A survey of data centers found the IT-rich facilities are moving in the wrong direction when it comes to recycling their hardware.

Data centers, where all your data stored in the cloud actually ends up, use a lot of energy. About 2 percent of all electricity use comes from data centers, and that number is rising. According to a new report the IT company SuperMicro, only 12 percent of data centers are energy efficient.

The majority of data center providers are failing to take on board the importance of green initiatives as part of their data center infrastructure buildouts, leading to increasing data center costs and environmental impacts.

Supermicro released its second annual Data Centers and the Environment report based on an industry survey of over 5,000 IT professionals. Results once again show us the majority of data center leaders do not fully consider green initiatives for the growing build-out of data center infrastructures, increasing data center costs, and impacting the environment.

Most IT leaders making data center equipment purchases don't prioritize energy efficiency or environmental impact.

A new data center industry report reveals that there’s a long way to go before anyone can claim the sector is in any way “green.” By one standard, just 12 percent of the data centers the report’s authors surveyed are either markedly efficient, or sustainable or, yes, green.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI)has released its second annual Data Centres and the Environment report based on an industry survey of over 5,000 IT professionals. Results demonstrated again this year that the majority of data centre leaders do not fully consider green initiatives for the growing build-out of data centre infrastructures, increasing data centre costs, and impacting the environment.  

While in the past human progress was tied to use of physical resources, in recent history human progress is happening with the use of fewer total resources.  Macafee refers to this trend as dematerialization.