Maturity · Carbon footprint assessment of IT infrastructure
Your IT carbon footprint, measured by theme and turned into a costed action plan.
10 themes, a 5-level scale. And the action that moves each level to the next.
The framework’s 10 themes, already written from L1 to L5. One company, one business unit, or 300 at once.
Maturity · Carbon footprint assessment of IT infrastructure
10 themes, 5-level scale.
Nordhavn Industries
53 / 100
They measure their maturity with Datamensio
An example
This could be your situation.
Take one company as an example: three sites, three spreadsheets, no shared answer.
Nobody can consolidate.
Nordhavn Industries, 2,400 people in Hamburg, Lyon and Porto. A client asks where the group stands. Each site answers in its own spreadsheet, with its own scales.
Three weeks, a single base.
One Digital environmental footprint assessment framework, based on the GHG Protocol ICT and ISO 14067 assessment launched across all three sites at once, from the managers’ interview notes. The framework was already written, its 10 themes and levels L1 to L5 too.
Two costs avoided before being committed.
A score of 53 out of 100, with the gap concentrated on three themes. The AI companion spotted that two actions duplicated those of another audit. The committee report took one sentence to request.
What it saved them
- 3sites measured on the same base, instead of three questionnaires to reconcile
- 2duplicate actions caught before the spend
- 1committee report, with no manual rework
These figures are an example. They could be yours.
The standard imposes processes. Datamensio says where you stand.
01
The framework is already written
Themes, questions and levels L1 to L5, all written. You do not start from an empty spreadsheet.
02
The score lands the same day
Online, by self-assessment link or in interview. Theme by theme, comparable over time.
03
The gap becomes a costed plan
Every step up carries its action. The AI prioritises on expected effect, not on the order of the standard.
04
Progress can be demonstrated
Campaign after campaign, against your target and against your own past. That is what your board asks for.
The maturity scale
One level, the next, and the action that links the two.
This mechanism (a level, the level above, and the action linking the two) is what turns an observation into a trajectory.
Is the energy consumption of your technical rooms and data centres measured?
- N1
No dedicated measurement. IT consumption is not separated from the site’s electricity bill.
- N2
An estimate exists, built from equipment nominal power ratings or a one off reading that was never repeated.
- N3
The main rooms have dedicated metering, read at regular intervals. Secondary sites remain estimated.
- N4
Metering covers all rooms, with PUE tracking and breakdown by rack or by service. Gaps are analysed.
- N5
Measurement is continuously instrumented, cross checked against activity data, and feeds sizing and consolidation decisions with a documented history.
Action to move from L2 to L3
Install dedicated electricity metering on the panels feeding the main technical rooms, define a monthly reading assigned to operations, and add this reading to the existing IT committee agenda.
« With Datamensio, we meet our objectives far more efficiently. The ERDF inspection services and our supervising ministry particularly appreciated an approach that gives them reliable data. »
Director, CCI 94CCI Île-de-France
« We believe this is the most suitable solution to scale our transformation project and measure impact according to our needs. »
Maja SucekChief Operating Officer, Interreg Danube
Rarely on its own
Frameworks combine. Put several together to cover your business, or have the AI write yours.
Take your first measurement
What this framework covers
The carbon footprint of IT infrastructure covers three distinct scopes: equipment manufacturing (endpoints, servers, network equipment), their energy consumption in operation, and their end of life. Add to this outsourced services, public cloud, hosting, SaaS, whose emissions fall under indirect scopes. A credible assessment framework relies on an up to date inventory, documented emission factors, an explicit calculation method and a clearly stated scope boundary. Without these four elements, a figure remains a non-reproducible estimate.
In practice, the difficulty is not the calculation, it is the data and its governance. How many pieces of equipment are actually in service, and since when? Is the electricity consumption of server rooms measured, or inferred from the site’s overall bill? Who decides the usage lifespan of a workstation, IT, procurement or financial control? Are cloud emissions taken from supplier dashboards without reprocessing? Many organisations have an annual assessment, without a system capable of reproducing it or measuring the effect of a technical decision on that assessment.
