[E-impact] Re: Sustainable Procurement Guidelines for Data Centres and Servers from United Nations Environment Programme United for Efficiency (U4E)

[Benjamin Schwarz <[e-mail]>]

Hi Sebastien,

Here are some recent data points that may help the discussion:

Specialised vs. generic video encoding HW: In a recent blog <https://www.gl-systemhaus.de/en/blog/accelerated-video-encoding-how-specialised-hardware-can-triple-energy-efficiency>, I described that dedicated hardware was ~3× more energy-efficient at ≥66% system load and only ~2× at ~10% load, showing that once you reach the sweet spot (~70% load), we’re 50% more efficient.

Operational target: A global CDN told us they aim for ~70% average server load for energy efficiency; I’m awaiting their dataset.

Idle → peak deltas (processing only; peripherals constant, no PoE/USB/etc. changes):

Entry-level switch: 70 W idle measured at the IETF Hackathon (Madrid) (+1 W per Gbps of traffic). Peak is (I believe) ~160 W (Hoping to redo these tests with Marisol, Artur and Luis on this list).

Previous generation dedicated video-encoding server: 350 W idle → ~400 W peak (very low ratio).
Generic PC encoding video: 100 W idle → 180 W Peak
Raspberry PI: 3 W idle → 8 W peak.
Home routers (5 to 25 W) (GoS tests and Orange White Paper): 0–10% variation between idle and fully loaded.

Operator disclosure: DT publicly shared an overall network variation of ~10% in fixed and ~30% in mobile between idle and loaded.

So, idle → peak varies from 0 (rare) to just over 2x in most things we’ve looked at; we need context to be more precise.

Ben
***
Benjamin Schwarz
President, Greening of Streaming
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> On 5 Sep 2025, at 13:37, Sébastien Rumley <sebastien.rumley=[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hello Luis,
> 
> Many thanks for this (with some delay), this is of high interest indeed.
> 
> What I find particularly interesting is these metrics ITEEsv (IT Equipment Energy Efficiency for servers) and ITEUsv (IT Equipment Utilization for servers). They are IEC/ISO standards... but there is almost no mention of it in scientific literature. As someone in this group ever worked with this stuff? I guess this is pure operational stuff. Would it be too early to conclude that there is scant literature on data center operations ?
> 
> I find interesting that the utilization rate is subject to objectives (>80% by 2031). I wonder if there is public data describing ITEUsv figures "in the wild". And I also wonder how such a metric is aggregated "data-center wide". I see how to calculate utilisation rate of a computer. But of mulitple ones... is that just an average ? But if there are many "small" servers with low utilisation and a few "big" servers high utilization, shouldn't we use a weighted average ? If anyone has some data on this, I am highly interested.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Sébastien
> 
> 
> 
> On 30.07.2025 23:51, Luis M. Contreras wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> this could be a reference of interest. The United Nations, through the initiative called United for Efficiency (U4E) has recently released a white paper with focus on Sustainable Procurement Guidelines for Data Centres and Servers, which I think is of interest since a number of metrics and rations are described. The guidelines aim to represent a global best practice reference to support sustainable procurement and operation of data centres and servers. They balance technological feasibility, economic considerations, and environmental impact mitigation to foster a sustainable digital transformation aligned with international climate and development goals.
>> 
>> The guidelines can be found here: 2025-U4E-Sustainable-Procurement-for-Data-Centers-and-Servers_Final.pdf <https://united4efficiency.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2025-U4E-Sustainable-Procurement-for-Data-Centers-and-Servers_Final.pdf>
>> 
>> In addition to that, slides from a webinar that presented that guidelines are available here: UNEP-U4E-Launch-Webinar-SPP-Guidelines-on-Data-Centres.pdf <https://united4efficiency.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/UNEP-U4E-Launch-Webinar-SPP-Guidelines-on-Data-Centres.pdf>
>> 
>> Best regards
>> 
>> Luis
>> 
>> --
>> ___________________________________________
>> Luis M. Contreras
>> [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> 
>> [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>
>> Global CTIO unit / Telefonica
>> 
>> 
> -- 
> Dr. Sébastien RUMLEY, Professor
> iCoSys Institute, part of
> HEIA-FR - School of Engineering and Architecture - Fribourg, part of
> HES-SO - University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland
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