Full Name
Janet West
Job Title
Environmental scientist and broadcaster
Company
The Skills Zone Ltd
Speaker Bio
Janet started her career in Canada with Kodak. in motion picture markets. After taking off for a few years to fly commercially she worked at CBC and was involved in the development of HDTV with NHK. She also produced the first rock concert that went live to Japan.Having chaired the HDTV conferences Janet went to Europe to work with Sony to develop the HDTV market in Europe. In 1998 she set up her own business, the Skills Zone Ltd and taught HDTV production to international broadcasters, she produced and directed various corporate videos. In 2008, she went back to university to gain a Masters in Environmental Strategy with a view to helping educate the TV business about their environmental impact. She lectured at various universities including Surrey, University of Bologna, Warwick and Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge. She has also worked as a presenter at NAB Live. Having been diagnosed with tongue cancer in 2019, she now has a Youtube channel to help other cancer patients improve their quality of life.
Speaking At
TTC 2021 Speaker Type
Roundtable
Topic and Description
Roundtable Topic: Environmental impact of data Centres
Description: "With streaming content being the norm for many consumers, who is responsible for the real environmental impact of data centres and what measures will our industry have to take to achieve climate goals. In Glasgow on 1st – 12th November 2021, the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). The COP26 summit will bring parties together from all over the world to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. A total of 197 parties from developed countries as well as least developed and vulnerable groups in addition OPEC, OECD, IEA, WHO and UNEP.
We no longer talk about climate change, we see it everyday with fires, flooding and soil depletion affecting crops. The 2020 IPCC report has shown that there is a significance difference between a global temperature increase of 1.5 versus 2 degrees. It is recommended a global ‘net zero’ emissions target by 2050 be achieved.
All this at a time when we have become addicted to our phones regarding social media. Storage companies are building enormous data centres which are energy hungry and struggling to keep up with the demand. A single popular viral video watched on a variety of devices has been calculated to use 358GWh of power. The average consumer only equates the energy cost to the power required to charge their device and not the plethora of spinning discs allowing instant content access. In addition, the materials that are required for a data centre need to be sustainably procured. Do we know where they come from, how long will they last, is there in fact a choice? Do we know the true environmental cost of data centres?
This session aims to stimulate the television and motion picture industry (strategy developers, supply chains, users and creatives) to think differently about how we do business and start to develop some key action plans for the future.
Quote from Milton Friedman 1982
“There is an enormous inertia a tyranny of the status quo in private and in governmental arrangements. Only a crisis, real or perceived produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible become politically inevitable.”"
Description: "With streaming content being the norm for many consumers, who is responsible for the real environmental impact of data centres and what measures will our industry have to take to achieve climate goals. In Glasgow on 1st – 12th November 2021, the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). The COP26 summit will bring parties together from all over the world to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. A total of 197 parties from developed countries as well as least developed and vulnerable groups in addition OPEC, OECD, IEA, WHO and UNEP.
We no longer talk about climate change, we see it everyday with fires, flooding and soil depletion affecting crops. The 2020 IPCC report has shown that there is a significance difference between a global temperature increase of 1.5 versus 2 degrees. It is recommended a global ‘net zero’ emissions target by 2050 be achieved.
All this at a time when we have become addicted to our phones regarding social media. Storage companies are building enormous data centres which are energy hungry and struggling to keep up with the demand. A single popular viral video watched on a variety of devices has been calculated to use 358GWh of power. The average consumer only equates the energy cost to the power required to charge their device and not the plethora of spinning discs allowing instant content access. In addition, the materials that are required for a data centre need to be sustainably procured. Do we know where they come from, how long will they last, is there in fact a choice? Do we know the true environmental cost of data centres?
This session aims to stimulate the television and motion picture industry (strategy developers, supply chains, users and creatives) to think differently about how we do business and start to develop some key action plans for the future.
Quote from Milton Friedman 1982
“There is an enormous inertia a tyranny of the status quo in private and in governmental arrangements. Only a crisis, real or perceived produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible become politically inevitable.”"
