Sustainability in the Open Telekom Cloud

Our commitment to sustainability includes both social and environmental initiatives, optimizing energy efficiency, increasing renewable energy use and availability, mobility solutions, developing environmentally responsible products, minimizing electronic waste, and reducing water consumption. While we recognize the role of carbon offsets in addressing climate change and remain open to carbon offsetting in the future, our primary goal remains to make a tangible, long-lasting impact on reducing our environmental footprint first.

PUE for our data centers is calculated regularly by collecting data from a variety of sources.

Although it is not currently machine-readable or automated, the value is revised and updated quarterly in our sustainability page.

Carbon intensity is reported in our annual Corporate Responsibility Report. We are currently working to make this data available in a more automated format.

We have various initiatives for this, such as reusing the heat generated to warm the offices in our largest data center in Biere and using waste heat to heat a communal pool in the Netherlands.

Our energy allocation is 100% from renewable sources. More details are available here.

While we purchase 100% of our energy from renewable sources, which effectively reduces our Scope 2 emissions to zero (the greenhouse gas emissions that derive from the generation of purchased electricity consumed by a company), this does not necessarily mean that our operations are carbon neutral. Achieving carbon neutrality mainly involves purchasing carbon offsets, which is not our current sustainability policy. Instead, we believe in taking direct action to reduce our emissions at its source as much as possible by e.g. reducing local emissions, changing our car fleet to electric, fostering low or zero emissions for commuting, optimizing energy efficiency, minimizing electronic waste, reducing water consumption, among others. Additionally, we adhere to the Science based Targets initiative, with our Net-Zero strategy being currently reviewed.

We see these actions as a commitment to true sustainability and environmental responsibility.

In compliance to local environmental regulations, an environmental impact assessment (EIA) was done when obtaining permissions to build our data centers. We do not have identified climate risks that require constant monitoring, but we constantly look for optimization opportunities and comply with new environmental regulations as needed. 

Equipment is managed with our providers and local partners to extend lifecycle or properly recycle it according to regulations. We work with two local partners for this, both obtain their quotas from the so called “Elektroaltgeräte-Register”. Disk drives are whipped, shredded, and sent into material recycling. The rest of the retired equipment is managed by GreenIT Solutions, which prioritize refurbishing and remarketing of the equipment. They comply with DIN ISO14001 and DIN ISO9001 of the WEEE directive. Besides, they also comply with DIN ISO27001 and DIN ISO 45001. When the equipment needs to be recycled (when it cannot be remarketed), they have a local recycling partner, SÜD Rec, which is also 100% following the EU regulations for Electronic waste disposal.

We have the three main ISO sustainability related certifications to the date, ISO 45001, ISO 50001, and ISO 14001. Moreover, Open Telekom Cloud, as part of Deutsche Telekom Group, adheres to the SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative), an independent group of experts that evaluates companies’ climate protection targets to determine whether, based on current science, they will contribute toward limiting global warming to no more than 2° C above pre-industrial levels. In addition, our data centers are part of the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact. This pact encourages data centers and cloud infrastructure providers towards achieving climate neutrality by 2030 by addressing five key areas: energy efficiency, clean energy, water conservation, circular economy, and circular energy systems.

In addition to these certificates, T-Systems and, in consequence, Open Telekom Cloud, has been a member of the European Code of Conduct for Energy Efficiency in Data Centres since 2013. In 2023 we have been awarded due to our sustainability practices for data center management for our main data center in Germany, Biere. Finally, our 100% green energy mix is certified by our Telekom internal #GreenMagenta initiative.