The global digital infrastructure authority, Uptime Institute, today announced a new Executive Advisory report series titled ‘Digital infrastructure sustainability – a manager’s guide’. It also released the first instalment of the series: ‘Creating a sustainability strategy’. Owners and operators can use the new advisory series, which is a uniquely practical resource, to establish and implement an effective sustainability strategy.
The launch of this comprehensive executive advisory series which is the latest step in Uptime’s longstanding and expanding program to inform, guide and support sustainability efforts within the sector comes at a critical time for digital infrastructure operators. Governments worldwide are now establishing new regulations and announcing policies to discourage unsustainable data center growth, and moving towards net-zero carbon emissions goals by driving procurement of low-carbon data center services.
As per the research by Uptime, most organizations have not put in place many of the strategies, processes and controls that will meet all stakeholder expectations and legislator demands. Uptime’s 2021 Global Data Center Survey indicates that most organizations tend to only compile and report on power-related sustainability metrics, while very few are tracking other key elements such as water use (51%), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (33%), and IT efficiency (25%).
The first instalment in the series, ‘Creating a sustainability strategy’, defines the key elements to be included in a sustainability strategy, the actions to be taken for a successful implementation, and the processes to measure progress against goals and objectives.
The complete series of six reports will take the managers through the key areas that must be addressed in an environmental sustainability strategy, which includes creating the strategy, reducing energy consumption, adopting renewable energy, tracking and reporting carbon emissions, managing water consumption, and equipment reuse and recycling. The advisory series is also a guide on compliance with and the adoption of critical standards and legislative initiatives.
“As sustainability requirements become more demanding, digital infrastructure operators must be prepared with a comprehensive, actionable sustainability strategy,” said Andy Lawrence, founding member and executive director, Uptime Intelligence.
“This advisory series is a “how-to” guide to implementing effective environmental sustainability initiatives that span all facilities and IT operations and address the needs of all stakeholders inside and outside the organization,” said Jay Dietrich, research director of sustainability, Uptime Intelligence and lead author of the report series.
Since the year of the first Uptime Institute Green Data Center forum in 2007, Uptime has been advising operators of digital infrastructure on sustainability and efficiency. Uptime advises some of the world’s largest digital infrastructure owners and operators, many vendors and equipment manufacturers, regulators and policymakers through its Sustainability Consulting Services to help the sector design, build and operate digital infrastructure sustainably, without compromising resiliency.
UPCOMING REPORTS IN THE SERIES:
- Reducing the energy footprint – The first objective of a sustainability plan should be to minimize energy usage through efficiency measures. By replacing electricity from non-renewable sources with renewably generated energy, further benefits can be realized.
- Tackling greenhouse gases – Operators of digital infrastructure must have a greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal and must report these reductions in accordance with agreed policy.
- IT efficiency: the critical core of digital sustainability – This report includes strategies, software tools and metrics that will be used in order to optimize the IT efficiency.
- Navigating regulations and standards – Critical digital infrastructure is subject to an expanding set of regulations, directives and standards, which are becoming mandatory, with varying levels of maturity and acceptance.
- Three sustainability elements: water, the circular economy and siting – In this report, the three important elements of the sustainability strategy: water use, siting, including design and certification, and reuse, disposal, and recycling will be discussed. By addressing these elements, it is possible to significantly reduce the environmental impact of digital infrastructure.
- Glossary of digital infrastructure sustainability – This document explains the key terms used by those defining, regulating, and applying digital infrastructure sustainability strategies.
UPCOMING DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE SUSTAINABILITY WEBINARS:
Uptime will host a webinar series for delivering in-depth insights and for facilitating discussions following the release of each report. The first Webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, May 10th at 9:00 a.m. PDT, covering the ‘Creating a sustainability strategy’ report. The second webinar will be on Tuesday, June 7th at 9:00 a.m. PDT and will explore both the ‘Tackling greenhouse gases’ and the ‘Reducing the energy footprint’ reports.
Uptime Institute Network Members can exclusively access to the complete contents of each instalment of the report series upon release, while non-members will have access to executive summary copies.
Click here to register and view the webinar schedule and download an executive summary of the reports.
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