The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has recommended organisations choose technology and service providers “committed to robust net zero targets" in its latest report.
The “urgent mitigation action” for scope one and two emissions was listed in ISO’s Net Zero Guidelines released on Saturday.
The "common reference for collective efforts, offering a global basis for harmonizing, understanding, and planning for net zero for actors at the state, regional, city and organizational level” was launched as part of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Eygpt.
The recommendation could accelerate a trend towards Australian and global technology companies screening technology providers’ environment credentials as part of their commitments to sustainable energy targets.
Companies such as Atlassian, NextDC, Microsoft, Intel, Telstra, Optus, Amazon, Lenovo and Accenture have committed to Net Zero targets and companies such as Vocus, Microsoft and Lendlease have started scrutinising partners’ sustainability to reduce indirect emissions.
Last month, a statement from Vocus, which has a 2025 net zero target, announced it was working with its third-party data centre providers to determine the optimal process for managing emissions associated with their facilities.
Data centres accounted for 88 percent of Vocus’s scope 2 emissions (generated by purchased electricity) in 2019, compared to 6 percent for its offices, according to the statement.
In August 2022 Microsoft announced that it would make its data centre region in New Zealand powered by “carbon-zero certified” electricity when it launched by partnering with UK-headquartered sustainable electricity retailer, Ecotricity.
Last year, construction giant Lendlease committed to exiting its data centres by the end of 2022 and announced a partnership with Google Cloud as part of its pledge to reach net-zero by 2025.
Lendlease group Co-CIO Harvey Worton told CRN sister publication Digital Nation Australia that “Google Cloud intends to run 24 by seven carbon-free energy through its data centres, and be able to do that by 2030, which is something that we are absolutely aligned with.”
“Google publishes all of its energy scores so we will know at any one time, how are we doing in terms of carbon consumption across regions across the globe,” Worton added.
A recent paper by Gartner analysts Rob Schafer, Melanie Alexander and Rob Wilkes said that the trend towards scrutinising third-party providers’ environmental impacts would only become more imperative as software/cloud services spending and power consumption grows.
“Sourcing, procurement and vendor management leaders must play a pivotal role by incorporating environmental objectives into software and cloud contracts,” the report said.
“Sourcing, procurement and vendor management (SPVM) leaders who do not identify their organization’s environmental sustainability objectives and incorporate them into their software and cloud contracts may put their organization at material risk of missing those objectives.”
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