The Open Compute Project (OCP) added environmental sustainability as a top-level project and the nonprofit's fifth tenet in a move to guarantee that sustainability is a core action designed from the beginning into all OCP projects.

This new high priority project will set environmental reporting targets across all OCP projects, monitor compliance by developing high-level key performance indicators (KPIs) "that go beyond traditional data center PUE [power use effectiveness]," and assemble sustainable technology roadmaps, Cliff Grossner, VP of market intelligence and innovation at OCP, told a group of reporters during an OCP Global Summit pre-briefing.

He explained the sustainability project's work will filter down across to each individual OCP project "where there'll be detailed KPIs that are focused on the particular technology that project is working on that will filter into requirements and specifications that eventually filter into data center facilities or equipment."

The project will also focus on lifecycle design and exploring best practices to design for sustainability and circularity. "OCP hardware specifications will continue to evolve to enable products to remain in use for as long as possible, and design for circularity to enable infrastructure within the data center to be repurposed, and ultimately enable component and material recovery when decommissioned," Grossner noted.

OCP's adoption of sustainability as a tenet and top-level project builds upon its ongoing efforts focused on data center immersion cooling, liquid cooling, and heat reuse; carbon emissions from construction materials and operations; advancing the circular economy; and the role of open and reusable firmware in creating sustainable data center equipment.

In a blog post detailing the sustainability announcement, Grossner highlighted the urgency of climate change and the role the OCP community ought to play.

"To decouple the industry’s predicted growth from its environmental impact, the hyperscale and colocation data center industry will need to accelerate existing and future sustainability strategies and solutions to reduce overall environmental impact," Grossner wrote.

He believes an "effective and immediate impact" the OCP community can have on scope 3 – or supply chain – emissions will be through standardizing metrics and promoting data transparency throughout the value chain, implementing standards for transfer of ownership of environmental credits, and embedding circularity into IT infrastructure from early design stages, but "with education and awareness," he added.

OCP CEO George Tchaparian echoed those sentiments, noting the foundation's responsibility to contribute to lowering the industry's environmental footprint by driving conversations that impact data center technologies.

"The tenets of the OCP foster openness that enables mainstream delivery of the most efficient designs for scalable computing and uniquely positions OCP to be an effective agent for climate action," Tchaparian said. Adding a mandate for sustainability looking at transparency, circularity, and embodied carbon in IT equipment, silicon, and data center facilities will add significant weight to our ability to help the industry minimize its impact on the environment."