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Assessing the environmental impact of operating a Swedish data centre in subarctic climate
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. IVL Swedish Environmental Institute, Malmo, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1271-0109
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, Digital Systems, Data Science. Department of Engineering Sciences and Mathematics, Luleå University of Technology, Lulea, Norrbotten, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7381-9154
2025 (English)In: Journal of Cleaner Production, ISSN 0959-6526, E-ISSN 1879-1786, Vol. 536, article id 146819.0Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Given the rapid growth of the data centre industry, it is essential to understand the impact of providing the data centre services. Due to a high level of complexity and heterogeneity of the data centres, combined with low environmental data transparency, it is challenging to estimate such impact. Thus, this paper provides life cycle assessment of a high-resolution model of Boden Type Data Centre (BTDC) based partly on empirical data from operating the BTDC in the north of Sweden to visualise the related environmental consequences. Seven impact categories were selected to provide a robust overview of results and analysed in detail: acidification, climate change, particulate matter/respiratory organics, resource use – fossil, resource use – minerals and metals, water use and land use. The results show that most of the impact across these impact categories was caused by the servers used. This is followed to a lesser extent by the operation of the data centre. The paper lists the components contributing to majority of environmental load and specific materials and processes behind them. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates that prolonging the usage of servers from 3 years to 5 years leads to significant reductions in impact. Additionally, it is shown that the location of the data centre is crucial, as it is closely linked to the availability of energy resources

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier, 2025. Vol. 536, article id 146819.0
Keywords [en]
Boden type data centre, Climate change, Data centre, Embodied impact, ICT, Life cycle assessment, Server
National Category
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-80061DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.146819Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105023147525OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-80061DiVA, id: diva2:2024513
Note

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Green Electronics Initiative from ICT Sweden for the LCA undertaken at RISE with data supplied from the BodenType DC project (Grant agreement ID: 768875 )\" and by Interreg Nord , under grant NYPS 20201839 , Arctiq-DC.

Available from: 2025-12-29 Created: 2025-12-29 Last updated: 2025-12-29Bibliographically approved

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Vesterlund, Mattias

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