A recent New York Times series on the environmental impact of data centers has been making the rounds. As the opening salvo has it:

A yearlong examination by The New York Times has revealed that this foundation of the information industry is sharply at odds with its image of sleek efficiency and environmental friendliness. Most data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner, interviews and documents show. Online companies typically run their facilities at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand. As a result, data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid, The Times found.

And we’re all to blame:

Most of the data are created by consumers. “With no sense that data is physical or that storing it uses up space and energy, those consumers have developed the habit of sending huge data files back and forth, like videos and mass e-mails with photo attachments.”

So...think about the environment before uploading that kitten picture to Facebook? Yes and no. It’s a pretty damning exposé, but not a big surprise (I’m shocked, shocked) to those of us who have been following these things over the years, and I am wont to point out that does belie the whole “go paperless and go green” meme. There has been a backlash from the IT industry (understandably), which GreenBiz rounds up. Of course, there is a danger in painting every data center with the same brush—just as it’s wrong to paint every printing or paper company with the same brush. And we proponents of print and the printing industry shouldn’t be too smug (I was bemused by the fact that industry proponents sent around links to the series—ironically—by e-mail). Also, too: you’re reading this on the Internet, brought to you courtesy of a data center. So, again, we’re all complicit. But, as this blog has highlighted many times over the years, some of the biggest users—Google, Facebook, etc.—are taking highly proactive steps to clean up their acts. GreenBiz contributor Kathrin Winkler makes a good point when she writes, “if the auto industry had gotten efficient as quickly as the IT industry in the last 40 years, we’d be getting 450,000 miles to the gallon.”  And, well, it has taken our own industry quite some time to get our sustainability house in order, so let’s not go calling names. So I am less inclined to see the NYT series as a victory for print, as some do, as I really don’t think that print and electronic media are in any kind of war—at least not as far as sustainability is concerned. As I have said many times, all human activities (and ergo all media) have some negative impact on the environment, and that the reasons for choosing one medium or the other don’t (or shouldn’t) have anything to do with perceptions of relative “greenness.” It behooves everyone to make their processes as efficient and sustainable as possible, whether you are a printing company, a paper mill, or a data center—or a consumer of some or all of what these companies produce. We’re all in this together.