The UK is working towards achieving net zero by 2050, and this ambitious target has set a precedent for UK organisations to overhaul their sustainability goals.
It’s not just the UK – it’s clear that regulatory pressures are mounting around the world, with the onus on companies to reduce their carbon emissions and environmental impact. This significant expansion in regulation is driving increasingly stringent emissions reporting requirements and the implementation of mandatory climate-related financial disclosures. As sustainability leaders grapple with this, digital infrastructure needs to be a key focus area.
The hidden carbon footprint of digital infrastructure
In the UK, emissions disclosures are mandatory, with the UK government striving to reduce greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2035. And with Artificial Intelligence adoption up from 9% in 2023 to 22% in 2024, businesses that are becoming increasingly reliant on AI and other data-intensive workloads are using up energy at a rate that makes it harder than ever to adhere to these targets. There’s no sign of this slowing down, and increased AI adoption means that the demand for power is increasing at pace.
In fact, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that electricity consumption for AI could double by 2026.
As energy costs and environmental impact escalate, it’s critical that businesses reassess their digital infrastructure to balance sustainability requirements with technological innovation. This is not a nice-to-have – it’s non-negotiable. Pressure is mounting from all angles – with the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and UK Sustainability Disclosure Requirements mandating transparent emissions data, and the EU AI Act introducing strict oversight of high-risk AI systems.
Why Legacy Infrastructure No Longer Fits
Legacy and overprovisioned infrastructure creates unnecessary carbon impact for businesses making it harder to reach ambitious sustainability goals. Businesses now need to reassess their infrastructure with this in mind, taking measures to modernise their systems to cut down emissions.
True sustainability is far more than a box-ticking exercise – it’s about embedding environmental, social, and economic responsibility into the core DNA of a business. It requires a fundamental shift in how digital infrastructure is built, managed, and scaled. To address this, businesses must prioritise designing infrastructure with efficiency in mind, leveraging intelligent workload management, flexible consumption models, and real-time emissions tracking to ensure digital growth aligns with ESG goals.
The Importance of Modularity and Automation
An array of smart infrastructure technologies are helping address these issues, ensuring true sustainability, whether that be through self-regulating AI, hyperscale, real-time monitoring or something else entirely. These technologies are helping businesses to cut down on energy usage by monitoring consumption and reducing waste automatically. This enables businesses to lower their carbon footprint whilst improving long-term operational savings, providing an additional monetary benefit.
A growing number of enterprises are investing in energy-efficient data storage and processing solutions that minimise carbon footprint without compromising performance.
For example, systems like Hitachi Vantara’s VSP One Block have been shown to help businesses reduce energy consumption by at least 30% using technologies like adaptive data reduction and dynamic carbon reduction. These advancements reflect a broader trend towards designing digital environments that are both high-performing and environmentally responsible. Such modular sustainable architecture is allowing organisations to scale infrastructure incrementally, avoiding wasteful overprovisioning through independent and interchangeable systems.
Meanwhile, automation enables real-time adjustments based on demand, reducing energy use and ensuring digital environments remain agile, efficient, and future-ready.
Traditional reporting often relies on delayed, estimated data that lacks the precision needed for operational change. In contrast, by building automation into infrastructure, businesses can benefit from real-time insights powered by smart systems and intelligent analytics. This enables them to act on emissions data as it happens, from waste management, redistribution, or by following bespoke recommendations from the technology itself.
As data volumes and sustainability pressures continue to surge, the path forward lies in making infrastructure inherently smarter and more adaptive to meet evolving sustainability targets.
Businesses must look beyond short-term efficiency gains and embrace architectural decisions that support long-term ESG alignment. Organisations can not only meet regulatory expectations but lead in building a more sustainable digital future.
- Infrastructure & Cloud
- Sustainability Technology