OVHcloud, the European Cloud specialist, now provides its Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Iaas) customers with a carbon calculator aimed at giving them monthly reports on their cloud-related carbon emission. With over 20 years of innovation in developing a sustainable cloud through watercooling at scale, OVHcloud continues to set the bar for industry best practice.
What is the market offering of the carbon calculator?
Giving clients a better understanding of their cloud infrastructure carbon footprint is aimed at not only providing greater transparency, but also encouraging more responsible IT usage. The methodology behind the calculator required over eight months to develop, and aims to be comprehensive, by considering factors like manufacturing down to the component level.
Accessible on demand from the OVHcloud customer panel, the groundbreaking carbon calculator tool takes into account the estimated electrical consumption of servers from OVHcloud datacentre monitoring and maps them to their carbon equivalent, taking into account the cooling and networking equipment, as well as freight, manufacturing and end of life and waste management, to provide a complete picture of the actual carbon footprint.
The tool is location-based. As such, the reporting depends on the local power mix, meaning that a server located in a country with a low carbon power mix will result in a different carbon estimate than that of the same server housed in a country with a less favourable mix.
What does this mean for clients?
Commenting on the innovative carbon calculator, Fabienne MATHEY-GIRBIG, Executive Director, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Development at Sopra Steria, said, “As a major tech player in Europe, we have a key role to play in supporting a more sustainable digital landscape across the value chain, including employees, clients, suppliers and partners.”
“That’s why we are delighted to have contributed to the creation of the carbon calculator, which enables businesses to assess the environmental impact of their cloud activities. We are proud of the trust placed in us to play an active role in this decarbonisation initiative.”
By the end of the year, the market-based information will complement calculator reporting, highlighting the Group’s commitment when it comes to power mix decarbonation. OVHcloud carbon calculator software stack was developed in conjunction with Sopra Steria, while the methodology was audited by IJO, an independent consulting firm specialising in Green IT.
What does this mean for OVHcloud’s sustainability drive?
“With sustainability rooted in our DNA, we constantly challenge ourselves to improve the carbon footprint of our overall operations. We are more aware than ever of the importance for our customers in calculating their carbon footprint as accurately as possible. We are therefore extremely happy to give them a precise reading and understanding of it, all with a single click of the mouse,” commented Michel Paulin, Chief Executive Officer at OVHcloud.
OVHcloud has built an unparalleled name in the industry. It has long developed a vertically integrated industrial model with most of its datacentres being built and owned by the Group, featuring innovations, and leveraging two factories located in Croix, France, and Beauharnois, Canada, to build its own designed servers, providing total control over the value chain.
This unique and groundbreaking approach means that in a tenhour period under full load, an OVHcloud server requires just one glass of water to be cooled, when many servers on the market need seven times more. OVHcloud’s innovation also enables it to reach an average global PUE of 1.28, lower than the 1.55 [1] industry average according to 2022 estimates. These water and power usage effectiveness scores are amongst the best in the industry.
They pave the way for future certifications while the calculator demonstrates OVHcloud’s commitment to a sustainable cloud. OVHcloud Carbon Calculator provides customers with invaluable transparent and comprehensive (scope 1, 2, 3) carbon footprint information from manufacturing to infrastructure run. The Group is the only provider to offer life cycle analysis at a component level on top of the carbon footprint of the cloud service consumption.
