Reduction of IT environmental footprint in France
Capgemini has engaged a sustainable IT transformation to drastically reduce the environmental impact of its digital activities and services.
Main project's drivers for reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
Energy and resource efficiency
Energy Decarbonisation
Energy efficiency improvements
Improving efficiency in non-energy resources
Emission removal
Financing low-carbon issuers or disinvestment from carbon assets
Reduction of other greenhouse gases emission
Project objectives
The project answers to a dual objective: 1. Conducting a complete inventory and measuring the environmental footprint of Capgemini France IT capabilities 2. Deploying reduction levers until 2022
Capgemini started its sustainable digital transformation involving all French based entities by driving change in IT usage and operating models, and by onboarding all employees.
Between November 2020 and March 2021, Capgemini realized:
- A qualitative maturity assessment on the 4 pillars of the sustainable IT methodology developed inhouse
- A quantitative audit of CO2e emissions generated by the layers of its IT, resulting in the confirmation of its main sources:
- IT hardware, essentially laptops and screens
- Data centres, due to their energy consumption
- Data transmission
- The definition of its strategy and associated roadmap to reduce total emissions generated by its IT layers by 24% (hardware, data centres, network) before 2024, focusing on its main hotspots. The roadmap is based on 17 levers shared between CSR, IT department, Procurements, HR, and Business entities.
The initialization of the reduction roadmap
Emission scope(s)
Emission scope(s) on which the project has a significant impact
Scope 1
Direct emissions generated by the company's activity.
Scope 2
Indirect emissions associated with the company's electricity and heat consumption.
Scope 3
Emissions induced (upstream or downstream) by the company's activities, products and/or services in its value chain.
Emission Removal
Carbon sinks creation, (BECCS, CCU/S, …)
Avoided Emissions
Emissions avoided by the activities, products and/or services in charge of the project, or by the financing of emission reduction projects.
Scope 2 – Reduction of energy consumption
- Quantification: 50 tCO2 avoided per year
Scope 3 – IT equipment all along their life cycle
- Quantification : 1 150 tCO2 avoided per year
- Calculation of the emissions
Methodology developed by Quantis relying on Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and based on Capgemini France’s IT assets and parameters (example of indicators: PUE, storage technologies (SSD / HDD), renewal rate of hosts…).
- Identification of major sources of emissions
~70% GHG : Physical IT hardware unit (90 000+) : laptops, screens, printers, phones, accessories…
~20% GHG : Impacts of datacentres hosting applications, storing and processing data
Energy consumed for data transmission
- Identification and prioritization of reduction levers
Examples below:
Hypothesis
Target differential by 2024
Decreasing number of equipment per employee
-8%
Extending computers’ lifetime
+33%
Increasing computers’ reconditioning rate
+5%
Calculation of the total expected GHG reduction (-24%) and spreading reduction over time
- Calculation of the emissions
Key points
Invested amount
250 k€
Starting date of the project
2020
Project localisation
France
Project maturity level
Prototype laboratory test (TRL 7)
Real life testing (TRL 7-8)
Pre-commercial prototype (TRL 9)
Small-scale implementation
Medium to large scale implementation
Economic profitability of the project (ROI)
Short term (0-3 years)
Middle term (4-10 years)
Long term (> 10 years)
Illustrations of the project
The project contributes to the following SDG:
- SDG 12 – Responsible consumption and production, by:
- Training employees on sustainable IT development and consumption modes, in link with the CSR strategy
- Onboarding suppliers in the sustainable IT journey
The opportunity of scaling the initiative at Capgemini Group level is currently under investigation. The approach would be to replicate the designed methodology to all other IT departments and consolidate levers deployment at international level.
Quantis on the quantitative audit
Contact the company carrying the project :
Sandrine Fouillé – Directrice RSE France sandrine.fouille@capgemini.com Maud Paré – Cheffe de projet Numérique Responsable maud.pare@capgemini.com
