Digital Realty Trust Inc.

08/02/2021 | News release | Distributed by Public on 08/02/2021 16:57

Customer First Focus: Working With Customers to Achieve Sustainability in the Data Center Industry

In the first edition of our Customer First Focus Blog Series, I discussed the importance of listening and collaborating with customers and how that impacts many of the successes at Digital Realty.

The explosion of data growth, the acceleration of demand and the disruption of data gravity barriers are global challenges our customers face today. When we talk with them, we hear how today's digital economy changes how they create/deliver value, produces new security challenges and disrupts workflows.

Solving those issues is critical to our customers, but there is also another essential objective they want to achieve due to the trends of today - sustainability.

Sustainability, data centers and the digital workplace
In Forrester's recent Data Center and Colocation Market Trends 2021 report, they point out that:

'Scrutiny of the environmental impact of data centers is concurrent with their growth in the world's major economic hubs. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic boosted remote work models, surging global internet traffic by 40% between February 1 and mid-April 2020. More traffic consumes more power.'

We know that some changes will remain after the pandemic, including a more prevalent and permanent presence of a digital workplace. At the same time, data gravity continues to intensify and data growth continues to increase. So, it's not hard to imagine the reasons why sustainability is important to customers.

When businesses see Forrester talk about environmental scrutiny and data centers, I'm sure that gets their attention. It can be one of the key drivers for wanting to be part of the global effort to be an eco-conscious business.

Working to lead the global data center industry in sustainable environmental performance
Even before the pandemic put its stamp on the digital workplace, our CEO, Bill Stein, talked with Jim Cramer about our latest round of sustainability initiatives. 'We're focused on sustainability because it matters to our customers and because we think it's the right thing to do,' he said.

In fact, 90% of our top 20 customers have publicly stated the importance of achieving sustainability goals.1 So, our Sales and Customer Success teams are already finding ways to collaborate and integrate our ESG initiatives with their ESG commitments and feedback.

Talking about sustainability and showing actions, results and recognitions are essential to customers when they seek out an eco-friendly partner.