You Can Tell a Lot about a Company from Its Sustainability Report

This blog about sustainability was authored by both Biswajit Mishra and Justin Emerson

Regardless of your location, your role in an organization, or your industry, it’s likely that you’ve heard the term ESG, which stands for environmental, social, and governance. The term ESG was coined by the investment industry as a way of evaluating businesses on non-financial metrics that can provide insights into unforeseen risk and explored growth opportunities. ESG as a strategy focuses not just on creating value for the shareholders but also value creation for direct and indirect stakeholders of a business including employees, local communities, customers in general, and society at large.

Changing global factors have accelerated the importance of ESG in business. A good ESG strategy has moved from “a nice to have” corporate initiative to “an absolute necessity.” Rising energy prices and climate change are challenges all businesses need to account for and are the catalysts driving an increased focus toward ESG among businesses worldwide.

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Impact of Storage on Environmental Sustainability and Energy Efficiency

The world is producing more data than ever before, and businesses are becoming more digitized and data-driven. According to IDC estimates, data is expected to grow at a 23% CAGR and reach almost 175 zettabytes by 2025. It’s no surprise that today data centers consume 1% of the world’s energy, and the growth in data means that the energy demand to power data centers will continue to rise. On the other hand, energy constraints and environmental impact have meant that some jurisdictions are beginning to deny permission to build new data centers, even for large hyperscalers.

With Gartner estimating that unstructured data will be 80% of all data produced, having the right storage strategy for your unstructured data is an essential part of any ESG strategy.

ESG Claims by the Storage Industry

At Pure Storage®, we believe it’s a good thing that sustainability is coming to the forefront of storage conversations. Reducing the carbon footprint of storage systems while delivering on business’ digital transformation initiatives, and supporting the fight against climate change and pollution to make the world a better place for everyone are goals we should all get behind.

In today’s climate, with many storage companies positioning themselves as “energy efficient and environmentally sustainable,” there are several important things customers should ask when reading a vendor’s sustainability report—especially one comparing multiple competitive storage systems. Some of these considerations are:

• Is there a fair comparison of similar products?
• Does the vendor have a proven track record of optimizing their products for sustainability and efficiency?
• Is the impact over time factored into the savings equation?
• Are the vendor assumptions substantiated and validated by a third-party audit—and are they reflective of the published information?
• Is there any misrepresentation of competitive configurations and specifications to fit the vendor’s narrative?

If you’re not sure about the answer to one or more of these questions, then ask yourself: Should you be depending on such information for determining your ESG strategy?

The Pure Sustainability Advantage

At Pure, we’re committed to environmental sustainability and energy efficiency as shown in our recent comprehensive ESG report. Pure is in the third-party review phase of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of our FlashArray product by engaging an outside environmental consulting firm to assess the carbon, energy, and water used in a cradle-to-grave analysis. Additionally, an LCA includes a competitive use-phase analysis.

Recently, we utilized this same formula  to analyze the use phase of our new FlashBlade//S™ product. This methodology is backed by independent, third-party audited results of the use phase of FlashBlade//S. When compared to similar all-flash products from competitive vendors, FlashBlade//S delivers:

• 67% in energy and emission savings vs. competitive legacy all-flash systems
• 60% in energy and emission savings vs. competitive upstart all-flash systems

Here is what it translates to in annual power savings for each FlashBlade//S chassis compared to similar all-flash products from competitive vendors:

And we back up these claims with better science—technological advancements in the area of data center storage that make a big difference in the environmental impacts of our products. With unique innovations like DirectFlash®, Pure Storage products are not only more dense and therefore more space efficient than the competition; they’re also more power efficient at the same time. By building efficient, all-flash systems end to end, Pure’s storage products offer customers major advantages in efficiency and sustainability compared to legacy spinning disk and hybrid solutions, as well as the newest all-flash storage pretenders.

Emission savings from a single FlashBlade® chassis when compared to similar configurations from competitive all-flash storage systems can make a huge impact in reducing the carbon footprint (as shown in the image here).

But these energy and emission savings from a single chassis are just the start. The explosive growth in data means that sustainability and energy savings from FlashBlade//S can multiply exponentially beyond these numbers.

Simply put: Energy efficiency for unstructured storage clearly matters. And the benefits we’re observing are using today’s efficiency numbers. Pure Storage isn’t standing still, and our power efficiency will get even better over time. In fact, Pure is committing to a 3x reduction in direct carbon usage per petabyte by FY30.

With the power of Pure’s Evergreen™ subscription services, FlashBlade//S is not only the premier environmentally sustainable and energy efficient unstructured storage solution in the market but also the flexible, future-proof platform that will evolve over time to meet our customers’ needs while minimizing waste.

Learn more about FlashBlade//S™.