Sustainability is becoming an ever-growing topic of interest and concern for the data center industry and its stakeholders. Both hyper-scale and global enterprises are driving for change, insisting on a more sustainable and carbon-neutral future.
Currently, there is no standardized measure as to what constitutes a “sustainable data center”, nor is there a scale to measure a data center’s progress in achieving sustainability goals.
The iMasons Sustainability Committee has developed a Sustainability Data Center Framework which provides an industry best practice for building and running a sustainable data center. The Framework was developed based on input from members and leaders within the iMasons member community.
The Industry Best Practice/Sustainability Framework covers all phases of the life of a DC from planning, to designing, building, operating, and decommissioning the data center. It is also intended to cover all aspects of sustainability including all environmental and social impacts throughout the value chain – a complete life-cycle perspective. The model also indicates at what stage of the sustainable journey is a data center, enabling it to be a helpful road map throughout the journey.
The Sustainability Committee acknowledges that we needed a model that does not have all the answers, but which can be adapted and changed and keeps pushing ever higher performance as our industry continues to develop, and new ideas, innovations, and concepts are introduced.
Feedback on the initial framework and model will be work shopped during iMasons member events throughout 2021.
