We use the two sources below as the default values for the environmental impact of a data center facility. These values include the mechanical and electrical equipment, but exclude the IT and network equipment. We also exclude the usage phase for our work, as we usually calculate the energy on the server and not for the data center.
It’s worth noting that the paper we use is for a liquid-cooled micro data center owned and used by Telia in Sweden. This is not representative at all for a typical data center. However, as the author themselves note in the paper, there is an absence of LCAs for data centers in the academic literature that could be used, therefore, at the time of writing & research, this was ‘as good as it gets and includes many typical data center components such as electrical gear, UPS and cooling systems.
| Impact category | Unit | Total | Extr./Manuf. | Transportation | Utilization | End of Life |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climate change | kg CO2 eq | 2.13E+05 | 6.95E+04 | 2.99E+03 | 1.61E+05 | -2.09E+04 |
| Ozone depletion | kg CFC-11 eq | 1.73E+00 | 1.74E+00 | 4.73E-04 | 6.08E-03 | -9.94E-03 |
| Human toxicity | kg 1,4-DB eq | 9.18E+05 | 3.18E+05 | 3.51E+02 | 6.96E+05 | -9.62E+04 |
| Photochemical oxidant formation | kg NMVOC | 7.68E+02 | 2.28E+02 | 1.38E+01 | 6.22E+02 | -9.62E+01 |
| Particulate matter formation | kg PM10 eq | 8.06E+02 | 2.53E+02 | 3.99E+00 | 6.68E+02 | -1.19E+02 |
| Ionizing radiation | kg U235 eq | 3.08E+04 | 1.59E+04 | 2.83E+02 | 1.76E+04 | -2.88E+03 |
| Terrestrial acidification | kg SO2 eq | 1.45E+03 | 5.21E+02 | 9.02E+00 | 1.08E+03 | -1.61E+02 |
| Freshwater eutrophication | kg P eq | 4.40E+02 | 1.62E+02 | 2.67E-01 | 3.33E+02 | -5.59E+01 |
| Marine eutrophication | kg N eq | 2.52E+02 | 7.58E+01 | 4.09E+00 | 2.03E+02 | -3.06E+01 |
| Terrestrial ecotoxicity | kg 1,4-DB eq | 3.40E+02 | 2.00E+01 | 5.13E-01 | 3.22E+02 | -2.39E+00 |
| Freshwater ecotoxicity | kg 1,4-DB eq | 1.02E+04 | 4.21E+03 | 7.52E+00 | 7.22E+03 | -1.25E+03 |
| Marine ecotoxicity | kg 1,4-DB eq | 1.18E+04 | 4.73E+03 | 9.15E+00 | 8.35E+03 | -1.26E+03 |
| Agricultural land occupation | m2a | 2.47E+04 | 1.27E+03 | 1.15E+01 | 2.38E+04 | -4.09E+02 |
| Urban land occupation | m2a | 3.15E+03 | 9.96E+02 | 3.65E+01 | 2.37E+03 | -2.58E+02 |
| Natural land transformation | m2 | 2.08E+02 | 1.11E+01 | 1.08E+00 | 1.99E+02 | -3.37E+00 |
| Water depletion | m3 | 1.57E+03 | 6.37E+02 | 1.12E+01 | 1.13E+03 | -2.05E+02 |
| Metal depletion | kg Fe eq | 2.57E+05 | 1.33E+05 | 1.40E+02 | 2.21E+05 | -9.72E+04 |
| Fossil depletion | kg oil eq | 3.65E+04 | 1.60E+04 | 1.10E+03 | 2.58E+04 | -6.32E+03 |
https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:538825/FULLTEXT01.pdf
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfba1?_sp=b48260d8-0a7b-4784-9d4b-0e1ac60ee727