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Data are everywhere. With the number of Internet-connected devices expected to jump to in the next four years, information is increasingly important to how we live. Everyday people rely on cloud computing and data centers to store some of the most intimate details of their lives, from pictures to appointments to notes to loved ones. But all of those data centers are eating up a lot of energy. In fact, while many other industries are reducing the amount of power they use, data centers are using more each year. In 2013, data centers used around 2 percent of the overall energy demand in the United States, or around 100 billion kilowatt-hours of power, according to the Department of Energy. Some estimate that amount will grow by up to 40 percent within the next few years.

At first blush the environmental outlook of this scenario seems grim. How can a world that鈥檚 increasingly reliant on energy-hungry, fossil-fuel-run data centers also reduce carbon emissions and curb global warming?

Many of the companies running data centers say they鈥檙e committed to increasing their energy efficiency and transitioning to renewable energy use. In the process, they are pressuring utilities to offer more renewable energy options and adopting technologies that increase data center efficiency. As a result, data centers are becoming more and more sustainable, experts say.

鈥淭en years ago the focus was really on trying to improve the reliability of data centers and getting that science down. Now they are focusing more on sustainability,鈥� says John Collins, Director of Data Centers at Eaton, a power management company.

鈥淲e see a lot of companies upgrading their lighting systems to go from traditional lighting to, which has huge energy savings,鈥� Mr. Collins says. 鈥淎nd the last couple of years there鈥檚 been a big focus on making efficiency gains and reducing the amount of wasted energy.鈥�

Most of the power used in data centers should go towards running IT equipment, but when data centers first came online there was . In order to gauge how energy efficient a data center is, companies use a metric called Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). The PUE indicates the ratio of total energy consumption to the amount of energy needed for raw computing. 听

Previously, a lot of power went to cooling machines that grew hot from running servers 24 hours a day. But now companies have mastered how to control temperatures by using air management technologies that separate hot and cold air streams. Reducing the amount of refrigeration and cooling fans needed allowed many companies to improve their PUE and claim maximum energy efficiency.

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Google, for example, boasts that its centers are specifically designed to use as little energy as possible. Many of those advances are due to new cooling technologies, experts say.

鈥淚t was true 10 years ago that if you wanted to keep your server cool with the lowest amount of electricity possible, the best way was to put your center somewhere really cold. But they鈥檝e gotten good at keeping servers cold even without that,鈥� explains David Pomerantz, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace.

Greenpeace has authored numerous studies about data center efficiency and rates companies based on how environmentally friendly their cloud computing systems are. In addition to the strides many companies are making to improve efficiency, their that are committed to powering data centers with 100 percent renewable energy: Apple, Box, Facebook, Google, Rackspace, and Salesforce.

Because they use so much power, these companies are able to influence utilities and energy regulators and convince them to go green, Mr. Pomerantz points out.

鈥淚f you鈥檙e a utility, a data center is a dream to have in your service territory because it鈥檚 reliable. The meter is running 24 hours a day and it鈥檚 growing as those companies add more servers,鈥� says Pomerantz. 鈥淭hat gives them a ton of influence that extends past power companies to governors and state legislators. Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft 鈥� 听those companies have a lot of political power.鈥�

According to Greenpeace, companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook have done an admirable job of weighing in favor of renewable energy use. In North Carolina, for example, the home of many data centers, the companies to maintain renewable energy portfolio standards.

Apple, a leader among the companies, already. And when Facebook decided to last year, it did so because the state could offer enough wind power to run the centers entirely on renewable energy, insiders say. Likewise, opted to add solar energy to Virginia鈥檚 electrical grid and purchase wind power in Texas.

鈥淎 key part of our fight against climate change is powering our facilities with renewable energy,鈥� Apple said in its . 鈥淲e already hit a major milestone in 2014: 100 percent of the energy used by our U.S. operations 鈥� all corporate offices, retail stores, and data centers 鈥� was renewable energy.鈥�

According to Collins, companies have a variety of incentives to make their data centers more sustainable. Moreover, these incentives are only growing as the price of renewable energy continues to drop.

鈥淭here is certainly a big financial benefit for them to become more energy efficient, to use less energy and water for their cooling systems and using less space to really maximize the resources under their control,鈥� says Collins.

鈥淗aving a meaningful sustainability effort also enhances their reputation, and a lack of commitment can really damages their brand.鈥�

But these incentives don鈥檛 necessarily mean that all of the country鈥檚 data centers will soon be 100 percent sustainable. The majority of the country鈥檚 are still small and energy inefficient. Meanwhile, not every major company in the field earns high marks on 听renewable energy. Amazon, for example, scores badly in Greenpeace鈥檚 ratings for what the environmentalist group says is a lack of transparency about its energy consumption. 听

Even so, experts say the energy landscape is changing rapidly and progress is being made. Many small data centers are moving within the umbrella of larger companies, a boon for energy efficiency. 听

鈥淲hat Google and Microsoft are doing is convincing small companies that have eight servers in their closet that it鈥檚 cheaper and more efficient for them to shut those down and move their IT load to be with Google or Microsoft in the cloud,鈥� says Pomerantz.

鈥淭he companies would say it鈥檚 better for the environment because they have these mega data centers that are super efficient. And they aren鈥檛 wrong.鈥�

If these companies continue to add renewable energy to the electrical grid as their workload increases, analysts say they could substantially bolster the country鈥檚 clean energy market.