Marrying sustainability with innovation: How this tech entrepreneur takes a holistic approach to building his green business

Many today might think that for a business to be environmentally responsible, it has to compromise on innovation.

But Mr Darren Webb, co-founder and CEO of Evolution Data Centres, has proven otherwise. His company provides a much-needed service for digital transformation while responsibly advancing environmental sustainability.

In the past 15 years, the data centre industry has rapidly grown in tandem with a rise in data consumption caused by increased video streaming and data-rich online applications, as well as more people using the Internet. Nowhere is this demand more evident than in South-east Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines combined have a population of half a billion - many of whom are the digitally connected demographic that data centres serve.

Mr Webb's company is leading the charge in bringing new data capacities to this large and relatively untapped market, giving a turbo boost to the region's digital transformation. But Evolution is also a fundamentally green enterprise with sustainability at its core.

"We use the sustainability lens all the way through," says Mr Webb, 48. "We integrate it into our everyday thinking, instead of retrospectively applying it after the fact."

Environmental sustainability

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A businessman with 25 years of experience, Mr Webb, who belonged to the first cohort of the Executive MBA (EMBA) programme with ESSEC Business School, co-founded Evolution in April 2021 to address the growing need for sustainable data centres in Asean.

While mass quarantine and working from home due to Covid-19 boosted the demand for data centres in this burgeoning market, various countries signing carbon accords created mounting pressure on industries to reduce their carbon footprint, creating the ideal conditions for starting his company.

It aims to design data centres as efficiently and sustainably as possible, from construction to daily operation. As many global cloud provider companies have carbon-reduction targets of their own, Evolution's green strategy makes them an attractive business partner.

"Data centres are the heartbeat of digital transformation," says Mr Webb. "But we also want to view them holistically. How can we make them greener?"

To that end, Evolution uses sustainable building materials to construct its data centres, building not on virgin land (requiring destruction of trees and greenery) but only in industrial parks, on land already earmarked for such use. The company also taps on renewable energy sources in the countries in which it operates, such as geothermal in the Philippines, offshore wind in Vietnam, and solar and wind in Thailand.

For Mr Webb, sustainability is a moving target and iterative process. "If you think you have already made it, you will not be open to new concepts, new technology, that will make you better," he explains.

"It is constant learning, a constant journey, trying to be better every day."

Beginning a new chapter

This hunger for continual growth is what led Mr Webb to take the plunge into a 15-month Executive MBA (EMBA) programme with ESSEC Business School in 2014. He had worked for a UK-based company in Singapore for three years prior, but wanted to push himself and take his career to the next level. "It was a timely, challenging, and rewarding step for me to take," he shares.

He decided to attend ESSEC after an impactful meeting with ESSEC professor Cedomir Nestorovic, who left a deep impression on Mr Webb. During the programme, Prof Nestorovic taught a class on geopolitics and business that would later influence the way Mr Webb conducted his business and navigated the diverse local conditions of different South-east Asian countries.

"The professors in ESSEC are extremely knowledgeable. It is a lovely culture and a friendly place," says Mr Webb.

At ESSEC, he had highly valuable international experiences at Fudan University in China and Babson College in the US. There, he was able to meet many entrepreneurs in intimate settings, learning and being inspired by their stories and experiences.

Out of his cohort of 12 students, at least three, including Mr Webb, went on to found their own businesses. "The entrepreneurship journey potential at ESSEC is outstanding," he says of the academic institution, which has built a reputation for its strong focus on business-related education in response to the challenges of a fast-evolving world.

To those considering further education, Mr Webb has this advice to give: "You're not going to know until you try. You don't want to look back and have regrets over what you could have done.

"But do it for the right reasons. Focus on the process, and enjoy the journey."