To encourage the IT industry to move in the right direction and accelerate progress toward more sustainable data centres, TCO Development, the organisation behind the sustainability certification TCO Certified, has presented a new international collaboration with the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA).
More than ever, data centres are connected to issues around business resiliency, performance, availability, and security. Greater demand means more facilities. Therefore, the negative environmental impact is also growing fast. To help tackle the problems, TCO Development recently expanded the sustainability certification TCO Certified to include data center products; network equipment, data storage products, and servers.
A new generation of the certification was launched at the end of last year, with updates and changes in several criteria areas that will lead to safer chemicals, more circular solutions, better social responsibility in the supply chain, and improved transparency.
The announcement of TCO Development’s membership in the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA), is an important step that will support progress toward more sustainable data centre solutions and help organisations to select and purchase IT products responsibly.
Andreas Nobell, Development Manager at TCO Development said, “our vision is that servers, data storage products, and network equipment, as well as all other IT products, should have an environmentally and socially responsible life cycle. We understand we can’t achieve this on our own. By working together with the members of SDIA, we want to maximize our efforts of reducing the negative environmental impact IT products have and minimize e-waste. Together with purchasers who demand more sustainable data center products, we can push the IT industry to move in the right direction.”
Daan Terpstra, CEO at SDIA added, “with TCO Development, the SDIA is expanding its membership base more towards certification, a critical element of defining objective standards on what is sustainable. This is particularly important when it comes to our work on the Digital Carbon Footprint. I am very excited to welcome a renowned institution such as TCO Development into our Alliance.”
Purchasers increasingly include sustainability criteria in their procurement selection process and there is a great interest in TCO Certified from the IT industry. Collaborations with organisations such as SDIA will help increase progress toward sustainable IT products.