Guide to Environmental Sustainability Metrics for Data Centers

As more and more companies are reporting on their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) programs, there’s a need for standardized sustainability metrics, especially in the data center industry. Without them, it would be challenging for data center operators to compare their performance against their competitors, know the areas in which they need to improve, how to set priorities, and how to show progress over time. It would also be difficult to ensure internal alignment between design, procurement, operations, and sustainability teams.

A new white paper from Schneider Electric proposes five categories of metrics for data centers to use when reporting on environmental sustainability. These categories are energy consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water usage, waste, and land & biodiversity.

Within these five categories, Schneider proposes 23 different measurable metrics that will help data center operators on their journey to net-zero carbon. Some of the metrics include power usage effectiveness (PUE), total carbon offsets, total source energy water usage, waste diversion rate, and mean species abundance. The paper includes definitions for each of the 23 metrics as well as recommended applications.