Our environmental commitment
Scaleway plans to become the most environmentally
efficient and transparent cloud worldwide
Our environmental commitment
Scaleway plans to become the most environmentally
efficient and transparent cloud worldwide
Applied sustainability
Scaleway is stepping up its ambition to drastically lower its environmental impact by 2025, in line with its strategies since the company’s creation. This commitment is compatible with the Paris Agreement’s aim to limit global warming to 2°C by 2050, and the European Commission’s Green Deal roadmap for 2030.
The environmental responsibility of this industry now needs to be focused on these mutually dependent pillars: the supply and intrinsic energy efficiency of the data center, and water usage and preservation. By making the right ethical, regulatory and technological choices, the benefits of global digitalization will not be outweighed by damaging ecological impacts. We are committed to dealing with the subject at the source by measuring all of our activities with a weighted indicator. We believe we play a critical role in catalyzing transformative change in the consumption, production and usage of energy, water and all resources to power our modern society.
Scaleway sets itself an ambitious PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) objective of <1.15 for all new data centers built after 2018, and 1.3 for all previously constructed data centers. This is achieved through continued improvement to cooling systems (free cooling, natural cooling using outside air) and the modernization of primary infrastructure through the use of high energy efficiency equipment. Scaleway wants to go beyond this indicator and integrate water usage and efficiency into the equation. Our current PUE goals range from 1.15 to 1.40, and represent an average incremental gain in efficiency of 30-40% whereas the industry-wide weighted average PUE remains at 1.58.
Scaleway is committed to creating a restorative and regenerative circular economy with its partners, such as Loxy. This socially responsible company ensures 100% of its hardware components are reused and recycled. In this manner, Scaleway aims to extend the life cycle of its equipment to up to 10 years (a standard equipment life cycle is usually between three and five years) through reuse and repair.
100% of electricity consumption in our global data centers has been supplied by wind power and hydroelectricity since 2017. This represents over 300,000 clients in 160 countries. Our energy purchasing decisions are guided by renewable and low carbon energy principles. We prioritize certified local and European energy sources (where possible). We advocate for favorable renewable energy policies and take renewable energy availability into consideration when choosing the locations of new data centers.
We are committed to creating a restorative and regenerative circular economy. In this manner, we aim to extend the life cycle of our equipment to up to 10 years (a standard equipment life cycle is usually between three and five years) through reuse and repair. We have implemented the Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) European directive in order to improve our environmental performance and reduce waste. We view it as our responsibility to participate in the circular economy, and ensure that our electrical and IT equipment is collected and sent for proper reuse or recycling, working with local and regional partners, such as Loxy. This socially responsible company ensures 100% of its hardware components are reused and recycled.
Even though Scaleway has already been powering its data centers with 100% renewable energy since 2017, mainly using hydropower. Our energy purchasing decisions are guided by renewable and low carbon energy principles. We prioritize certified local and European energy sources (where possible).We advocate for favorable renewable energy policies and take renewable energy availability into consideration when choosing the locations of new data centers. We are actively working on our environmental policies and commit to banning all products which have a harmful impact on the ozone layer, create greenhouse gases and are toxic, as well as the use of Chlorodifluoromethane. Our energy saving program allows us a total gain of electrical consumption of over 14 GWh per year at the data center level, the equivalent of about 650 teqCO2.
As a global corporate citizen, we assess our impact, set ambitious goals and communicate transparently about the results. We have been designing our business to continuously thrive and prosper in a more sustainable way, while shaping the cloud sector and positively contributing to the significant social, economic and environmental challenges of our generation. Yann Lechelle, CEO Scaleway, the cloud that makes sense
Designing new systems for a better future
Our environmental efforts deliver meaningful and measurable progress that positively impact our customers, partners, investors and people. We have a responsibility to them to act ethically and with respect for our modern society and the environment. With you and for you, Scaleway is poised to be the obvious scale partner that all developers, architects and business owners are looking for: in short, the cloud that makes sense.
We are ambitious: We continuously improve the energy and water effectiveness and quality of our data center activities. We believe our efforts have paid off, as we are pushing the data center market toward a more sustainable and sensible approach, and we are leading the new standards worldwide in data center water usage.
Our new indicator for a weighted consumption : rDCE (Real Data Center Efficiency)
It is unacceptable that today, in 2020, we still omit water consumption from the equation when calculating a data center’s responsibility and efficiency. Thus, Scaleway’s approach consists in combining the PUE and the WUE, to relate them to each other and to the actual use of each in data centers. The rDCE is measured in megawatt hours (MWh), and used to weight the PUE and the WUE measurements in relation to distributed uses, not in relation to the most efficient datacenter, which would be too easy and misleading. The average of the two is taken to calculate the real Data Center Efficiency. This is how Scaleway defines the rDCE indicator, or real Data Center Efficiency.
rDCE = (ePUE + eWUE) ➗ 2 = (1.37 + 0.01) ➗ 2 = 0.69
We are committed to publishing this metric for all data centers each year, with the goal of steadily lowering it through innovation and investment. We invite all industry players to #ComeGreen and join us in this radical transparency.
Rather than planting trees or buying wind farms, we prefer to think outside of the box. Our sustainable actions have real impact because we have innovated where it counts most – energy and water use at the source. We deploy best-in-class technologies and innovations for data center energy and water efficiency by manufacturing our own servers, eco-designing, building and managing our data centers. We control the entire value chain, this allows us to be free to set our own ambitious goals in terms of efficiency, performance and environmental footprint.
All certifications and information are communicated on demand.
Data center | Certifications | PUE | WUE | Energy source | Renewable | Cooling system |
DC2 PAR1 Paris |
ISO27001 ISO50001 HDS 1 & 2 Code of conduct |
1.55 | 0 | 100% Hydraulic | Carbon Neutral 100% renewable |
Closed-loop chilled water system. |
DC3 Par1 Paris |
ISO27001 ISO50001 HDS 1 & 2 Code of conduct |
1.31 | 0 | 100% Hydraulic | Carbon Neutral 100% renewable |
Indirect Freecooling with closed-loop high-temperature chilled water system. |
DC4 Paris |
ISO50001 HDS 1 & 2 Code of conduct |
1.50 | 0 | 100% Hydraulic | Carbon Neutral 100% renewable |
EC (direct) with variable compressor (VRV) |
DC5 PAR2 Paris |
ISO50001 HDS 1 & 2 Code of conduct |
1.15 | < 0.2 | 100% Hydraulic | Carbon neutral 100% renewable |
Direct Freecooling with adiabatic cooling |
AMS1 Amsterdam |
ISO27001 ISO50001 ISO14001 ISO9001 PCI-DSS SOC1 TYPE2 |
1.2 | N-A | 100% Hydraulic | Carbon Neutral 100% renewable |
EC on closed-loop hot water system |
WAW1 Warsow |
ISO9001 ISO27001 PCI-DSS |
1.54 | N-A | 100% Wind | Carbon Neutral 100% renewable |
Closed-loop chilled water system |
We have to go back to our EU values to move forward to a modern digital society
Changing data center efficiency practices - the heat is on!
When temperatures skyrocket like this, there are consequences, and global warming is forcing us to question the techniques ordinarily used to cool data centers, as they are responsible for a significant part of the digital economy’s energy consumption