Dive Brief:

• Microsoft announced Monday it is bringing on a Director for Datacenter Sustainability, a newly created role. 
• The new director, Jim Hanna, was previously Director of Environmental Affairs for Starbucks and focused on global sustainability strategies across the supply chain. 
• The role is designed to help make Microsoft's growing network of data centers more sustainable with a decreased environmental impact. 

Dive Insight:

Microsoft is focused on growing the cloud, which translates to more data centers. But as the network grows, Microsoft wants to ensure it has less of an impact on the environment. 

“This includes making smart decisions about the impact of site choice and location, improving efficiency, lessening our environmental impact and powering our data centers with renewable energy,” said Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Strategist, in a blog.

The new hire is just one of many investments the company is making to improve sustainability, Bernard said. Other investments include working with utility partners on renewable energy and “developing pilot projects that better integrate clean energy into their servers.”

Sustainable data centers are a growing concern for tech companies, as the large centers run around the clock and constantly use resources. Last month, Facebook announced a new Irish datacenter that will focus on energy efficiency, including Open Compute Project server and storage hardware, which was designed to improve performance while reducing power needs.