What is Data Centre Emissions?
Carbon emissions from facilities that house computer systems, including servers, storage, and networking equipment. Data centres consume significant electricity for computing and cooling.
Why it matters
Data centres account for approximately 1-2% of global electricity consumption, and this share is growing with AI and cloud adoption. Tech companies and their clients need to understand data centre emissions as part of Scope 2 and Scope 3 reporting.
Example
A SaaS company hosting on AWS uses Amazon's Customer Carbon Footprint Tool and discovers its cloud infrastructure generates 12 tCO₂e per year. Migrating workloads to an AWS region powered by renewable energy reduces this to 3 tCO₂e.
Related terms
Digital Carbon Footprint
Carbon emissions from digital activities including data storage, cloud computing, video calls, and email. While individual actions are small, digital emissions can be significant at organisational scale.
Scope 3 Emissions
All other indirect emissions occurring in an organisation's value chain, both upstream and downstream. Scope 3 typically represents 70-90% of a company's total carbon footprint and includes emissions from suppliers, business travel, employee commuting, and product use.
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