The Board of Directors of the iMasons Climate Accord, a program of infrastructure masons, is calling on all data center suppliers to commit to greater transparency on Scope 3 emissions as part of a broader effort to reduce the industry's carbon footprint.
The governing body, which consists of AWS, Digital Realty, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Schneider Electric, has published an open letter explaining the importance of widespread adoption of Environmental Product Declarations, which are standardized, third-party verified documents that report a product's emissions. EPDs describe a product's greenhouse gas emissions throughout its lifecycle, from the raw materials in the product (e.g., how they are extracted, transported and processed) through manufacturing, transportation, product use and end of product life (e.g., landfill, recycling, reuse, etc.).
While EPDs are common in some business sectors, they are not widespread in the data center industry. The open letter shows that the world's largest hyperscalers and digital infrastructure companies, in collaboration with their trusted suppliers, are making a significant push to create meaningful change across the industry.
It is vital to continue to ensure that the digital infrastructure industry is decarbonised as it grows. The signatories of the iMasons Board of Directors' open letter have all committed to net zero carbon emissions to meet their responsibilities in reducing data centre carbon emissions (with deadlines between 2025 and 2040, at least 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement), and this letter represents another milestone on the journey to decarbonising operations.
Hyperscalers have implemented strategies to reduce and/or mitigate Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. As they aim to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in the coming years, the next piece of the sustainability puzzle is to reduce Scope 3 emissions, which can account for between 38 and 69 percent of the total carbon footprint of data centers. Scope 3 emissions are not caused by the company itself; rather, they include indirect emissions along the entire value chain.
By accessing the important information in EPDs, data center owners, operators and end users can effectively calculate their environmental impact and select products (servers, cooling systems, uninterruptible power supplies and services) that best align with sustainability goals based on lower Scope 3 emissions.
“EPDs are critical to making the future of digital infrastructure more resilient and climate-friendly. Adopting EPDs across the global supply chain promotes both sustainable and traceable outcomes. As standardized and verified data provides greater transparency, this initiative supports a collective approach to reducing our carbon emissions and environmental footprint,” said Miranda Gardiner, Executive Director of the iMasons Climate Accord, a coalition of over 250 members representing a combined market capitalization of $8 trillion.
“At AWS, we are committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions across all our operations by 2040 by investing in carbon-free energy, scaling solutions, and working with partners to expand our impact,” said Eric Wilcox, vice president of data center engineering at AWS. “We support the iMasons' call for suppliers to use environmental product declarations. This will provide greater transparency into Scope 3 emissions contained in equipment and help accelerate the entire industry's efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.”
“As a leading data center company, we recognize the need to address the Scope 3 emissions associated with building new data centers,” said Lex Coors, Chief Data Center Technology and Engineering Officer for Digital Realty and a member of the Infrastructure Masons Governing Body. “By championing the adoption of EPDs, we are not only committing to transparency; we are also taking a critical step to empower the entire industry to make informed, responsible decisions that are aligned with our shared sustainability ambitions. This initiative is critical as we strive to meet the growing demands of our digital world in a sustainable way.”
“In line with our commitment to open standards and our company-wide goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all our operations and value chain, we support the industry-wide adoption of Environmental Product Declarations as a critical lever for low-carbon procurement of digital infrastructure,” said Joe Kava, Vice President, Global Data Centers, Google. “As a member of the iMasons Climate Accord Board of Directors, Google is excited to accelerate solutions that drive progress toward a more sustainable, transparent data center industry.”
“Reducing our emissions is a top priority for Meta to achieve net zero emissions across our entire value chain by 2030. We join our peers in calling for greater transparency in the data center supply chain to better understand the carbon content of the infrastructure that underpins our operations. These declarations will play a key role in accelerating decarbonization efforts for the data centers of tomorrow,” said Rachel Peterson, Vice President of Infrastructure Data Centers at Meta.
“Microsoft is committed to becoming carbon negative by 2030 and eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions generated since our founding by 2050. By joining our colleagues in championing sustainability and using digital innovation to drive progress, we are helping to create a more sustainable future for all,” said Shirin O'Connor, CVP, Datacenter Engineering, Procurement and Construction at Microsoft.
“For the digital infrastructure industry to achieve its net zero emissions goals, carbon emissions must play a fundamental role in procurement decisions,” said Anna Timme, iMasons Board Member and Head of Sustainability for Secure Power and Data Centers at Schneider Electric. “Promoting industry-wide adoption of EPDs is a critical step to enable carbon-based decisions. Schneider Electric has been committed to publishing EPDs since 2008 and we are excited about the significant impact industry adoption will have on our collective journey towards net zero.”
The open letter is the second in which the ICA has called on suppliers to accelerate their decarbonisation efforts. In April 2023, the ICA's governing body called on data centre industry suppliers to use lower-carbon concrete in data centre infrastructure.