The context has fundamentally changed. The CSRD has brought environmental data into the scope of extra-financial reporting, with a level of traceability requirement close to that of accounting data. In parallel, France’s REEN law and the work of the ARCEP and ADEME have established the general framework for the ecodesign of digital services. The most common confusion remains equating the digital footprint with the electricity consumption of data centres: depending on the structure of the estate, terminal manufacturing often weighs more heavily than operation.
A maturity assessment does not answer the same question as an emissions assessment. The latter produces a figure at a given date. The maturity assessment places the organisation’s capacity to produce that figure, explain it and act on it: what level the inventory, measurement, governance and ecodesign are at, and what specific action moves each theme up to the next level. The score by theme shows where effort is worthwhile, and the gap to target generates the action plan.
The framework is ready to use and open to adaptation. AI adjusts the themes, questions and wording of the levels to your context, an industrial site, a network of branches or an in house data centre, or builds a variant from your own documents, responsible digital policy, inventory, hosting contracts.
Reference standard: Digital environmental footprint assessment framework, based on the GHG Protocol ICT and ISO 14067
The themes assessed
Inventory of equipment and services
Completeness of the estate, terminals, servers, network and peripherals, kept up to date, links to outsourced services, cloud and SaaS, level of inventory detail.
Calculation method and emission factors
Scope adopted, sources of emission factors, distinction between manufacturing, operation and end of life, documentation of assumptions, reproducibility of the calculation.
Measurement of energy consumption
Instrumentation of technical rooms and data centres, PUE monitoring, metering by equipment or by rack, frequency of readings, data reliability.
Hosting and cloud
Data centre location, electricity mix of sites, contractual commitments on emissions, use of supplier data, utilisation rate of reserved resources.
Equipment lifecycle
Actual usage lifespan, renewal policy, internal reuse, refurbishment, end of life channels and traceability of decommissioned equipment.
Ecodesign of digital services
Consideration of frugality in projects, weight of pages and applications, resource sizing, decommissioning of unused services and environments.
Governance and responsibilities
Formalised responsible digital policy, roles between IT, CSR, procurement and business functions, documented decisions, integration into existing committees.
Procurement and supplier requirements
Environmental criteria in tenders, emissions data requested, repairability and support duration requirements, verification of commitments.
Indicators and reporting
Indicators tracked, frequency, comparison between entities and over time, reporting to management and consistency with extra-financial reporting.
Reduction trajectory
Existence of a quantified target, actions linked to it, tracking of their effect on the footprint, revision of the trajectory in light of results achieved.
A short version of the framework is available for the online self-assessment.
Frequently asked questions
Does this assessment replace an emissions assessment?
No, it measures the conditions for one. The emissions assessment produces a figure at a given date; the maturity assessment evaluates your capacity to produce it, document it and act on it. The two complement each other: the maturity of the inventory and measurement determines the reliability of the emissions figure.
Does this framework lead to certification?
No. There is no body that certifies the carbon footprint of an IT estate. The assessment measures the maturity of your setup and prepares the verification work linked to extra-financial reporting or an energy audit.
How long does the assessment take?
The short version takes around thirty minutes to complete for a manager who knows the estate well. The full version, run collaboratively with IT, procurement and CSR, spans one to two weeks, most of the time going into data collection.
Do we need a complete inventory to start?
No, and the state of the inventory is precisely one of the things being assessed. An assessment carried out on a poorly inventoried estate produces a low score on that theme and a clear priority action, rather than a blocker.
Is the framework adaptable to our context?
Yes. You can amend the questions, levels and themes, or add your own. AI adjusts the wording to your estate, industrial or office based, and can build a variant from your internal documents.
Can several sites or business units be compared?
Yes. The assessment runs at scale across several entities, with benchmarking between them and against previous assessments. A cross entity roadmap consolidates shared actions without duplicating them.
How does this assessment relate to ISO 50001?
ISO 50001 structures energy management at organisation level. IT is a component of it that is often treated superficially. The two assessments overlap on measurement and indicators, without duplicating one another.
Where is the data hosted?
In France, with OVH, with backup at Scaleway. No transfer outside the European Union. The AI models used can be selected, including among European solutions.