LATEST INTELLIGENCE and will need to find power savings within existing facilities . This compelled us to focus this report on the environmental aspects of the industry ’ s effort to reduce its carbon footprint .
Introduction
Many data center operators have already deployed robust carbon emissions reporting processes – for example , Equinix , Digital Realty , and Cloudfront . Analyzing these companies ’ data has helped us establish a rule of thumb on the environmental impact of various factors related to data center operations . Carbon emissions reporting , or greenhouse gas accounting , consists of scopes 1 through 3 . Scope 1 emissions stem from sources that are controlled or owned by an organization , such as onsite diesel generators , refrigerant leakage , fire suppression discharge , and maintenance vehicles , among others . Scope 2 emissions stem from the production of electricity and chilled water that data center operators purchase . Scope 3 emissions stem from the carbon emitted from the production of purchased equipment , goods , and services . This includes the transportation of equipment to the site and emissions arising from equipment retirement . It also includes emissions from employee commuting and business travel .
Data center operators have historically focused on the low-hanging fruit when trying to reduce their environmental impact . With scope 1 emissions being relatively low , much of the industry action has focused on electricitypurchasing strategies , targeting the reduction of scope 2 emissions . To improve the efficiency of data center operations , operators need a program focused on reducing electricity waste and saving water , and a substantial partof the recommendations in this paper focus on this . p
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