Steria ‘leads the way’ with CarbonNeutral® data centres

Steria, a leading provider of end-to-end IT-enabled business services, announced today that it has been awarded the CarbonNeutral® certification for its data centres, becoming one of the first companies ever to be awarded such an accolade.

With ICT currently responsible for 8-10% of the EU’s electricity consumption and up to 4% of its carbon emissions, initiatives like CarbonNeutral® data centres are a significant step by Steria to demonstrate its commitment to managing and reducing environmental impact.

“Environmental responsibility has been at the heart of Steria’s approach to business for many years now,” said François Enaud, Steria CEO. “We know customers are considering their carbon impact throughout their supply chain and we are always striving to find ways in which we can take sustainable solutions to them. CarbonNeutral ®certification of our data centres enables us to do that by providing them with a solution as default.”

CarbonNeutral® data centres is a new certification which has been included in The CarbonNeutral Protocol. The certification covers Steria’s 46 datacentres across 13 countries and includes cloud services and cloud-based resources helping customers to reduce their carbon impact. In order to achieve certification, Steria had an independent assessment of seven different greenhouse gas emissions, and implemented an offset-inclusive emission reduction programme including the offset of 14,695 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions with the Kalavad Wind Power Project in India.

The carbon finance from Steria’s offset purchase enables the project to compete against cheaper fossil-fuel alternatives in the country and supply renewable energy to the Western Regional grid (India). The CarbonNeutral Protocol, which launched in 2002, is used by companies throughout the world to certify carbon neutrality. It launched in 2002 and is updated annually to reflect industry and scientific best practice in the measurement and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Steria continues to lead the way towards setting the standard for sustainability in the IT service sector by not only complying with mandatory requirements, but also by actively implementing new initiatives and driving best practices. This is a great example of how corporate partners working together can deliver real benefits to sustainable business practices,” commented Jonathan Shopley, Managing Director The CarbonNeutral Company.

Steria’s global commitment to sustainability and reducing its environmental and carbon impact is deeply rooted throughout the company through its Living Green initiative which aims at adopting greener working practices and reducing the company’s CO2 emissions, and its Green solutions initiatives to guide its clients towards operating more sustainably.

In December 2013, Steria became the first French company to achieve a 100A in the CDP (previously “Carbon Disclosure Project”) Investor benchmark and, from 2008 to 2013, has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 38% per employee and delivered cost savings by €900k per year. Steria’s achievement of CarbonNeutral® certification for data centre services adds to the CarbonNeutral® business travel and forms a key component of the company’s environmental sustainability strategy. It brings this strategy and experience to bear in its contracts for services to its clients, thereby enabling them to become more sustainable.