7 Sustainable Server Practices to Reduce Environmental Impact

Servers power everything from websites to cloud storage, but they consume a lot of electricity. This electricity use leads to higher energy costs and a bigger carbon footprint. 

Data centres, where many servers run, are responsible for nearly 1% of global electricity consumption. Without sustainable practices, this number will continue to grow, harming the environment.

Moreover, Gartner Predicts that 75% of Organizations Will Have Implemented a Data Center Infrastructure Sustainability Program by 2027.

However, businesses can take steps to make their server infrastructure more eco-friendly. By adopting sustainable server practices, they can reduce power consumption, extend hardware life, and lower electronic waste. 

Here are seven ways to make servers more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.

1. Use Energy-Efficient Servers

Not all servers consume the same amount of power. Some are designed to run efficiently while maintaining high performance. Energy-efficient servers

• use low-power processors that deliver more computing power with less energy

• support dynamic frequency scaling, which adjusts processing speed based on workload

• have better cooling systems with advanced heat sinks and fans

• enable power-saving modes that allow servers to sleep or hibernate when not in use

By choosing energy-efficient servers, businesses can cut electricity costs and lower their carbon footprint while maintaining high performance.

The analysis reveals that data centre energy consumption can be reduced by about 20–40% and 15–27% through IT equipment optimisation and cooling technology improvements, respectively.

2. Optimize Server Utilization

Many servers run at only 10 to 20% capacity, wasting a large amount of electricity. A server that is only doing a little work still uses almost the same amount of power as a fully loaded server. This is why businesses must optimise how they use their servers.

One way to improve server efficiency is consolidation. Instead of running several underused servers, businesses can combine workloads onto fewer, more powerful machines. This reduces the total number of servers needed, cutting both energy consumption and cooling requirements.

Additionally, load-balancing software helps distribute computing tasks efficiently. By spreading out the workload, businesses can make the best use of available resources while keeping energy waste low.

3. Improve Cooling Efficiency

Servers generate heat when they process data. If they get too hot, they slow down or even shut down, so data centres use cooling systems to keep them at safe temperatures. However, traditional cooling methods consume a lot of power. To make cooling more sustainable, companies can use smarter methods like

• liquid cooling, which absorbs heat more effectively than traditional air cooling

• hot and cold aisle layouts that improve airflow and reduce the need for extra cooling

• free cooling, which uses outside air instead of air conditioning to cool servers naturally

These techniques can cut cooling energy use by up to 40%, making server rooms and data centres much more sustainable.

4. Switch to Renewable Energy Sources

Many data centres still rely on electricity generated from coal, oil, and natural gas, which emit harmful carbon emissions. A switch to renewable energy sources can significantly reduce environmental impact. Businesses can

• Install solar panels to generate electricity directly from sunlight

• Use wind energy by installing wind turbines or buying wind-generated electricity

• Work with green hosting providers that run data centres on 100 percent renewable energy

A few large tech companies, such as Google and Microsoft, have already been running their data centres on renewable energy sources. This in itself can prove that high-performance computing is achievable without harming the planet.

5. Reduce E-Waste by Recycling Servers

Servers do not live forever. Once they are no longer needed, most organisations dispose of them by throwing them into the electronic waste. E-waste has dangerous materials such as lead, mercury, and cadmium that could contaminate the environment if not disposed of properly. Rather than getting rid of old servers, companies should

• Upgrade components rather than replace entire servers, as often a simple RAM or SSD refresh can extend server life

• Donate or resell older hardware since most schools, small businesses, and non-profits still can make good use of it

It helps cut waste, save money, and conserve resources by recycling and repurposing old servers.

6. Automate Power Management

A major flaw of traditional servers is that they often run at full power, even when not in use. This wastes electricity and increases the energy cost. Modern power management automation can overcome this problem.

• Smart power management software can be used by businesses to

• Turn off unused servers automatically when not needed

• Power settings based on demand to avoid unnecessary energy usage

• Monitor energy consumption in real time and identify areas where energy can be saved

By using these automated systems, businesses can cut power consumption by up to 30 percent, making their data centres more eco-friendly.

7. Use Virtualization to Reduce Physical Servers

In the past, companies used one server for each application. This meant that a business with 20 applications needed 20 physical servers, even if some of them were barely being used. Today, virtualisation allows multiple applications to run on a single physical server by creating virtual machines. 

This method

• Reduces the number of physical servers needed by allowing multiple workloads to share the same hardware

• Lowers power consumption and cooling costs since fewer physical machines are required

• Improves efficiency by dynamically distributing workloads across available resources

Final Thoughts

Sustainable server practices help businesses save energy, cut costs, and reduce their environmental impact. The following are some of the ways in which companies can make their IT operations more eco-friendly: by choosing energy-efficient hardware, optimizing usage, improving cooling, using renewable energy, recycling old servers, automating power management, and using virtualization.

These tiny changes bring massive results and also benefit both business and the environment. The future is sustainable technology, and all businesses need to take up less carbon emissions.

Also read: What Strategies Help in Managing a Server?