Recommended Inventory for Data Center Scope 3 GHG Emissions Reporting

Many organizations have focused on measuring and reporting Scope 1 and 2 emissions associated with their IT resources and implementing strategies to reduce them. By quantifying Scope 3 emissions from their value chain, organizations can measure their total carbon footprint, including outsourced IT services from cloud and colocation service providers. Organizations can then prioritize their efforts to make impactful carbon reductions. In this paper, we define Scope 3 emissions and propose an inventory of nine emissions source categories and their data center-specific subcategories for accounting and reporting.