Beyond Greenwashing: Sustainability Meets Compliance

As data center operators increasingly prioritize sustainability, it’s critical that they establish measurable ways to evaluate and report their progress to various stakeholders. This can be accomplished with any number of standards and certifications, and selecting the right one for your organization can be challenging. The path you select will establish a baseline of metrics that will drive continuous improvement across the organization for years to come.

This special report, courtesy of Iron Mountain, explores a set of metrics and mechanisms that data center operators can use track progress towards their environmental, social, and corporate governance goals, as well as evaluate and report their compliance with governmental regulations. The metrics can also be used to evaluate the performance of supply chain partners.

First, the report outlines the five main components and measurements involved in data center sustainability goals: energy, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, waste, and land and biodiversity. The special report then explains the major International Organization for Standardization (ISO) sustainability standards, including ISO 50001, ISO 9001, ISO 30134, ISO 14064, and ISO 14001. Finally, the report presents pros and cons to getting certified by a third party for compliance with these standards, and it provides guidance on how much of a company’s sustainability performance should be made public.