Greenpixie have been awarded a 100% government grant to fund a tool which could cut data centre emissions by millions of tonnes per year.

Data centres’ rampant electricity use is halting the building of houses in England, taking up 14% of Ireland’s electricity grid, and is now responsible for over 3% of global GHG emissions – more than the entire aviation industry.

Greenpixie’s product addresses these emissions head on, calculating emissions data for enterprises who utilise cloud computing within data centres.

John Ridd, Greenpixie CEO, said of the funding;

“This transformative technology has the potential to revolutionise the IT industry and finally address the absurd levels of waste in the cloud. By allowing unneeded computation to run in datacentres, developers in the cloud are essentially heating empty homes. Thanks to the data we provide, they are finally able to build for environmental efficiency, not just cost and performance.”

The government’s decision to act on this issue is timely. Given the exponential growth of ‘the cloud’, and its alarmingly wasteful architecture (30% of cloud use is estimated to be waste), actionable sustainability data is a tool that cannot wait.

Early Greenpixie investor, Victoria Magrath, who runs a fashion and beauty empire with a social media following in the millions, made the connection between online activity and carbon emissions before most;

“When I considered the environmental impact of my social channels and website, and looked into the scale of this problem more, I became passionate about being part of the solution.”

Also realising the urgency of cloud computing’s out-of-control emissions, BBC Panorama recently covered the topic, while the UK Government unveiled the Government Digital Sustainability Alliance, led by DEFRA, at COP27.

Greenpixie, who were named Greentech Initiative of the Year at the Digital Leaders Awards in June, 2023, also made history at last year’s COP27, becoming the first to speak on issue of data centre and cloud emissions at a COP event.

Further information and sources:

Quoted:
Victoria Magrath
www.instagram.com/victoria

John Ridd
www.linkedin.com/in/john-c-ridd/

For more information on cloud emissions:

3% of global emissions

BBC Panorama

London Housing

Ireland Datacentres