IT Sustainability Reporting — Vocabulary and Communication

Carbon footprint report for IT: measures Scope 1 (on-site fuel), Scope 2 (purchased electricity for data centers), and Scope 3 (hardware manufacturing, employee devices, supply chain). Typically measured in CO2 equivalent (CO2e), expressed as tonnes per year. Used for: setting reduction targets, tracking progress, ESG disclosures (GRI, TCFD, CDP frameworks).

Carbon neutral: emit X tonnes of CO2, buy X tonnes of offsets — net math is zero but emissions still occur. Net zero: reduce emissions by 90%+ (Science Based Targets Initiative threshold), then remove the remaining ~10%. Net zero is considered more credible because it requires actually cutting emissions rather than just offsetting them.

PUE measures data center infrastructure efficiency: total power consumed (including cooling, lighting, UPS losses) divided by power to IT equipment. PUE 1.0 = perfect. Hyperscalers (Google, Meta) achieve ~1.1. Average enterprise data center: ~1.5-2.0. PUE is a useful but limited metric — it does not measure what the IT equipment is actually doing with its power.

GreenOps (analogous to FinOps for cost): applying operational rigor to sustainability. GreenOps practices: continuous carbon monitoring (cloud carbon footprint tools), carbon-awareness in deployment decisions, right-sizing for sustainability, scheduled workload shifting, team accountability for carbon metrics alongside cost metrics. GreenOps treats carbon as a resource to be managed, not just measured.

SBTi (sciencebasedtargets.org): companies commit to targets aligned with climate science (limit warming to 1.5C). For tech: typically 50% reduction in Scope 1+2 emissions by 2030, and 25-30% reduction in Scope 3 by 2030. SBTi validates and publishes commitments. Investors and customers increasingly require SBTi commitment as a credibility signal.