Accelerate Sustainable Digital Transformation in the Oil & Gas Industry

As the world works to reverse climate change through decarbonization and reduced reliance on fossil fuels, the oil and gas industry finds itself at the epicenter of this challenge. Governments, institutional investors, consumers, and employees continue to exert growing pressure on oil and gas providers to decarbonize and adopt renewable solutions. In response, oil and gas majors are making headway in terms of carbon reporting, net-zero targets, and accountability. Many have even spun up renewable energy arms.

Innovation underpins corporate sustainability efforts. From an investment standpoint, sustainable solutions can also perform double duty, often yielding significant added value such as productivity and efficiency gains and new revenue streams. Increasingly, oil and gas companies are making strategic technology investments to accelerate sustainable digital transformation and deliver a competitive advantage. In this article, we’ll share opportunities for oil and gas companies to increase sustainability while achieving other business benefits.

Understand and reduce the environmental impact of services and workloads

Ironically, while technology holds the key to sustainability, it has also contributed to the problem. Recent studies indicate that data centers consume one percent of the world’s electricity, and The Royal Society estimates that digital technology contributes up to 5.9% of global emissions.

While inefficient equipment, buildings, and HVAC systems contribute to the problem, one of the most significant factors is the underutilization of data center equipment. Up to 25% of data center power is consumed by equipment that no longer performs useful work,[i] and only 10-30% of server capacity is used.[ii] Furthermore, according to HPE internal data, average storage utilization hovers around 40%.[iii] While organizations must plan for usage spikes and failovers, they also have opportunities to clean up workloads, retire unused equipment, and leverage newer, more efficient hardware and solutions.

Power savings represents just part of the equation. If an enterprise can do more work with less hardware, using fewer servers, licenses, and people, they save money while lowering carbon emissions.

Apply technology to improve efficiency, productivity, and sustainability

Clear visibility across infrastructure enables organizations to identify opportunities to expand operational efficiency, meet sustainability goals, and improve productivity. Using intelligent automation, oil and gas companies can monitor workloads and boost server utilization to optimize their investments while reducing their environmental footprint.

Infrastructure management solutions enable organizations to simplify lifecycle management through automation and surface new ways to operate more sustainably and efficiently. Oil and gas companies are also deploying self-healing solutions that predict, detect, and correct issues across the infrastructure using artificial intelligence and machine learning, often before the operator is aware of an issue. 

Furthermore, monitoring solutions allow companies to track real-time energy consumption, enabling them to reposition energy-heavy workloads to locations with lower energy costs or optimize usage for carbon emissions.

Make asset management more sustainable

Oil and gas customers rely on the latest technologies to give them a competitive edge. This often means replacing assets with several years of useful life remaining.

Upcycling programs can help enterprise businesses manage the financial and sustainability impacts of surplus equipment. Many companies have budget or purchasing policy constraints or do not need the latest top-performing equipment. By securing reasonable compensation for used equipment from such companies, oil and gas companies can extend the useful life of their assets and further reduce waste.

Drive sustainable digital transformation with HPE GreenLake

Through strategic investments, oil and gas companies not only increase their sustainability but can also reap additional rewards, such as increased efficiency and productivity, while maintaining a competitive edge.

HPE has a unique vantage point rooted in its own sustainability journey. HPE is committed to becoming a net-zero enterprise by 2040 and offers a portfolio of sustainable innovation, technologies, solutions, and cloud services. The HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform can reduce the environmental impact of IT by enabling customers to flexibly scale IT to meet their needs, thereby improving utilization levels and avoiding the waste of overprovisioning.

GDT can help your organization make the most of HPE solutions to fast-forward sustainability, grow stronger, and become more resilient. Contact the experts at GDT to learn more about how we can help you accelerate sustainable digital transformation.

[i] Jon Taylor and Jonathan Koomey (2017) “Zombie/Comatose Servers Redux,” available at: https://www.anthesisgroup.com/report-zombie-and-comatose-servers-redux-jon-taylor-and-jonathan-koomey/  (accessed October 18, 2022)

[ii] Uptime Institute (2020) “Beyond PUE: Tackling IT’s wasted terawatts,” available at: https://uptimeinstitute.com/beyond-pue-tackling-it%E2%80%99s-wasted-terawatts (accessed October 18, 2022)

[iii] Storage Utilization: HPE customer experience