Jay
Dietrich
Seb
Shehadi
The trend towards regulating and controlling data center energy use, efficiency and sustainability continues to grow globally, with the appearance of utility rate management regulations and the propagation policies influenced by the EU’s EED.
Jay Dietrich
Jay is the Research Director of Sustainability at Uptime Institute. Dietrich looks beyond the hype to analyze the transformations required in energy and IT systems, data centers and software management systems, and intra-organizational collaboration, both within and between companies, to deliver sustainable data center operations.
jdietrich@uptimeinstitute.com
Latest Research
Data center sustainability standards grow globally
Data center sustainability standards 2025
This briefing report identifies and describes several de facto standards and laws used in the field of data center sustainability and efficiency (for convenience, we use the term “standards” for all).
The two sides of a sustainability strategy
Uptime Institute believes that data center operators should optimize facility-level sustainability performance before addressing ecosystem issues. A clear definition of data center sustainability is needed to enable this approach.
Calculating work capacity for server and storage products
IT operators lack a credible work-per-energy metric to report overall IT and facilities system efficiency. Developments in reporting IT equipment work capacities enable the industry to begin experimenting with this metric.
REPLAY | Calculating Data Center Work Capacity: The EED and Beyond
Andy
Lawrence
The data center industry has struggled to design and implement a meaningful measurement of deployed and utilized server work capacity and storage product terabyte capacity. Recent publications by The Green Grid and Uptime Institute offer the tools…
EU climate reporting: simplification is not simple
Peter
Judge
The European Commission aims to ease climate risk reporting by removing mid-cap operators from CSRD's scope and delaying reports to 2028. But under current rules, 2025 reports are required and foreign-owned mid-cap operators stay covered.
Uptime Institute EED survey responses: data center labeling and rating process, data reporting improvements
Uptime Institute provided three documents to the EU Commission and their consultants, Ernest and Young and Borderstep, in response to two surveys. The surveys are intended to gather data to facilitate the development of a data center labeling/rating…
Water is local: generalities do not apply
Critics argue that data center water use is excessive and poorly managed. Operators should select a cooling system to fit the local climate and available water supply, explaining water use within the context of local conditions.
REPLAY | Strategies for Powering Data Centers with Carbon Free Power
Rapidly increasing electricity demand requires new generation capacity to power new data centers. What are some of the new, innovative power generation technology and procurement options being developed to meet capacity growth and what are their…
Remaining EED reporting deficiencies need immediate attention
The European Commission, with the assistance of operators, needs to correct ambiguities in the EED reporting processes. Industry solutions can improve the quality and completeness of the submitted data.
EED delegated report due early May — what's the rush?
The European Commission will soon publish its delegated report, recommending a data center rating scheme and performance standards. The accelerated timeline is too short to facilitate meaningful evaluation of these topics.
US state drafts plan for data center regulations
The New York state senate recently proposed legislation mandating data center information reporting and operational requirements. Although the Bill is unlikely to pass, the legislation indicates a likely framework for future regulation
IT efficiency: an untapped power resource
The data center industry’s growth projections can be met by combining energy supply growth and demand reduction. Highly utilized IT infrastructure and efficient software can mitigate demand growth while delivering needed IT capacity.
United Nations specs for IT efficiency: more work required
If adopted, the UNEP U4E server and storage product technical specifications may create a confusing and counter-productive regulatory structure. The current proposals are as likely to limit as improve data center operations' efficiency
REPLAY | IT Consolidation: A critical data center sustainability initiative
As the industry power demand grows, IT operators must focus on both IT infrastructure power demand and supply. A portion of the required power growth can be eliminated through better utilization of existing and new IT infrastructure and software…
