The need to guarantee the integrity and security of digital technologies and the systems in question is stronger now than ever as everyone has turned to be critically reliant on it. The quickly developing cybersecurity industry’s environmental impact is not to be ignored. The CO₂ mark of data transmission, the electricity that data centers eat, and the electronic waste created by obsolete tools can’t help but generate an unbearable environmental footprint.
To understand how important it is to take action, it’s enough to remember that e-waste ranks among the world’s fastest-growing solid scrap streams, with a shocking 62 million tons produced globally two years ago. The many regions with poor recycling infrastructure for e-waste worsen the environmental impact, as a significant chunk of e-waste lands in landfills, where it generally releases harmful substances into waters and soils. As proof, just 22.3% of 2022’s e-waste was recorded as formally gathered and recycled.
Fast-forward to today, businesses are funneling heavy greenbacks into sustainability and cybersecurity projects. While the former might appear like a tech investment and the latter merely a promise to environmental, social, and governance (ESG), untapped opportunities exist where both initiatives meet. Sustainability and cybersecurity highly affect enterprises, and for either proposal to turn out well, top dogs need to pass on a comprehensive, companywide commitment to their ethos. Concentrating on cybersecurity in the context of sustainability—and the other way around—can help consolidate businesses. How may the leadership tap into these opportunities, you may wonder?
CISOs’ Critical Role in Sustainability
Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) are among those holding the greatest power to improve businesses’ cyber and technology security, which is why they shouldn’t just implement a venture’s green IT strategy, but work to make the most of it. In this regard, CISOs can initiate particular measures within their jurisdiction, specifically by changing the security requisites’ application, enabling the CO₂ mark to be lowered even further – possibly by a maximum of 10%.
Chiefs can also influence the cyber system’s shift towards greater sufficiency outside their own administration. Every stakeholder, from regulators to suppliers to contractors, has to consider these matters.
Relocate to the Cloud
The cloud race heats up. A recent Gartner study emphasized that global end-user expenditure on public cloud services was predicted to register a growth of 20.7% from 2022 to 2023. The pursuit of cloud solutions only rises, all the more since the pandemic’s outbreak pressured numerous businesses to move to remote or hybrid working formats. While cloud services don’t run on air, they’re more sustainable compared to on-site or in-house servers, where hardware is specially used to store such data and electricity is used by teams to manage databases. Although cloud consumers significant resources, it’s an incomparably better (and cheaper) alternative, almost 98% more energy-efficient than on-premises solutions.
Therefore, if your venture still uses the conventional approaches, it could be high time you shifted from using your servers to using cloud solutions, most of which will offer you access to more sophisticated features and greater potential to scale your business. The current data centers stocking our data are mighty operations, but their continuous development has made them more eco-safe by design. Prominent cloud service providers make massive strides in building more helpful data centers, slashing the consumed resources, and shifting to renewable energy streams, virtualization, server optimization, and state-of-the-art cooling tactics. For instance, Microsoft and Google promise to only fuel their data centers using 75% renewable energy by the end of the approaching year, with plans to achieve complete carbon neutrality by 2030.
Choose Vendors Carefully
Today, businesses across various industries focus more than ever on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters, especially as customers want to know they only shake hands with stakeholders and vendors who are ethical and prioritize issues like the current climate crisis. The cybersecurity sector makes no exception, with an increasing number of solution suppliers bringing sustainability to the forefront and working to be see-through about their efforts to reduce their environmental mark.
Factoring in environmental responsibilities when choosing cybersecurity solutions can create a meaningful impact.
Employ Better Data Storage
Numerous cybersecurity main actors, such as cybersecurity solutions UEBA from IBM and SIEM from Microsoft, operate by scrutinizing vast amounts of data to identify possible anomalies and perils. The greater an establishment’s digital footprint expands, the larger the volume of data that these platforms have to deal with, organize, and analyze. Those files must be stored somewhere, and a big part of it has to be safeguarded for specific periods to ensure compliance with privacy laws and data regulations. Data storage thus turns into one of the biggest eaters of energy of data centers. Nevertheless, many things can be done to offset data storage’s impact, and businesses rejoice over such news. For instance, if you’re willing to leave your data on another digital shelf, figuratively speaking, your operations may be less energy-intensive – even if you may need more time to access your documents.
Carrying out frequent data audits is one method you can employ to stay on top of data hygiene and ensure that your stored data isn’t consuming more resources than necessary. Erase copies and scrutinize storage levels to discover if some of your data could be stored elsewhere in more efficient ways. Lastly, create a lifecycle policy to ensure that no unnecessary data clogs your databases pointlessly.
Rethink Digital Waste
While your venture’s cybersecurity apps and services may use the cloud, your staff may need new and better hardware and devices. This is essential if you want to decrease your organization’s footprint by promoting remote work. As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. You may reduce your venture’s e-waste by choosing devices developed with sustainability in mind.
Some of the main features to consider include lower power consumption, the use of biodegradable or recyclable materials, and more eco-friendly vendor programs.
By embracing these increasingly eco-conscious cybersecurity solutions, you can better protect the environment, conserve vital resources, and safeguard your organization, so don’t sleep on these ideas too much.
