Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

OVHcloud, the European Cloud leader, now provides its Infrastructure-as-a-Service 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. Giving customers a better understanding of their cloud infrastructure carbon footprint is aimed at not only providing greater transparency, but also encouraging more responsible IT usage across the industry.

The methodology behind the carbon calculator required more than eight months of development and aims to be exhaustive by considering factors such as manufacturing down to the component level. Accessible on demand from the OVHcloud customer panel, the 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 calculator 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. By the end of the year, the market-based information will complement carbon calculator reporting, highlighting the Group’s commitment when it comes to power mix decarbonation.

Developed with Sopra Steria, Audited by IJO 

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.

“As a major tech player in Europe, we have a key role to play in supporting a more sustainable digital landscape across the entire value chain, including employees, clients, suppliers and partners. That’s why we are delighted to have contributed to the creation of the OVHcloud 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,” said Fabienne Mathey-Girbig, Executive Director, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Development, at Sopra Steria.

In Line with a Strong Commitment to Sustainability

OVHcloud has long developed a vertically integrated industrial model with most of its datacentres being built and owned by the Group, featuring proprietary 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 approach means that in a ten-hour 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 newly launched carbon calculator clearly demonstrates OVHcloud’s commitment to a sustainable cloud.

“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,” said Michel Paulin, CEO at OVHcloud.

OVHcloud Carbon Calculator provides customers with transparent and exhaustive (scope 1, 2, 3) carbon footprint information from manufacturing to infrastructure run. The Group is the only cloud provider to offer life cycle analysis at a component level on top of the carbon footprint of the cloud service consumption.

Availability

OVHcloud Carbon Calculator is now available free of charge worldwide [2] for all of our customers of the BareMetal product line direct from the OVHcloud control panel. It is also accessible through an API (Application Programming Interface). Hosted Private Cloud customers will also benefit from the carbon calculator in the next weeks.

(0)(0)