Data center labels: a very public appraisal

Regulatory agencies and standards bodies are exploring data center labeling and rating systems to provide consistent, publicly available data to customers, tenants and stakeholders. However, the criteria, information and metrics proposed for such labels vary widely, reflecting the many views of what constitutes a sustainable data center (see The two sides of a sustainability strategy). A meaningful labeling and rating system will need to focus on real data center performance metrics — including PUE, water usage effectiveness (WUE), cooling efficiency ratio (CER), location-based renewable energy factor (REF) and actionable IT performance metrics.

KEY POINTS

• Many data center operators have not been forthcoming with operational data and metrics related to facility-level energy and water use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and IT infrastructure efficiency. Frustrated with the unwillingness to provide data, government officials, regulators, environmentalists and local organizations are moving to establish mandated labeling/rating systems.
• Proposals from the European Commission and various research and consultancy organizations focus on one or more of the following metrics: PUE, WUE, market-based REF, IT equipment capacity and sustainability issues such as Scope 1, 2 and/or 3 emissions, circularity and e-waste, heat recovery and refrigerant types. However, these labeling scopes are either too broad or too narrow, underemphasizing the energy and sustainability performance of a data center.
• Uptime Intelligence proposes a label that focuses on data and metrics for operational performance: energy and water use, PUE, WUE, CER, Scope 1 and location-based Scope 2 GHG emissions, and meaningful, actionable IT efficiency metrics.