. All kinds of great stuff going on. Revolutionary new technologies, we've talked about a little bit, hydrogen fuel cells, grid scale batteries, even wave power data centers or other crazy stuff that Christian and Sean and Mark are working on at Microsoft, I expect like, volcano powered data centers here sometime soon. And I've been joking lately about private nuclear, which is a joke until like Kava next week, announces that they're doing that, right? So all kinds of great R&D, big best brains in the business looking into revolutionary new ways to power data systems to be more efficient and reduce carbon footprint. But I do think in parallel, and this is why it's exciting, we're also highly optimizing what we're doing today and what we've been doing for years. That's, this is this evolutionary approach, continuously improve what we're doing. So whether that's a different fuel source like HBO, HBO is getting really hot, particularly the West Coast, California, where HBO promises incredible benefits. And that's a very highly regulated emissions environment. That's where, you know, tier four, all the tier four innovation is coming from great interest there. No load testing, I mentioned that a little bit earlier, that allows us to run and test much less frequently, reducing our fuel burn and emissions. So in parallel, I think the next five years holds only good things in progress. We've got lots of money and brain power looking at radically new ways of doing things. And we will arrive at some of them and latch on to them. And in parallel, working on taking what we're doing today and making it cleaner and greener to limit impact. So I see nothing but really good things in really clear answers to the sustainability challenge in power systems in the next five years. Amazing. Bill? It's so important for everybody to know that over the next five years, it is so critical regardless of you're just a small organization or very large to look into building new and sustainable solutions. The concept of digital is a true idea and movement and driver for meaningful and measurable change. We were truly a connected society. And there was a really interesting study that said based on current trends, 75% of S&P 500 companies from 2012 will fade into obscurity by 2027. And much of that is driven by their innovation, this catalyst of continuous acceleration of business innovation. And a big, big part of that is investing in things like ESG or investing in greener solutions because these aren't just points of conversation. This is literally where money talks and this is where a lot of the investments are going. So over the next five years, I think a lot of organizations are gonna have a, coming to terms and wake up moment that we need to be greener, A for the environment and B for the health of our business. And I do absolutely believe that we are gonna leverage human ingenuity and creativity to certainly get there. Like I said earlier, we at Switch already strive to do really brilliant things. We partnered out a $1.2 billion project that seeks to build out 555 megawatts of solar capacity that's backed by 800 megawatt hours of Tesla microtech batteries or building a 14 mile, 4,000 acre foot effluent water pipeline to support a multi-million hyperscale, multi-million square foot hyperscale campus to utilize 100% recycled effluent water, placing no additional strain on the river. But again, it's talking about how these solutions over the next five years aren't just driving a greener architecture. It's stewards of being a good neighbor, right? Being a good steward of the economy and as well as the environment because these kinds of solutions, for example, the water one, it helps save endangered species. It helps save animals. It helps remove nitrates from the river. It cleans the water. It helps large hyperscale facilities not tap into an already strained either grid or water system. Over the next five years, we're gonna see these kinds of advancements and it's not just going to be something we put on paper or we talked about this earlier, greenwashing, make it marketing material. Becoming greener over the next five years is your driver, not only to help survive climate change but also to help your business survive. Yes, yes, yes. Philip. You know, I think building upon what Bill was just talking about, right? Which is a phenomenal stuff that they're doing but with regards to other industries, right? So, you know, we've talked about today what we're doing within our industry. It's also what we're doing as an industry to help other industries become more green and more efficient, right? And what we're powering, right? The cloud, AI, machine learning, IoT is gonna help industries like automotive and aviation and agriculture to become more efficient and less, you know, wasteful in terms of how they operate their businesses. And so I'm hopeful that the technologies that we as an industry are building and innovating on will permeate throughout, right? And it's not just exclusive to us. And I think that's important where that collaboration extends to these, you know, these other vital industries that are huge, that have a huge impact on water, on power and on waste and so forth. And then obviously taking global, right? And it's not just, you know, it's great to have Brahm here and his perspective and he's based in Asia. And there's, you know, Europe has always been, you know, a leader in terms of their sustainability efforts but it's a global initiative, right? And that we all have to undertake together. So, you know, that's, I leave hopeful, right? Obviously the stats aren't good but we got to start today and we got to collaborate as much as possible. So well said. Dean, last words? Yeah, I've been listening to this. And by the way, I'm just honored to be on this panel with these folks, right? And Jamie, what you've put together is really incredible. It's meaningful. And I think what we're gonna actually do is start a movement here to make people think more, right? With the information that we shared. But the one thing that comes up in my mind is five years from now. First off, if we don't make progress, it's too late. 2030 is right around the corner and we've got to make meaningful change. And I think Brahm really, really brought that home for me. And the reason is that real change requires a forcing function. And there are two things that are going on right now that have not been there. I started my, you know, my sustainability journey back in 2008 at Sun Microsystems, right? And it's taken 12, 13 years to even really get the traction. But the reason was there was no forcing function. And now there are two elements. One is the money. So follow the money. When they invest in certain things in a certain way, things will happen. And so if you look at like BlackRock, they're the largest, right? Asset holders in the world, almost $7 trillion, they are only focusing on ESG investments. That's a forcing function, massive. Whether it's Macquarie or you think of there's dozens and dozens of these really, really big equity firms that are now doing that, that'll force it. The second is regulatory. So if you think about the SEC, they just announced last month that every one of these companies are going to have to actually include climate related information and registration statements and annual reports. So forcing function, again. So all of a sudden, it's no longer a nice to have, it's a requirement that is gonna lead to all of the other things that we're talking about because they're gonna look to the partners and the providers to be able to say, how can I solve this problem? And then all this amazing work that the folks that are doing here, all the members and I-Masons are actually doing collectively, we can actually make a difference with it. But the only way to make that happen is that we actually have data that we can trust that we can prove that we're gonna be able to make the progress we're looking for. Without that, it's just a bunch of actions and you never know if you're actually getting there. That's right. So well said. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Thank you everyone for your insights on getting greener in our data infrastructure and now, necessarily now. Again, our all-star panelist, Sean Farney, Director of Data Center Marketing of Kohler, Bill Klayman, EVP of Digital Solutions at Switch, Philip Marangela, Chief Marketing Officer of EdgeConnex, Dean Nelson, Founder and Chairman of I-Masons and CEO of Virtual Power Systems, Ram Singh, CEO of BDX, Karim Sheik, CTO of Virtual Power Systems and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University, Wes Swenson, CEO of NOVA Data Centers. Thank you guys. Thank you so much. And viewers, quick reminder, please go ahead and stay on for continued networking. We have a few more minutes. And viewers, if you were one of our first 100 registrants, we hope you enjoyed your lunch. Go ahead and visit us at jsa.net to register for upcoming JSA Virtual Roundtables and check out greenerdata.net for more, not just on the book, but also on the movement. We will be promoting our industry's successes and sustainability on that site as well. So join us also for our book launch on Earth Day, April 22nd, 8 a.m. Pacific, 11 Eastern on LinkedIn Live. Proceeds of the book will be donated to direct relief charity to aid the Ukrainian humanitarian efforts so needed there. That's a wrap, guys. Look out for the playback of today's roundtable coming soon, JSA TV and JSA Podcast. In the meantime, see you at those networking tables. Happy networking, stay safe and think green.