Dive Brief:
- Uptime Institute has launched a comprehensive assessment and award service aimed at helping organizations, benchmark and demonstrate sustainability credentials across their facilities management digital infrastructure, the organization announced Tuesday.
- The Uptime Institute Sustainability Assessment will enable organizations to develop a clear view of their sustainability status and achievements across a range of independent and interdependent corporate functions and criteria, according to a news release. The service helps identify progress made in 14 key categories and over 50 subcategories across all aspects of data center sustainability, the organization said.
- The assessment comes at a critical time for organizations operating and outsourcing digital infrastructure, Uptime Institute said, pointing to a growing scrutiny that has fueled expectations for such organizations to have a meaningful oversight of their digital infrastructure’s environmental footprint.
Dive Insight:
Data centers are seeing increased energy consumption and carbon emissions, driven by a rapidly growing demand for digital infrastructure, due in part to widespread adoption of AI applications and edge computing technologies. As a result, data centers have gained more visibility, leading regulators, customers and investors to more closely examine their sustainability strategies, Uptime Institute said in the release.
Although organizations are increasingly expected to develop clear roadmaps spanning all areas of data center sustainability, only 41% of digital infrastructure operators are compiling and reporting water usage and just 26% track IT waste or recycling, Uptime Institute said in the release, citing its most recent report, “Sustainability strategies face greater pressure in 2024.” Only 23% compile and report all three scopes of carbon emissions, the organization said.
“The Sustainability Assessment will allow organizations to identify which sustainability initiatives can help reduce the environmental impact and operating expenses of their specific data center operating modality and deployment architecture without comprising the availability and resiliency of their mission-critical digital infrastructure,” Ali Moinuddin, chief corporate development officer at Uptime Institute, said in the release.
The assessment spans major disciplines — facility operations and management, information technology operations and management, and cross-functional areas such as clean energy, IT, facilities equipment procurement and corporate greenhouse gas reporting, per the release.
The 14 key categories across these disciplines are facility energy management, water management, cooling, backup generation and electrical; IT efficiency, space and circular economy; and cross-functional organization, energy management, climate risk, greenhouse gas emissions, cloud and colocation services and carbon pollution-free electricity, according to Uptime Institute’s website.
The wide range of focus areas and disciplines “uniquely balances the global requirement for more efficient and sustainable digital infrastructure, while also recognizing that resiliency and availability must not be compromised,” the institute noted in the release.
Given the need to consider local and regional requirements, low carbon energy and green resource availability and climatic conditions, the assessment is designed to be applicable worldwide, with baselines set for globally accepted digital infrastructure sustainability best practices. To develop the assessment, Uptime partnered with over two dozen enterprises and service providers, representing hundreds of data centers and over 3 gigawatts of installed and operating data center capacity across 38 countries, the organization said. According to the release, it also analyzed over 150 current and proposed standards, regulations and laws around the world.
Customers that receive a passing score on the assessment will be issued an Uptime Institute Sustainability Assessment award that can be displayed at the facility, on websites and in corporate literature, the organization says on its website.
Uptime Institute will hold an informational webinar on May 8 to provide further insights into its views and recommendations.
