During 2024 and 2025, a new trend emerged: many large data center builders and operators reported increases in their Scope 2, location- and market-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories, reversing their efforts toward net-zero commitments. While this shift does not indicate a loss of commitment to those goals, it is an inevitable result of the […]
While much has been written, said and taught about data center sustainability, there is still limited consensus on the definition and scope of an ideal data center sustainability strategy. This lack of clarity has created much confusion, encouraged many operators to pursue strategies with limited results, and enabled some to make claims that are ultimately […]
Water use has become a benchmark metric for data center operational efficiency and sustainability, as well as a frequent target of community criticism. Operators should track and optimize their water use to protect the environment and secure the facility cooling’s autonomy when its capacity relies on water. However, water use does not fit into a […]
Projections of data center capacity growth have exploded with the emergence of AI infrastructure and the continuing expansion and integration of standard IT functionality into the global economy. Electricity demand is growing in developed markets for the first time in more than a decade, led by proposed data center expansions and efforts to electrify the […]
The advent of AI training and inference applications, combined with the continued expansion of the digital world and electrification of the economy, raises two questions about electricity generation capacity: where will the new energy be sourced from, and how can it be decarbonized? Groups, such as the International Energy Agency and the Electric Power Research […]
Due to regulatory mandates and expanded stakeholder expectations, a growing share of operators are quantifying and publicly reporting a complete carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions inventory for their data center infrastructure. An organization’s direct on-site emissions (classified as Scope 1 according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol) and emissions from purchased energy sources (classified as Scope […]
Rising concerns about cryptocurrency mining energy use have led the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) to launch a six-month emergency data reporting mandate (on January 26, 2024) to obtain information from 82 cryptocurrency mining companies. The emergency order which was approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires cryptocurrency miners to provide information […]
Over the past 12 months, Uptime Institute Intelligence has been closely following regulatory developments in the area of sustainability. These include mandates based on the Task force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure standard, such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the UK’s Climate-related Financial Disclosure Regulations, and the EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive. These legal […]
The European Commission (EC) continues to grapple with the challenges of implementing the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) reporting and metrics mandates. The publication of the Task B report Labelling and minimum performance standards schemes for data centres and the Task C report EU repository for the reporting obligation of data centres on June 7, 2023 […]
Digital infrastructure operators have started to refocus their sustainability objectives on 100% 24×7 carbon-free energy (CFE) consumption: using carbon-free energy for every hour of operation. To establish a 24×7 CFE strategy, operators must track and control CFE assets and the delivery of energy to their data centers and use procurement contracts designed to manage the […]