Energy and environmental performance indicators for data centers

Data centers are naturally energy-intensive: their electricity consumption can represent up to 75% of operating costs to guarantee the service continuity of the information systems hosted within them. This is why companies have so far focused on improving the energy performance of their data centers. The latter is measured using an indicator now standardized by ISO: the PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness).

However, PUE is insufficient when it comes to evaluating the overall environmental impact of a data center because it does not take into account water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, or waste production. Nor does it allow for the measurement of indirect upstream and downstream impacts of the data center. Finally, it does not include the environmental performance of the IT layers and digital services delivered by the data center.

This white paper, just over 70 pages long, provides a comprehensive overview of the environmental challenges of data centers, existing standards and indicators, ways to monitor environmental performance and communicate while avoiding greenwashing, and best practices and levers to optimize the environmental performance of data centers.