Industry leaders push for transparency in data centre emissions
Written by Rebecca Uffindell Wed 17 Jul 2024
The iMasons Climate Accord (ICA) Governing Body has urged all data centre suppliers to increase transparency in Scope 3 emissions to help reduce the industry’s carbon footprint.
In an open letter, the Governing Body stressed the importance of widespread adoption of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), the standardised, third-party-verified documents reporting the embodied emissions of a product.
The programme is led by Infrastructure Masons and consists of AWS, Digital Realty, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Schneider Electric.
Vice President of Infrastructure Data Centres at Meta, Rachel Peterson, said the company joins its peers in calling for greater transparency in the data centre supply chain to better understand the embodied carbon of the infrastructure that underpins its operations.
“These declarations will play an important role in accelerating decarbonisation efforts for the data centres of tomorrow,” said Rachel Peterson, Vice President of Infrastructure Data Centres at Meta.
The Governing Body said although EPDs are common in some sectors, they are not widely adopted in the data centre industry.
“Schneider Electric has been dedicated to publishing EPDs since 2008, and we are excited about the significant impact that industry adoption will have as we collectively progress toward Net-Zero,” said Anna Timme, iMasons Governing Body Member and the Head of Sustainability for Secure Power and Data Centres at Schneider Electric.
Timme added promoting industry-wide adoption of EPDs is a critical step in enabling carbon-informed decision making.
The open letter intends to mark a major initiative by the hyperscalers and digital infrastructure companies to drive meaningful change, collaborating with their suppliers.
Chief Data Centre Technology & Engineering Officer at Digital Realty, Lex Coors, said this initiative is crucial as the company strives to ‘meet the growing demands of our digital world in a sustainable manner’.
“By advocating for the adoption of EPDs, we are not just committing to transparency; we are taking a decisive step towards empowering the entire industry to make informed, responsible choices that align with our collective sustainability ambitions,” added Coors.
Industry Must Solve Scope 3 Puzzle
The ICA stressed ensuring the digital infrastructure industry decarbonises as it grows is crucial, adding that its members are committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2025 to 2040.
“Microsoft has committed to becoming carbon negative by 2030 and removing all greenhouse gas emissions produced since our founding by 2050” said Shirin O’Connor, Corporate Vice President of Data centre Engineering, Procurement & Construction at Microsoft.
Hyperscalers have implemented Scope 1 and 2 emissions and now seek to solve the ‘next piece of the sustainability puzzle’ in Scope 3 emissions which can represent anywhere from 38-69% of data centres’ total carbon footprint.
The ICA added Scope 3 emissions are not produced by the company itself; rather, they include the indirect emissions throughout the value chain.
Access to critical information in EPDs enables data centre stakeholders to accurately assess their environmental impact and select products and services with lower Scope 3 emissions, aligning with sustainability targets.
“In line with our commitment to open standards and our company-wide goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all our operations and value chain, we support industry-wide adoption of EDPs as a crucial lever in low-carbon procurement of digital infrastructure,” said Joe Kava, Vice President of Global Data Centres at Google.
This is the second open letter from the ICA urging suppliers to speed up decarbonisation efforts. In April 2023, the ICA’s Governing Body called on data centre industry suppliers to use lower-carbon concrete in their infrastructure.
In October, new research found Europe’s top data centre hubs produce 6.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year.
Written by Rebecca Uffindell Wed 17 Jul 2024
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