Earth Day 2025: A Commitment to Clean Technology
Earth Day 2025, on 22 April 2025, unites more than one billion people across the world to call for collective action to accelerate a global shift to renewable energy.
This year’s theme, Our Power, Our Planet, focuses on the ambitious goal of tripling clean electricity generation by 2030, placing the focus on solar, wind, hydroelectric, tidal and geothermal power as catalysts for climate stability.
Now a global event in its 55th year, Earth Day continues to rally communities, businesses and governments in a joint mission to mitigate climate change and push for a more sustainable future.
“Earth Day is the cornerstone of my year, and this year, Italy represents the perfect backdrop for a message of unity around the critically important subject of energy.”
For the data centre industry, leaders recognise the immense responsibility they have to procure renewable energy and make their operations and supply chains more sustainable.
“This Earth Day, we’re reminded that innovation when used responsibly can be a powerful force for good,” says Sophie Graham, Chief Sustainability Officer at IFS.
“We see industrial AI playing a vital role in helping high-impact, yet hard-to-abate, sectors like manufacturing and utilities become more sustainable.”
Raising awareness of climate challenges
This year’s activities on Earth Day are reflecting the scale and urgency of the climate crisis. They are aiming to raise awareness of climate challenges and promote responsible resource use at every level.
- Community clean-ups in urban, rural and coastal areas
- Live educational events, such as the BBC’s school rainforest expedition
- Advocacy campaigns demanding policy reform and investment in renewables
- Sustainability fairs and workshops on circular economy practices and low-carbon living
However, according to the International Energy Agency, data centres remain significant contributors to global carbon emissions and are estimated to represent 1-1.5% of global electricity demand.
“This Earth Day provides a real opportunity to discuss how data centre owners can go beyond the conversation and turn talk into action,” says Nigel Edwards, Vice President WW Channel Sales & Marketing at Western Digital.
He adds: “For a start, improving the hardware efficiency and implementing high-density storage can go a long way in reducing data centres resources. By eliminating extra servers, data centres can lower their overall power and cooling costs and save on floor space.
“Data centres in Europe play a central role in helping the region meet its environmental goals, emphasising the importance of reducing power and energy consumption, emissions, and e-waste to become more eco-friendly.”
Whilst data centres are eager to innovate, there is an obvious sustainability paradox given the energy demand of AI. In fact, it is anticipated that electricity demand will more than double by 2030.
“AI offers the ability to optimise resource use, accelerate innovation in renewable technologies and build grid resilience in a way that no other tool can,” continues Sophie.
“We’ve seen this happen first hand: our customers are using AI to optimise their service management, resulting in a typical travel time reduction of 37% and helping them towards net zero goals while boosting productivity.”
“They are also using AI to support greater reliability of renewable energy assets, combining multiple datasets to manage asset performance and reduce outages or lost energy.
“With the right guardrails in place, and widespread adoption, AI will be an important player in the energy transition.”
How data centres can become more sustainable
Some data centre companies have already committed to being more sustainable with renewable energy use. For instance, Start Campus prides itself on its seawater cooling technology, eager to demonstrate how it can harness natural processes to reduce resource consumption.
It is also responsible for the largest data centre ever built in Portugal, SIN01, which is built entirely with renewables. SIN01 has been optimised to meet the high-performance demands of AI, hyperscale cloud and digital acceleration. As a result, Portugal is positioning itself as a low-carbon, high-availability power hub.
“The theme for Earth Day this year, ‘Our Power, Our Planet,’ perfectly aligns with our mission at Start Campus. We recognise that the power to protect our planet lies in the innovative solutions we implement today,” says India Oliveira, Sustainability Manager at Start Campus.
“As Europe’s most sustainable data centre, we are showing how technology and nature can work harmoniously together.”
By utilising ocean water for cooling at scale, the company has significantly lowered its use of freshwater while also maintaining energy efficiency.
“But our commitment extends beyond technology,” India adds. “When developing our campus, our commitment to biodiversity is reflected in our comprehensive wildlife translocation programme.
“We’ve worked alongside academic partners to preserve and study these ecosystems, maintaining the wild character of the surrounding landscape and contributing to scientific understanding of habitat adaptation.
“Earth Day encourages us to reflect on our relationship with our planet, it reminds us that we have both the ability and responsibility to make positive environmental choices.”
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