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Green Government

HK to set green data centre standard

By Johanna Morden | 14 April 2011

Like Singapore and Japan, Hong Kong could be seeing its own standard to measure the carbon emission quotient and energy efficiency of data centres in the region in the near future.

This was said during the recent FutureGov Forum in Hong Kong by Dr. Elizabeth Quat, Initiator and Founding Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Green ICT Consortium of Hong Kong, a group of organisations bonded together to promote the proliferation of green ICT in Hong Kong.

The Consortium counts among its Joint Patrons key Hong Kong government officials, the likes of Edward Yau Tang-wah, Secretary for the Environment at the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Quat said a pilot study on the carbon audit and energy efficiency of data centres in Hong Kong is presently being done by the Consortium, in coordination with such government agencies as the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO).

“Hopefully, we can come up with guidelines to train ICT practitioners to do their own carbon audit for their own data centres,” she said.

Quat highlighted the need for Hong Kong to have its own standard, as opposed to adopting standards by other countries or organisations, because data centres in the region face a special challenge in the form of land scarcity.

The lack of available land in the region has required data centres to be built only on certain industrial parks.

Quat said, however, that the Hong Kong government has pledged to set aside pieces of land for data centre development in the near future.

She noted the importance of setting a standard for green data centres in the region.

“Hong Kong continues to lag behind such countries like the US and Canada in terms of green ICT,” she said.

She cited a Green ICT Survey conducted by the Consortium in 2009, which found out that 42 per cent of the 303 respondent-organisations had no green IT strategy to reduce energy consumption and no plan of doing so.

This is a matter of concern for Quat, who said that greening the ICT sector in Hong Kong would not only cut carbon emissions and energy use of organisations, but also cut their operating expenses and improve profit for them to be more globally-competitive.

She cited a report claiming that 2 to 2.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the ICT sector, 55 per cent of which come from data centres. By 2020, the total carbon emissions emitted by the ICT sector is supposed to multiply by three times.

Quat said that in the setting of a data centre standard, factors such as energy efficiency, as well as the processes of procurement and disposal of electronic waste, among others, should be considered.

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