While data centers have become the backbone of the global IT ecosystem, the contribution of data centers to hot climate emission is often downplayed. Emissions impact farther than data center operations. A new analysis demonstrates that emissions look much farther than data center operations. It means taking into account the production and entire lifecycle of devices, servers, and software. This more holistic view is necessary for a true picture of the IT sector’s contribution to climate change.
At this point, it can be estimated that only 30 percent of overall emissions in the IT sector are well measured. This clearance means that entities will likely miss major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. The overall need for digital services has skyrocketed. As a result, we need to consider the overall IT ecosystem, looking at both end-user devices and data center environments.
The Hidden Emissions of Devices
Recent research has had one surprising and largely unknown conclusion—75 percent of device emissions occur during the manufacturing stage. This major component is called embodied carbon. These emissions often escape notice in standard evaluations, creating a misleading picture of the environmental harm. It takes roughly 3 kg of CO2e to manufacture one smartphone. That figure shoots up astronomically when we consider the massive amount of smartphones that are disposed of globally every year.
End-user devices contribute significantly to overall emissions, with their output estimated to be 1.5 to 2 times greater than that of all data centers combined. In the global IT emissions picture, data centers are only 40 percent. Devices account for a whopping 60 percent. This inequitable gap highlights an important urgency. It’s not enough for organizations to just extend their sustainability goals from data centers to consumer devices.
The Role of Data Centers in Emissions
Data centers certainly have their separate environmental burdens. Combined operations within these facilities represent about 24 percent of total emissions in the IT sector. Data center construction and maintenance have a very low embodied carbon impact of 16%. This figure is particularly significant given how small it is in comparison to emissions associated with manufacturing devices themselves.
Google’s data centers are an impressive testimony to their commitment to sustainability. They gain energy efficiencies that are 1.5 times more than the industry average! Even with these advancements, data centers are still finding it hard to lower their net emissions. They miss the mark on how to truly address the broader environmental footprint of devices.
Companies, including Microsoft, are betting billions on nuclear power to run AI workloads by 2025. We’ve heard it a lot lately, but it’s true that addressing emissions will require an all-of-the-above, full stack approach. By only considering efficiencies within their data centers, companies can end up ignoring a huge chunk of their environmental impact.
The Challenge of Reporting Frameworks
A major hurdle to making the deeply ambitious vision of true sustainability in the IT sector a reality sits within existing reporting frameworks. The new European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) mandates over 11,700 companies disclose their emissions and other impacts. These reporting frameworks often aren’t detailed enough. As a result, they may not capture the full extent of embodied carbon generated during device manufacturing or even during operation.
All of these impacts are especially alarming considering the short lifetime of these devices. Smartphones have an average replacement cycle of two years, laptops three to four years, and printers five years. Increasing smartphone lifecycles from two years to three presents an equally robust opportunity. It would reduce yearly emissions from manufacturing by up to 33 percent! That’s about 1 billion smartphones that go obsolete each year. This single amendment would reduce annual emissions by 50 million tonnes of CO2e.
Moving Towards Comprehensive Solutions
This will require organizations to take a detailed pass at their emissions profile. This step is necessary to meet the sustainability challenges that the IT industry needs to address. And we’re taking our sustainability efforts beyond our data centers. Through these efforts, we more directly create demand for strategies that drive longer lifecycles for consumer devices.
The new and evolving landscape of emissions reporting underscores urgent need for innovation in measurement methodologies and accountability mechanisms. Businesses have the opportunity to take holistic approaches to measure operational and embodied carbon. More importantly, taking this approach helps them develop far more effective strategies to reduce their overall environmental impact.