Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
f. recycling of materials from data centres.
Recycling organizations receive the ma-
terials and ensure that these are optimally
processed.
place: one at a local government, the city of
Amsterdam, one at the Dutch tax authorities
and one at the Fontys University of Applied
Sciences.
c. The supply of facilities and ICT provisions.
Regarding supply of cooling equipment one
single interview took place, namely with the
Stulz company. Regarding supply of ICT
hardware, HP was interviewed.
d. Operations of data centres. In this sector,
seven interviews took place. The follow-
ing companies/bodies were interviewed:
internet service provider Byte, the City
of Amsterdam, the Kadaster (Dutch Land
Registry), the Telecity hosting service,
the Rabo Bank, the ICT department of the
Fontys University of Applied Sciences and
the police in the Rotterdam Region.
e. Consulting about sustainable data centres.
Regarding consulting, IBM was interviewed.
In addition, the Gartner consultancy organi-
zation gave a lecture on how they perform
sustainability audits in organizations.
f. Recycling. One company, L&R Recycling,
a recycling company, was interviewed.
Figure 2. shows these processes. It is also
indicated which intrinsic possibilities these pro-
cesses have in order to ensure the realization of
more sustainable data centres.
SET-UP OF THE STUDY
Over the period 2008-2009, the knowledge circle
sustainability of the Fontys University examined
on the basis of the model in figure 2, how the dif-
ferent processes aimed to achieve sustainable data
centres in the Netherlands are executed. For this
study, one decided to use in-depth interviews. In
these interviews, the study group used questions
that were drawn up in advance. These interview
questions were drawn up on the basis of a study
of documents and literature. Per process, a set of
interview questions was composed. Next, sixteen
in-depth interviews took place. Each interview
took about ninety minutes and was recorded on
tape. For the following processes interviews took
place:
With the exception of the interviews with in-
ternet service provider Byte and hosting service
provider Telecity, all interviews were held at
organizations that employ over 1000 staff in the
Netherlands. Some of the interviewed organiza-
tions, such as Senter Novem and L&R Recycling
hold a clear position in their field. Others, such as
the City of Amsterdam, Gartner, IBM and the Rabo
Bank are nationally known for being trendsetters
in the field of sustainability or of sustainable data
centres or regarding consultancy on sustainable
data centres. This way, the choice of organizations
includes a bias. One mainly selected organizations
that have already earned their spurs in this field
to a certain degree.
a. In the field of making laws, rules, norms
and agreements, two government services
were interviewed. One of these services was
in charge of carrying out subsidy schemes.
The other one took care of the realization
of long-term agreements. Both services are
part of SenterNovem. The legislator itself,
being the European Union or the Dutch
legislator was not interviewed. Information
in this field was obtained as a by-product of
these interviews and by means of studying
websites and literature.
b. With regard to the procuring of facilities
and ICT provisions, three interviews took
