Environmental Leadership
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.
Our commitments cover these key strategic areas:
Control energy and water consumption with a weighted index that goes well beyond the simple PUE indicatorLearn moreScaleway has given itself the ambitious PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) goal 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 (e.g. free & natural 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% compared to the industry weighted average of 1.58.
Advocating for water conservation and efficiencyLearn moreWe are ambitious: We continuously improve the 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 allowing us to set and control our own ambitious goals in terms of efficiency, performance and environmental footprint.
Defending the circular economy and banning toxic productsScaleway is committed to creating a restorative and regenerative circular economy with its partners, such as Loxy. This socially responsible company ensures that 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. 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 100% of our hardware components are reused and recycled.
Defending renewable energy standards100% 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 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.
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 colocation 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 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. 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.
| Data center | Certifications | PUE | WUE | Energy source | Cooling system |
| DC2 PAR1 Paris | ISO27001 ISO50001 HDS 1 | 1.50 | 0.012 | 100% hydraulic Guarantee of Origin (GO) | Chilled water system |
| DC3 PAR1 Paris | ISO27001 ISO50001 HDS 1 Code of conduct | 1.39 | 0.028 | Indirect Free Cooling with closed-loop high-temperature chilled water system | |
| DC4 Paris | ISO27001 ISO50001 HDS 1 | 1.50 | 0.603 | EC (direct) with variable compressor (VRV) | |
| DC5 PAR2 Paris | ISO27001 ISO50001 HDS 1 | 1.23 | 0.206 | Direct Free Cooling with adiabatic cooling | |
| AMS1 Amsterdam | ISO27001 ISO50001 ISO14001 ISO9001 PCI-DSS SOC1 TYPE2 | 1.2 | NA | EC on closed- loop hot water system | |
| WAW1 Varsovie | ISO9001 ISO27001 PCI-DSS | 1.51 | NA | 100% wind Guarantee of Origin (GO) | Closed-loop chilled water system |
(WUE excluding Amsterdam and Warsaw as we do not have the measuring instruments in place which permit us to collect this information).
Contrary to market practices, our PUE is calculated using the International standard ISO/IEC 30134-2:2016, backed by our ISO 50001:2018 certification.
Measurements are taken every five minutes by certified Class 1 or Class 0.2C true-RMS meters as defined by Directive 2004/22/CE (Measuring Instruments Directive).
As defined by ISO/IEC 30134-2:2016:
- Our PUE is a category 1 PUE and calculated with the last 12 months’ measurements
- Total Energy power consumption (E-DC) is calculated on medium voltage from the national grid
- IT Load (E-IT) is calculated on UPS output
- Energy consumed by the non-data center equipment (such as offices) is excluded
- Real-time values are calculated by the last five minutes’ average measurements and must be considered as i-PUE for information purposes
- The environmental footprint of the products* that you use at Scaleway is calculated with the following formula:
Consumption (average) in kW of the product * PUE of the data center * Energy MIX of the data center * Number of hours consumed by clients.
All certifications and information are communicated on demand at transparency@scaleway.com.
Why shift to Green IT?
For Scaleway, sustainability counts across the whole stack, from data centers to hardware and from software to websites. And with the digital sector representing 4% of global emissions, there's never been a better time for engineers and developers to act. Our guide to Green IT explains how to reduce your IT infrastructure's impact in all these aspects, with exclusive figures, solutions and case studies.