The governing body of iMasons Climate Accord, the Infrastructure Masons programme, is calling on all data center suppliers to promote greater transparency on Scope 3 emissions as part of a wider effort to reduce the industry's carbon footprint.
The board, which consists of AWS, Digital Realty, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Schneider Electric, published an open letter explaining the importance of widespread adoption of environmental product statements, which are standardized third-party-verified documents detailing a product's embodied emissions. EPDs describe the GHG emissions of a product throughout its life cycle, from the raw materials in the product (eg, how they are mined, transported and processed), to production, transport, use of the product and end of product life. (e.g. landfilling, recycling, reprocessing, etc.).
While EPDs are common in some business sectors, EPD adoption is not widespread in the data center industry. The open letter demonstrates a significant push forward from the world's largest hyperscale and digital infrastructure companies to drive meaningful change across the industry, working with their trusted vendors.
It is essential to continue to ensure the decarbonisation of the digital infrastructure sector as it grows. All signatories to the iMasons Governing Body Open Letter have net zero carbon commitments to address their responsibility to reduce data center carbon emissions (with deadlines ranging from 2025 to 2040, which is at least 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement) and this letter represents another milestone towards the decarbonisation of traffic.
Hyperscalers have implemented strategies to reduce and/or mitigate Scope 1 and 2 emissions. As they strive to achieve net zero carbon emissions in the coming years, addressing the next piece of the sustainability puzzle is to reduce Scope 3 emissions, which can represent 38 to 69 percent of the total carbon footprint of data center. Scope 3 emissions are not produced by the company itself; rather, they include indirect emissions throughout the value chain.
Access to critical information in EPDs enables data center owners, operators and end users to effectively calculate their environmental impact and select products (servers, cooling systems, uninterruptible power supplies and services) based on lower scope 3 emissions, preferably in line with sustainability goals.
“EPDs are essential for transforming the future of digital infrastructure to be more resilient and climate positive. The adoption of EPDs within the global supply chain promotes sustainable and responsible outcomes. Because standardized and verified data provides a layer of transparency, this initiative supports a collective approach to reducing our carbon emissions and ecological footprint,” said Miranda Gardiner, executive director of iMasons Climate Accord, a 250+ member, $8 trillion coalition. combined market capitalization.
“At AWS, we are committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions across all of our operations by 2040 by investing in carbon-free energy, scalable solutions and working with partners to expand our impact,” said Eric Wilcox, vice president of data center engineering. at AWS. “We support iMasons' call for suppliers to adopt the use of environmental product statements. This will provide greater transparency into scope 3 emissions contained in equipment and help accelerate the industry's overall efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.”
“As a leading data center company, we recognize the need to address Scope 3 emissions associated with new data center construction,” said Lex Coors, director of data center technology and engineering for Digital Real Estate and a board member of Infrastructure Masons. “By promoting the adoption of EPDs, we are not only committing to transparency; we are taking a decisive step towards enabling the entire industry to make informed and responsible decisions that align with our shared sustainability ambitions. This initiative is crucial as we strive to meet the growing demands of our digital world in a sustainable way.”
“In line with our commitment to open standards and our company-wide goal of achieving net zero emissions across our operations and value chain, we are promoting the adoption of environmental product statements across the industry as a critical lever for purchasing low-carbon digital technologies. infrastructure,” said Joe Kava, vice president of global data centers at Google. “As a board member of the iMasons Climate Accord, Google is excited to help accelerate solutions that drive progress toward a more sustainable and transparent data center industry.”
“Reducing our emissions is Meta's top priority to achieve net zero emissions across our entire value chain by 2030. We join our peers in calling for more transparency in the data center supply chain to better understand the carbon contained in the infrastructure that underpins our operations. These announcements will play an important role in accelerating efforts to decarbonize the data centers of tomorrow,” said Rachel Peterson, Vice President of Infrastructure Data Centers at Meta.
“Microsoft is committed to becoming carbon negative by 2030 and to eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions produced since our founding by 2050. By joining our colleagues in promoting sustainability and using digital innovation to drive progress, Microsoft is helping to create a more sustainable future for all,” said Shirin O'Connor, CVP, Data Center Engineering, Procurement and Construction, Microsoft.
“To enable the digital infrastructure industry to align with zero emissions targets, carbon emissions must be a fundamental consideration in purchasing decisions,” said iMasons board member Anna Timme, who is also head of sustainability for secure energy and data centers at the company. Schneider Electric. “Encouraging industry-wide adoption of EPDs is a critical step in enabling carbon-based decision-making. Schneider Electric has been publishing EPDs since 2008 and we are excited about the significant impact adoption will have in the industry as we move towards net zero together.”
The open letter is the second issued by the ICA to call on suppliers to accelerate decarbonisation efforts. In April 2023, the governing body ICA called on suppliers in the data center industry to use low-carbon concrete in data center infrastructure.
