Retelit Partnership Helps Wasabi Hit Sustainability Goals Worldwide

1) International Energy Agency 
2, 3, 4) Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) 

Given their energy needs, customers are demanding greater social responsibility from their IT vendors. The Wasabi 2024 Cloud Storage Index, an independent survey of 1,200 IT decision-makers worldwide, showed that customers view sustainability as a critical factor in their cloud provider purchasing decisions, just as imperative as other storage and security criteria.   

Furthermore, national, state, and local governments also are calling for more regulations that would require companies to implement sustainable operations. As such, energy-efficient data infrastructure is increasingly important to modern enterprises.  

Cloud solutions providers have a unique role to play in sustainability initiatives, given their considerable global data center footprints. We are in a position here at Wasabi to deliver on efficiency demands with reliable tools and programs that mitigate the impact of high-draw data centers for the benefit of all. 

Data centers go green  

Retelit, our data center partner in Italy, offers telco and digital services globally from its headquarters in Milan and from its different branch offices around Italy. Its proprietary fiber optic network and its 34 data centers are the core of its operations, and the company’s bedrock principles of sustainability and digital transformation mean Retelit is constantly thinking of how to not only enable power-saving initiatives but share them. Its unique waste heat recycling program will be doing just that, reducing the company’s power consumption while benefiting the local community.   

One of the most expensive elements of data center management is keeping servers cool—no one wants their servers to melt. Half the electricity consumed by a data center is used to keep servers running at optimal temperatures, and a byproduct of all that coolant power is heat. So what happens to the waste heat discharged from data centers?  

Retelit was already using 100% green energy to power all its data centers and, like all data centers, electricity is used to to cool heated water and cycle it around servers in a coolant system. But Retelit has done even more: at their Avalon 3, the latest and most sustainable Retelit data center in Milan, they will realize the waste heat recovery with a local utility. All the excess heat generated by Avalon 3 will be captured in a water loop. The hot water is piped to the utility, which then channels it to heat homes in the district. When that water has cooled, the utility cycles it from those homes back to Avalon III to cool the servers. The program will make Retelit’s Avalon 3 data center, hosting the Wasabi storage platform, one of the most energy efficient in the country.  

The closed-loop system will be repeated throughout the day, reusing energy and resources alike to heat 1,250 homes in the city. Wasabi and Retelit will save 3,300 tons of carbon dioxide annually, while Retelit decreases the overall amount of energy it uses.   

The sustainability promise   

Retelit’s waste heat recovery initiative is just one element of the data services provider’s commitment to corporate social responsibility. The company, which holds an overall gold certification from the ESG rating organization ECOVADIS, as well as a LEED 4V GOLD rating for Avalon 3, aims to expand the heat recycling program to its other data centers across the country and is already committed to buy energy from green sources only for all its data centers and offices.  

Wasabi also plays a significant role in Retelit’s energy efficiency and sustainability efforts. “Every company needs to innovate and adopt technologies that better use power,” says Ruggero Slongo, Retelit COO. “Wasabi’s state-of-the-art technology allows us to store the same amount of data with less power.”   

Innovative sustainability practices have moved far beyond “nice to haves.” The Wasabi Cloud Storage Index shows that not only is sustainability a key decision-making factor, it is rated a higher priority over other factors such as price, performance, and scalability. In fact, C-level executives and those who are "cloud-first" adopters ranked sustainability as their top criterion when considering a cloud storage provider.   

“Sustainability long ago exited the compliance officer's office and joined the CEO’s priority list,” Slongo added. “It’s not about cost optimization anymore; it’s a strategic thing. Customers are looking for a sustainable supply chain. They're judging their supply chain, their vendors, and their partners from a sustainability perspective.”  

We build sustainability into our mission at Wasabi, efficiently storing the world’s data. We work with partners dedicated to reducing their own energy consumption and carbon footprint, while we serve our customers with purposeful, innovative design and optimal cloud operations that are critical to reducing environmental impact.     

Learn more about how Wasabi and Retelit have partnered to create streamlined cloud data storage for organizations across Europe while enhancing energy efficiency efforts.