When it comes to pollution, the environmental impact is often tangible, physical and plain to see. Overflowing landfills and dirty rivers are hard to miss or ignore. But what happens when the environmental impact of something is mostly invisible?
This is the challenge with wasted data. This is information that’s created once, such as an email, or a message on Slack and Teams, and is never accessed again after being stored. It resides there and continues to use energy.
This might seem harmless, but the carbon footprint of unused data is a challenge that must be addressed – especially in our AI age. What’s more, when nearly 68% of the world’s data is never accessed after creation, this issue must climb higher on our corporate agendas.
Understanding the size of the hidden data landfill In the UK alone, up to 41% of data is classified as “unused or unwanted.” In addition to the carbon footprint, unused data is punching a significant hole in a company’s finances. It is estimated to cost the private sector around £3.7 billion each year. Instead of helping organisations become more efficient, innovative or sustainable, this data simply sits in data centres, as a cost rather than a driver of value.
To grasp the scale of the problem, consider this: UK organisations spend an average of £300,000 annually on data storage. With 41% of that data deemed unnecessary, that equates to roughly £120,000 to store information no one is using. It’s a considerable sum that would be much more impactful if put towards recruitment, learning and development, or research.
Starting with data management
It’s unsurprising that tackling a challenge as complex as data waste can be daunting to IT departments. Even knowing where to begin can feel overwhelming. Research shows that only a third of IT leaders feel equipped to tackle this issue effectively, showing a clear need for better tools.
This will be especially important as AI adoption continues. The rise of AI has created a parallel boom in the demand for data and storage, further exacerbating the pressure on companies’ data estates. This will also be crucial in realising the ambitions set out in the
recently published AI Opportunities Action Plan. Without intelligent and sustainable data practices in place, UK businesses will struggle to develop, implement and deploy AI technologies and effectively compete in the global AI race.
For their part, business leaders need to empower their IT teams with the resources, infrastructure, and time to confidently identify and eliminate unnecessary data. Doing so would not only reduce their environmental impact but also unlock greater efficiency and cost savings.
After all, data can be an invaluable asset, but only if it’s accurate, organised, and relevant. An overabundance of redundant data hinders effective decision-making and obscures valuable insights. And this is where data management comes in.
Towards greener and smarter storage Today, businesses are spending about £213,000 per year on their data storage – a number set to rise considerably as more and more data is collected across businesses for operational, employee and customer analytics. So to begin tackling data waste, IT leaders need to establish a clear data governance framework that defines standards for data lifecycles, assigns responsibilities, and sets retention policies.
From there, organisations can implement procedures to classify data, eliminate duplicates, and conduct regular audits to ensure compliance with key regulations in their region. With this framework in place, businesses can begin chipping away at the data waste issue before it becomes even more unwieldy.
Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
