Sustainability is being acknowledged at the highest levels of corporate infrastructure, but how it is governed and reported upon in the world of data centers can vary, with the focus often targeted at energy consumption, renewable use and increasingly, carbon output. Whilst it is paramount for a 'goal' to be set, there is prevailing thought that the industry might have become too preoccupied with the 'numbers' and output attached to metrics curated yesteryear, which have struggled to maintain their prestige upon further interrogation.

With that said, might we be overselling sustainability reporting and confusing output with impact? How much importance should we place on today's metrics? And, in moving forward, how do we discount real structural change from clever accounting and creative PR? We ask our panel of sustainability experts to outline how the 'metric debate' is likely to unfold this year and how best operators can prepare themselves to measure and report their efforts accurately in a landscape of continuous improvement.