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Designing the Future of Cloud Emissions Data
By: Elena Dennison
Last updated: Monday, 13 November 2023
Sussex Digital Humanities Lab Research Fellow Dr Jo Walton (pictured) has been awarded an Innovate UK grant to work on widening access to cloud emissions data (CED).
Designing the Future of Cloud Emissions Data is a six month project that will utilise design expertise to democratize the ownership of CED. Dr Walton will work with Greenpixie Ltd, an award winning provider and integrator of CED and pioneers in cloud sustainability and GreenOps.
The IT sector has a considerable carbon footprint. Globally, IT’s current contribution to global heating is similar to that of all aviation, and it seems set to grow. Currently CED data is gatekept by stakeholders with significant technical knowledge. And yet less technical users such as Heads of Sustainability (HoS) need, but cannot yet access, CED for compliance, reporting, NetZero targets, and to drive change.
Storing and processing data in the cloud can have extensive environmental impacts: from the electricity needed to run the data centres, to the water used to cool them, to the embodied carbon cost of constructing them in the first place. Despite all this, the cloud can feel intangible, ethereal, and very far away.
Jo says:
“Currently, when it comes to tools to actually track the carbon emissions of cloud usage, there is a hard trade-off between accuracy and user-friendliness. This is the reason why our project is using people- and planet-centred design, to research how cutting-edge carbon emissions data might be made more visible and engaging for all the stakeholders who could be using this data — not just the highly technically skilled users who are using it now”.
The six month project will also contribute to the activities of the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition, a Community Interest Group of the UK-Ireland DH Society.
If you’re part of an enterprise that uses the cloud, who would like to learn more and maybe shape the future of cloud emissions data, feel free to reach out to SHL Digital lead Jo Walton
This project is funded by the Innovate UK Design Foundations: Net Zero Environments open competition (Round 2).
Want to know more? Email Jo J.walton@sussex.ac.uk