ESG/Sustainability

Data Center Guide to Sustainability

Around the world, enterprise data center teams, colocation operators, managed service providers, and hyperscalers are taking a fresh look at environmental sustainability to see how to drive faster results while reducing their environmental impact and reliance on finite resources, ensuring their business models are future-ready.

Taking First Steps to Reduce Environmental Impact

The journey starts with the first steps and those steps may include setting goals for your organization and evaluating and prioritizing the opportunities that exist to reduce your environmental impact.

Data Center Sustainability Challenges and Opportunities

Data centers play an important role in most organization’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies, and a particularly large role in the strategies of data center-dependent businesses.

Building and Operating Low-Impact Data Centers

Reducing data center environmental impact does more than benefit the environment. It can reduce operating costs, help attract new customers, and proactively address ever-tightening regulatory requirements.

Protecting the Future

The data center industry has a strong track record when it comes to energy-efficient design and operation. In 2010, the average data center PUE was above 2.0, but through concerted effort and investments, that average dropped below 1.6 by 2017.

Innovations Enabling Reduced Environmental Impact

Data center operators today have access to best practices and technologies that weren’t available five or 10 years ago. Here are some of the newer technologies that are being deployed or planned to increase asset utilization, maximize efficiency, reduce emissions, and minimize water consumption.

Measuring and Reporting Data Center Efficiency and Emissions

Various frameworks and metrics can play a role in monitoring progress and meeting both mandatory and voluntary reporting requirements. This article provides an overview of popular frameworks, certifications, and metrics related to efficiency and emissions.