The iMasons Climate Accord Steering Committee, a project of Infrastructure Masons, is calling on all data center suppliers to support greater transparency on Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions as part of a broader effort to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint.
Regulators including AWS, Digital Realty, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Schneider Electric have published an open letter explaining the importance of widespread adoption of environmental product declarations, which are standardized, third-party audited documents for reporting a product’s emissions. EPDs identify a product’s greenhouse gas emissions throughout its entire lifecycle, from the raw materials in a product (e.g. extraction, transport, and processing methods) to manufacturing, transport, use, and end-of-life (e.g. landfill, recycling, reuse, etc.).
While EPDs are common in some business sectors, they have yet to be widely adopted in the data center industry. This open letter demonstrates the significant push from the world’s largest hyperscalers and digital infrastructure companies to drive meaningful change across the industry, working with trusted suppliers.
Continued action is needed to ensure the digital infrastructure industry reaches net zero carbon as the industry grows. Signatories to the iMasons Board of Directors’ Open Letter have all committed to net zero carbon emissions in response to their data center decarbonization responsibilities (with a deadline of 2025 to 2040, at least 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement), and this letter marks another important step towards decarbonizing operations.
Hyperscalers have implemented a number of strategies to reduce and/or mitigate Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions as they work to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in the coming years. The next sustainability solution lies in reducing Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, which can account for 38-69 percent of total data center carbon emissions. Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions are not caused by the company itself, but include indirect emissions throughout the value chain.
Access to key data in the EPD enables data center owners, operators, and end users to efficiently calculate their environmental impact and select products (servers, cooling, redundant power supplies, and services) based on lower Scope 3 emissions that best align with their sustainability goals.
“EPDs are critical to transforming the future of digital infrastructure to be more resilient and climate positive. Implementing EPDs across global supply chains promotes sustainable and responsible outcomes, as standardized, verified data increases transparency. This initiative supports a shared approach to reducing carbon emissions and environmental impacts,” said Miranda Gardiner, Executive Director of iMasons Climate Accord, a coalition of more than 250 members and a market capitalization of $8 trillion.
“At AWS, we are committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions across all of our processes by 2040 by investing in carbon-free energy, scaling solutions, and collaborating with partners to expand our impact,” said Eric Wilcox, Vice President of Data Center Engineering at AWS. “We support iMasons’ call for suppliers to adopt environmental product declarations. Doing so will increase transparency on Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions included in devices and help accelerate the industry’s overall efforts to reduce carbon emissions.”
“As a leading data center company, we recognize the need to address Scope 3 emissions associated with new data center construction,” said Lex Coors, data center technology and engineering leader for digital real estate and Infrastructure Masons Board of Directors member. “By supporting the adoption of the EPD, we are not only committed to transparency, but we are also taking another step in empowering the entire industry to make responsible data choices that align with our shared sustainability goals. This initiative is critical as we strive to meet the growing demands of our digital world in a sustainable manner.”
“Consistent with our commitment to open standards and our company goal of achieving net zero emissions across our operations and value chain, we support the industry-wide adoption of Environmental Product Declarations as a key tool for procuring low-carbon digital infrastructure,” said Joe Kawa, Google’s vice president of Global Data Centers. “As a member of the iMasons Climate Accord board, Google is excited to help accelerate solutions that drive progress toward a more transparent and sustainable data center industry.”
“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a top priority for Meta as we move towards net-zero emissions in our value chain by 2030. We join the call for greater transparency across our data center supply chain to better understand the carbon stored in the infrastructure that supports our operations. These declarations will play a key role in accelerating our efforts to decarbonize the data center of the future,” said Rachel Peterson, Meta’s Vice President of Data Center Infrastructure.
“Microsoft is committed to becoming carbon negative by 2030 and eliminating all greenhouse gases emitted since the company was founded by 2050,” said Shirin O’Connor, executive vice president of Data Center Engineering, Procurement and Construction at Microsoft. “By working with our colleagues to promote sustainability and using digital innovation to drive progress, Microsoft is helping create a more sustainable future for everyone.”
“For the digital infrastructure sector to align itself with net zero emissions targets, carbon emissions must be a key factor in procurement decisions,” said Anna Timme, Member of the Board of Directors of iMasons and Head of Sustainability, Secure Energy and Data Centers at Schneider Electric. “Promoting the adoption of EPDs across the industry is an important step in making carbon-aware decisions. Schneider Electric has been committed to the dissemination of EPDs since 2008 and we are excited about the significant impact that EPD adoption across the industry will have as we move towards net zero emissions together.”
This open letter is the second ICA has issued calling on suppliers to take action to accelerate their efforts to reduce carbon emissions. In April 2023, the ICA Executive Board called on data center suppliers to use low-carbon concrete in their data center infrastructure.
