The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) pilot, led by the European Commission, is a considerable commitment from prominent industry members in various sectors to lead the way in bringing more sustainable solutions to the market by building the single market for green products. The pilot for Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) aims to help deliver more efficient UPS data center technologies and harmonize industry regulations across the European Union (EU) region. In addition to Emerson Network Power, the pilot has input from UPS manufacturers including Schneider Electric, Eaton and Socomec, with the scope for further companies to join the scheme at a later stage.

The PEF aims to establish an EU-wide measure of environmental performance throughout the lifecycle of a product. As part of this, the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) are crafted with the cooperation of leading manufacturers in each respective industry. According to the European Commission, PEFCR provide “product category specific, lifecycleÔÇÉbased rules that complement general methodological guidance for PEF studies by providing further specification at the level of a specific product category.”

The process of developing the PEFCR is open and transparent to the UPS manufacturers and today, five manufacturers, together making up more than 51% of the EU market in terms of annual turnover, are collaborating on the development. Following an assessment period, the PEFCR derived from the pilot phase will become the ‘product rules’ to be used in the future by all stakeholders in the sector within the EU or internationally, who decide to measure the environmental performance of UPS products.

The aim for the UPS manufacturers participating in the pilot is to cultivate universal UPS technology solutions designed to maximise availability, efficiency and capacity within the data center environment.

As part of the process of developing PEFCR, the methodology in place consists firstly of outlining the goals then scope of the UPS Product Environmental Footprint study. This is followed by the creation of a resource use and emissions profile, conduct of the environmental footprint impact assessment and finally the environmental footprint interpretation and reporting.

During this ongoing process, Emerson Network Power will continue to implement product performance benchmarks and work with partners and stakeholders to set up and validate effective and efficient compliance and verification systems. Products will be analysed through a defined process during the three-year testing phase:
- The first year aims to outline ‘the rules’ (PEFCR) for UPS products

- The second year will involve a life cycle assessment and application of the methodology

- The third year focuses on evaluating the industry-wide communication vehicles

After this period, the European Commission aims to verify the project and develop a comprehensive PEF policy, with the aim to implement these measures in 2020.

What does it mean for the data center industry?
There are a number of tangible benefits of the Product Environmental Footprint for the data center industry today, but the majority of the potential will be realised in later years. Today, companies who want to apply an environmental performance rating to their products have to choose between several different methodologies and government initiatives, without a clear EU-wide policy. There also remains a lack of understanding in the private sector and among potential customers of what these initiatives really mean. In contrast to some other regulations, the UPS Product Environmental Footprint also takes into account how the finished product functions and impacts the environment, and not only its impact during its production. The use of common rules for project development will enable UPS manufacturers to have clear guidelines and also optimise future designs and products development.

In today’s environmentally conscious world, companies will always seek to incorporate processes and procedures that minimise their environmental footprint, while not compromising the importance of bringing products to the market which meet evolving technology trends.

Following the implementation of PEF standard, UPS manufacturers will be compelled to design products with a particular attention to energy consumption – throughout the design process as well as in terms of the consumption of the finished product. This will inevitably lead to more efficient data centers, with the highest efficiency levels achieved through the use of innovative technologies and materials.

All about energy
At Emerson Network Power, as well as our internal commitments to improving the energy efficiency performance of our products today, we are taking a longer-term outlook. We plan to implement the guidelines that will arise from the pilot in all upcoming UPS products ahead of EU-wide policy implementation. As has been the trend over the last three to four years, we expect the interest and focus on energy efficient data centres to increase exponentially as the amount of data and traffic increases. Data center operators, already aiming to make their operations as environmentally efficient as possible, will increasingly look at suppliers’ credentials as a way of decreasing their own environmental footprint.

UPS manufacturers will find themselves in a situation where ‘being environmentally efficient’ becomes a deal breaker. This EU-wide standard will be a sure way to ensure the entire industry is on the same page.

Organisations that start working on this today will ensure future products benefit from these unified guidelines tomorrow.

The opinions expressed in the article above are those of the author and do not reflect those of Datacenter Dynamics, its employers or affiliates.