With the advent and rapid development of computer and internet
technology, a new form of warehousing emerged: the storage of electronic data. Whereas physical documents and files used to be stored in
archive buildings (which are essentially warehouses), the introduction of electronic documents did by no means eliminate the need for storage.
Although the storage of paper documents may be reduced, data storage nevertheless has an impact on the environment too. Storage facilities for electronic data are usually called data centres. Within a data centre, an often large number of servers perform computing operations to store and process data. Although only little physical traffic goes in and out of the site after the construction phase is finished, a lot of data traffic emerges and is
‘transported’ in and out by communication technology.
The amount of data that needs processing and storing is continuously increasing. The energy consumed by US data centres alone in 2014 is estimated at 70 billion kWh, the equivalent to 2 per cent of the country’s overall energy consumption, or that of 6.4 million average homes. The growth of energy use for data centres has been extreme in the past and is still growing, although energy efficiency is improving as well. If energy efficiency levels had not been improved, and had remained at 2010 levels, the energy use in 2014 would have been an additional 40 billion kWh (DataCenterKnowledge, 2016).
Data centres are a worthwhile target for energy savings. The typical annual energy costs per square metre are 15 times that of a typical office building (Greenberg et al, 2006). In extreme cases, data centres
oil depot. Most of the stock was damaged not only by the explosion but also by the water from sprinklers. It took fire brigades several days to stop the fire. During that time, ASOS, one of the fastest-growing online fashion retail- ers, could not use its central warehouse and distribution site and couldn’t send goods out. The company had only moved into its single global distribu- tion site months before. The potential effect on the business in the run-up to Christmas was so significant that its shares were initially suspended from trading (Sturcke, 2005; Daley, 2006). Although ASOS recovered from the disruption, it shows the significance of warehousing on the economic dimen- sion of a business’s sustainability.
consume up to 100 times more energy than a standard office building (US Department of Energy, 2006). Data centres also operate continuously with peaks following office working hours and therefore have to source much of their electricity when it is the most expensive in time-dependent tariffs (Greenberg et al, 2006).
Opportunities for energy efficiency improvements in data centres exist at four major points: cooling, server load and computing equipment, power conversion and distribution, and alternative power generation.
The electricity consumption in a data centre can be differentiated into supply (support systems like cooling, lighting, etc) and demand (computing equipment such as server power supply, processors, and communication equipment). More energy-efficient server components therefore have a leverage effect on the overall data centre’s energy consumption, as not only the energy in the ‘production’ is saved but additionally the energy required by the support systems is reduced (Emerson, 2008).
Energy required for cooling can be reduced through improved air management. Optimized distribution of cool air and the collection of waste heat for energy production can be addressed in design and operations at the data centre. On average, cooling takes around 38 per cent of a data centre’s energy consumption (Emerson, 2008). Cooling is one reason why Facebook built its own 30,000-square-metre data centre in northern Sweden, where temperatures are low most of the year and even in summer do not rise over 20 degrees Celsius. For 10 months per year, outside air can be used for cooling. Furthermore, Facebook can source its energy for the site primarily from a nearby hydropower plant, reducing its carbon emissions even further (BBC, 2011).
A major performance figure for benchmarking data centres is the power usage effectiveness (PUE), which is the total power used by the data centre divided by the energy used for IT systems. The lower the consumption of auxiliary systems, the lower the PUE score becomes.
A state-of-the-art data centre like Facebook’s in northern Sweden achieves a PUE score of 1.07 and Google claims to reach a PUE of 1.12 across all its data centres (BBC, 2011; Google, 2016). Apple, on the other hand, has built up its own green energy supply by building a large solar array park in North Carolina to supply its nearby data centre and powers all its data centres with 100 per cent renewable energy (Apple, 2012).
Sustainable Warehousing 115
Summary
Warehouses are the nodes in logistics networks. Within the network design, their number and locations influence the need for transportation. But they also have a footprint from their building and the activities in and around the warehouse. The environmental impact is usually classed into two main parts: construction and operations.
The emissions in the construction phase are often in a trade-off with the operational emissions. More insulation in the construction means more energy is embedded in the building but less is consumed during its everyday operations.
As a consequence, the anticipated lifetime of a warehouse building is a crucial component in this trade-off between embodied energy and operational energy.
Whereas much of the energy consumption is determined at the design stage of the warehouse, the warehouse’s energy consumption and its envi- ronmental impact can also be reduced to some extent later through the installation of energy- and water-saving technology, for example in updating temperature control or lighting systems.
Warehouses are not necessarily built or run by a single company that owns the stored products inside them. Logistics service providers or real estate investors may own the building and use it for more than one client.
Different interests and priorities between these stakeholders may lead to less than optimal solutions.
Warehouses also fall into the social dimension of the triple bottom line, as they are places of employment. The wellbeing of the workforce therefore also must be part of sustainability considerations.
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