Sustainability teams: key players and crucial collaborations

With sustainability regulations expected to expand globally, stakeholders are viewing data centers with increased scrutiny. Investors and clients want assurance that data center owners and operators are taking steps to meet regulatory demands effectively and pass corresponding audits. The data center industry can access a range of standards and frameworks created under regulatory bodies, private initiatives and coalitions managed by nongovernmental organizations and/or commercial enterprises. However, these standards and frameworks vary by region and regulatory body, and typically address only a subset of the applicable sustainability elements.

Uptime Institute has built a sustainability assessment program that aggregates and consolidates the existing standards and frameworks into a single, coherent assessment. This program can help organizations identify the process and data required to document, track, and report on sustainability programs across their complete IT estate — including colocation and cloud resources. The assessment will enable data center operators to meet sustainability goals, improve energy and environmental performance, reduce climate impacts and respond to regulatory requirements. This assessment is designed to be applied at a facility level.