• • • SUSTAINABILITY • • •
Schneider Electric announces second edition of its Data Centre Sustainability Metrics Reporting Framework
Schneider Electric has revealed a revised, standardised environmental metrics-reporting framework with business-critical updates to help companies improve benchmarking and reach sustainability goals
S
purred by the rising information processing demands of AI and machine learning, the data centre industry is tasked with undergoing rapid growth to support these new technology advancements, while reducing its environmental impact to net-zero to meet global climate pledges.
This is a revision of the original whitepaper published in November 2021, which was created to support and advance the data centre industry by providing standardised metrics for reporting sustainability. It was the first-of-its-kind Data Centre Environmental Sustainability Metric Framework. Schneider Electric takes sustainability seriously and requested customer and industry association feedback in 2023, which contributed to publishing this latest revision of the whitepaper.
Comprised of 28 key sustainability metrics in five categories: energy, greenhouse gas emissions, water, waste, and local ecosystem, the recommended standardised data-driven approach is outlined in a revised whitepaper available for download here.
Since data centre companies are at different stages in their sustainability journey, the whitepaper outlines the metrics across three reporting stages: beginning, advanced, and leading.
The beginning stage has six metrics that represent basic reporting for energy, water use, and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission – the core metrics required for every data centre. The advanced stage includes more detailed metrics for energy, water, GHG emissions, and introduces two new categories including waste and local ecosystem; the leading stage adds even more detailed metrics to the existing categories. Pankaj Sharma, executive vice president, Secure
Power Division and Data Centre Business at Schneider Electric, said: “Data centre operators are using a variety of different metrics making it harder to compare and benchmark sustainability progress and performance.
“We need a standardised data-driven approach to align on where to improve and what to prioritise, as well as ways to identify and root out organisational reporting discrepancies in order to meet the expectations of stakeholders and governmental pledges. Through more credible and comparable data, we will be able to establish industry benchmarks for others to make valuable environmental changes. “Without a unilateral approach to reporting, data centre organisations are at risk of losing vital time and efforts as regulatory requirements continue to grow in importance. As a sign of our commitment to leading the data centre industry on sustainability initiatives, and in response to requests from our customers, we revised our original framework updating it with a newer set of metrics for organisations to progress their reporting.” Making progress on environmental sustainability goals as an industry means adopting standardised metrics for measurement, and making these metrics well understood throughout the market and the data centre industry, as well as publicly reporting on them regularly.
Mark Kidd, executive vice president and general manager, Asset Lifestyle Management & Data Centres at Iron Mountain, said: “The data centre industry is advancing rapidly and delivering innovative solutions at scale to support the world’s growing digital transformation. “Across all of our service lines, Iron Mountain recognises that without careful consideration to a comprehensive set of benchmarks, we’re at risk of creating increased environmental impact.” Mr Kidd continued: “The performance measures within Schneider Electric’s whitepaper defines a
22 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • OCTOBER 2023
electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50
