Today’s Presentation:

Green IT Carbon Accounting Protocol

Presented By:

Pierre BoileauSenior Advisor, Climate Change

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Agenda

1) Presentation (20 Minutes)

• Background on Green IT Carbon Accounting

Protocol

• Work of Carbon Assessment Group

• Progress on Key Technical Issues

• Next Steps

2) Q & A (10 Minutes)

Background on Green IT Carbon Accounting Protocol

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Need for Carbon Accounting in Green IT

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Green IT: Complex definition. Focused primarily on energy efficiency, now also looking at decarbonization. As IT infrastructure grows, emissions and impact become greater.

Data Centres: CANARIE project and GreenStar focused on dramatically improving data centre efficiency and decarbonizing data centre services. Virtualization a key component.

Partners: Academia, private sector and NGOs. Carbon accounting expertise in CSA as well as development of consensus-based documents. IT expertise in most other partners. Working to merge the two.

Market Need: Data centres and IT providers want to demonstrate social responsibility by accounting for and reducing their impacts. Market advantage might also be possible.

Approach to Carbon Accounting

Functional Unit

Carbon Credits

Data Centre

Additionality

Can processes

be streamlined

?

Where can

emissions be

reduced?

Where are emissions occurring?

WorkloadCooling

IT InfrastructurePUE

RegulatoryCommon Practice

FinancialBaseline

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Carbon Assessment Group

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Carbon Accounting and IT Expertise

• Sub-group of Greenstar– GRC– Rackforce– CSA– Inocybe– Ideal Consulting

• Weekly calls to develop key concepts– How to establish functional equivalence– How to track progress over time– Baselines and additionality

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Decision Making Process

• Three main components to making decisions within the CAG

Paper or Seed Document

Group Discussion on Issue

Text in Protocol

Agreement on Path Forward

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Technical Issues Discussed

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• What type of project is covered by Protocol

• What is equivalent workload between project and baseline;

• What are appropriate measurement metrics (e.g. PUE)

• What do the calculation equations look like

• How do we justify that the project is additional

Outcomes on Key Technical Issues

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2 Scopes to the Protocol

• Project activities involving improvements to ICT facilities– changing the environment of the ICT equipment– improving the efficiency of the facilities– changing the energy source to renewable energy

• Project activities involving improvements to ICT services– improvement in the delivery of ICT services – physical improvements for higher efficiency– migration of machines, applications, or other services

(e.g. collocation or consolidation)

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UPS

Heating & Cooling

Misc includinglighting etc.

ProcessorMemoryDisk?

Network

StorageSwitchgear

Back up Power Source

Transformer

Grid or Primary Power Source

To the Net

Alternate Power Source

Scope 1 Project Scope

Scope 1 Project Scope

Scope 2 Project Scope

IT Facility

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Workload is equivalent (don’t need to measure)• Workload is equal to demand for services

– Demand for services should be equivalent before and after project implementation

– Small differential due to ‘greenness’ of data centre

– Can ignore that and still be conservative

• Complexity of measuring workload justifies this approach

– No clear definition of data centre workload

– Level of service agreements all different

– Level of service agreements confidential

– Measurements of workload not standardized at this point

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PUE is appropriate metric

• Becoming better defined• USEPA Energy Star using

PUE• Works best for physical

improvements to data centres

• Not as appropriate for improvements to services

• Easier to construct equations

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Calculation Equations

ojectojectojecttItEquipmen

BaselineBaselineojecttITEquipmen

rgyEFSouceEnePUEPower

rgyEFSouceEnePUEPPRPowerER

PrPrPr,

Pr,

ojectojectojectVMASt

BaselineBaselineojectVMAS

ergyEFSourceEnPUEPower

ergyEFSourceEnPUEPPRPowerER

PrPrPr,

Pr,

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Additionality

Would the project go ahead without incentive from carbon credits?

Is it required by regulation?

Is it common practice for the sector?

Is it the most profitable choice that could have been made?

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Next Steps

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International Technical Advisory Group

• Review draft protocol– Provide technical input on key issues– Suggest alternative approaches– Communicate back to their

constituencies– Obtain broad buy-in

• Road-test protocol– Use it to see if there aredeficiencies– Perhaps not enough guidance– Test for practicality– Report back and incorporate comments

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Public Comment Period

• Part of normal CSA process:• Anyone who hasn’t been

involved can be;• Technical advisory group must

disposition comments• Ensures broad awareness of

protocol before publication• Creates ‘buzz’

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Publication

• To broader community of users:– Used for GRC – Rackforce

project– Demonstration case– Project documents

registered and emission reductions serialized

– CSA GHG CleanProjectsTM Registry

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Follow the Sun, Follow the Wind

• May be useful for other portions of CANARIE project– Quantification can be done

at the service level;– Virtualization, consolidation,

co-location can be ‘measured’

– Useful for broader IT industry

– Stimulate more efficient use of data centres

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Thank you

This presentation provides an overview of the status of the protocol development process for Green IT. It is aimed at professionals with an interest or emerging responsibility in the management of emission reduction projects in the field of Green IT.

For questions regarding this presentation or information on how you can get started in managing carbon performance in your organization, contact:

Paul Steenhof at paul.steenhof@csa.ca

Chris Weber at chris.weber@csa.ca

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CSA Standards, one of the world’s largest standards organizations, offers a range of climate change services to help companies and organizations measure and manage their carbon footprint, including preparing carbon inventories and management plans to help reduce emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. In addition, CSA Standards is a leader in certifying professionals to verify and quantify GHG emissions. Ensuring a consistent means of measuring and reporting emissions is the foundation for improving performance and a cap-and-trade system. With locations across North America, including a primary office in Cleveland, Ohio, CSA Standards provides tools and solutions for organizations to improve carbon performance and help meet the new EPA reporting requirements.

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