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Scope 3 Emissions in Data Centres: A Practical Approach to Reporting

Understanding the carbon footprint of a data centre requires looking beyond the energy consumed during day-to-day operation. For many organisations, significant emissions also sit within the wider IT value chain – from the manufacture of servers, power and cooling equipment to construction materials, transport, cloud services and colocation facilities.

Schneider Electric’s White Paper 53, Recommended Inventory for Data Center Scope 3 GHG Emissions Reporting, provides a practical framework for identifying these Scope 3 emissions. It proposes nine key reporting categories designed specifically for IT resources, helping organisations build a more complete picture across on-premise, colocation and cloud environments.

Understanding Scope 3 emissions in the data centre

Greenhouse gas emissions are commonly divided into three scopes. Scope 1 covers direct emissions from sources controlled by the organisation, such as fuel burned in an onsite generator. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions associated with purchased electricity, heat, steam or cooling. Scope 3 captures the other indirect emissions created throughout the organisation’s value chain.

For data centre operators and IT teams, Scope 3 is particularly challenging because much of the relevant activity occurs outside their direct control. Obtaining consistent information from equipment manufacturers, construction suppliers, cloud providers and colocation operators can therefore be more complex than measuring energy consumed within an owned facility.

Getting the reporting boundaries right

A reliable Scope 3 inventory starts by establishing clear operational boundaries.

Within a single organisation, Scope 1, 2 and 3 are mutually exclusive. An emission already accounted for under Scope 1 or Scope 2 should not also be included under Scope 3.

However, the same physical emissions can legitimately appear in the inventories of different organisations. The emissions generated by a manufacturer producing a piece of equipment, for example, can become part of the purchasing organisation’s upstream Scope 3 footprint.

Clearly defining the relationship between operators, suppliers, customers and service providers is therefore fundamental to consistent reporting.

Nine key Scope 3 categories for IT infrastructure

The GHG Protocol defines 15 general Scope 3 categories. Schneider Electric’s white paper narrows these to nine categories considered particularly relevant to IT resources:

  1. Purchased goods and services – including construction materials used within the data centre core and shell, as well as outsourced cloud services.
  2. Capital goods – including IT equipment, power infrastructure, cooling equipment, racks, lighting and other long-life assets.
  3. Fuel- and energy-related activities – upstream emissions associated with purchased fuels and energy that are not already included within Scope 1 or Scope 2.
  4. Upstream transportation and distribution – emissions associated with transporting equipment and other acquired goods to data centre sites.
  5. Waste generated in operations – including third-party treatment, recycling, incineration and disposal.
  6. Business travel – including air, rail and road travel and hotel stays.
  7. Employee commuting – including private vehicles, public transport and relevant telecommuting impacts.
  8. Upstream leased assets – including leased buildings, vehicles and colocation data centre space.
  9. Downstream leased assets – particularly relevant to colocation providers leasing data centre capacity to customers.

For capital equipment and construction materials, the white paper makes an important distinction from financial accounting: cradle-to-gate emissions are accounted for in the year the asset is acquired or constructed rather than being depreciated over its operational life.

Accounting for the whole IT estate

Modern IT infrastructure rarely exists within a single organisational boundary. The white paper identifies three principal forms of IT resource: owned and operated data centres, IT equipment housed in colocation facilities, and cloud or hosted services.

A meaningful IT carbon footprint needs to consider whichever of these models an organisation uses. That makes supplier information increasingly important. Organisations using colocation space need appropriate emissions information from the facility operator, while cloud providers need to allocate relevant emissions to customers according to their use of the service.

Focus on what matters, not simply what is easiest to measure

One of the key lessons from the white paper is that organisations should not build their Scope 3 strategy around whichever information is easiest to obtain.

Business travel and employee commuting, for example, may be relatively straightforward to quantify, but concentrating on these areas alone can provide an incomplete picture. Equipment procurement, construction, energy supply chains and outsourced IT services may require more work to assess but can be important components of the overall footprint.

A useful Scope 3 inventory should therefore do more than support reporting. It should help identify material sources of emissions and translate that information into better decisions around procurement, infrastructure design, equipment replacement, energy, logistics and supplier engagement.

Turning sustainability data into infrastructure improvements

Scope 3 reporting provides greater visibility of environmental impact, but measurement is only part of the process. Once opportunities have been identified, organisations also need to consider how the performance of their physical infrastructure can be improved.

Advanced Power Technology helps customers increase the efficiency of the infrastructure that powers and cools IT. Its sustainability services include high-efficiency UPS systems, airflow management, efficient cooling technologies, monitoring and management, heat recovery and energy efficiency audits covering power system performance, cooling performance, layout and airflow.

This practical focus complements wider sustainability strategies by helping organisations reduce energy use and improve the performance of existing or new critical infrastructure. Advanced Power supports customers from initial consultation and design through project implementation, maintenance and ongoing support.

Looking to improve the efficiency and sustainability of your data centre?

Speak to Advanced Power Technology about energy efficiency assessments and practical improvements to your data centre power, cooling, airflow and monitoring infrastructure.