Data Centre LIVE 2025: Data Centre Sustainability Panel

At Data Centre LIVE, senior figures from across the data centre ecosystem shared their views on what sustainability really looks like in an era of rapid AI growth and mounting regulatory pressure. 

The panellists included:

• John Wernvik, Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer at EcoDataCenter
• Steve Bowes-Phipps, Vice President, EMEA Data Centres and Cloud at State Street Bank & Trust
• Pip Squire, Head of Sustainability at Ark Data Centres
• Bryant Farland, CEO at Edged

The four engaged in frank debate on energy efficiency, renewables, carbon strategies and the limitations of current approaches.

Efficiency: "History, not aspiration"

Pip set the tone early by declaring that energy efficiency is no longer a challenge but a baseline. 

“If your electricity bill is £2 million a month, you're already doing everything you can,” he said. 

With PUEs now sub-1.2 at many facilities, especially across Europe, he argued that the focus must shift from legacy metrics to cooling, design resilience and AI-driven operational optimisation.

Steve and John echoed this, pointing out that nearly all data centre energy becomes heat and that the key is to use that waste heat productively. 

Bryant highlighted Edged’s own closed-loop cooling system with a platform-wide PUE of 1.15 and zero water usage. 

“Doing well by doing good,” he said, summing up Edged’s approach.

However, all agreed that the introduction of AI chips demanding lower temperatures could reverse efficiency gains. 

“We’ve got customers running at 32°C supply temps,” Pip explained, “but if we need to drop that to 24°C, cooling energy spikes.”

Renewables, reality and the grid

The conversation moved swiftly to renewables. 

John championed fossil-free energy and HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) for backup generators, already deployed across EcoDC’s sites. 

Pip and Bryant concurred but warned about grid constraints.

“The UK grid cannot deliver 100% renewable energy 100% of the time,” said Pip. “The focus must shift from marginal to delivered cost at the point of consumption.”

Steve was blunt: “No data centre drawing from the grid is truly 100% renewable.” 

He backed nuclear as the only scalable low-carbon solution for 24/7 load and called out greenwashing around grid-fed PPAs and offsets.

Bryant added a US perspective: “We’re chasing power, not choosing it.” 

AI is increasing density and consumption so rapidly that renewables can’t keep pace without substantial infrastructure changes.

Tackling carbon: beyond Scope 1 and 2

On carbon strategy, the panel acknowledged that low-hanging fruit, like PUE and green energy procurement has largely been picked. The real challenge lies in Scope 3: embodied carbon and end-user behaviour.

Pip described the balancing act between energy, water and carbon. 

"It’s a trilemma," he said. “If you don’t use water, you use refrigerants. If you use refrigerants, you raise your carbon footprint.” 

He advocated for designing site-specific strategies, based on location, resource availability and SLA requirements.

John raised the importance of embodied carbon in buildings and hardware, calling for greater use of laminated timber and better data on supplier EPDs (Environmental Product Declarations). 

“It’s hard to make smart choices when you don’t know the carbon content of your chillers,” he said.

Steve and Pip both criticised the volume of unused data clogging storage and increasing energy demand. 

“Do we need to save all data, all the time, forever?” asked Pip. “Probably not.”

Circularity, sovereignty and sustainable design

The discussion turned to sustainable design and the role of circularity. 

Bryant highlighted Edged’s waterless cooling as part of its design-first approach, while John stressed adapting facilities to local conditions, especially if waste heat can be reused through district heating schemes.

Steve questioned the need for traditional Tier 3 or 4 data centres, proposing that with better IT stack resilience and connectivity, Tier 1 or 2 could suffice, removing the need for duplicated infrastructure.

On sovereignty, all agreed it’s becoming central to sustainability. 

“If data is used in the UK, it should be housed and protected under UK law,” said Steve, citing GDPR and AI inference latency as key drivers for local infrastructure.

Final thoughts: where to focus next

In closing, each panellist offered a one-minute summary on where the sector should focus:

• Steve: Cut through AI hype and shift investment from expansion to innovation – photonic chips and van der Waals materials could transform compute efficiency.
• John: Focus on heat reuse, especially as liquid cooling raises output temperatures and makes district heating more viable.
• Pip: Mandate 32°C supply temperatures to force chipmakers to design cooler, more efficient hardware, and push toward circularity.
• Bryant: Deploy what already works – technology is not the bottleneck, deployment and policy are.

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