Data centers environmental impact assessment features

Abstract

Data centers became significant sources of environmental impact: each year global data centers consume TWh of electricity, generate comparable thermal emissions to the atmosphere and/or hydrosphere, create wastes of electronic equipment and life-expired batteries, and create other types of direct and indirect ecological footprint. In conformity with the sustainable development concept data centers environmental impact of all types should be numerically assessed to compare to the environmental capacity and move towards sustainability. It requires ecological footprint (carbon footprint in particular) to be assessed. Existing xUE Effectiveness Metrics used for data centers are all relative, so data centers’ environmental impact cannot be calculated directly from it. Methods of payment calculation for negative environmental impact, used in Russia, do not take into account data center features and can hardly be used for the assessment tasks. Data centers need to adapt existing and develop new assessment methods for its environmental impact, considering all the resources consumed and all the emissions generated.