Schneider Electric SE has announced that Anna Timme, its head of sustainability in secure power and data centres, will serve on the governing body of the iMasons Climate Accord (ICA), a cooperative of companies focused on reducing carbon in digital infrastructure.

With a membership of 165 organizations, including 60 colocation data centre providers, ICA's governing body also includes executives from Amazon Web Services, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Digital Realty, iMasons and now Schneider Electric. 

ICA member companies represent over $150 billion in infrastructure projects in over 130 countries.

“We believe access to energy and digital infrastructure is a basic human right. Our generation is facing an energy transition and industrial revolution catalyzed by accelerated digitization in a more electric world," said Nashville-based Timme in a statement on the appointment. "Electricity is the most efficient and best vector for decarbonization; combined with circular economy approach, we will achieve climate-positive impact as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals."

Schneider’s (SBGSF) global headquarters are in Rouelle-Malmaison, France, with its Canadian branch based in Mississauga.

Schneider Electric and the ICA

As part of its ICA commitment, Schneider Electric has committed to sharing its Product Environmental Profiles (PEPs) with other ICA signatories.

PEPs are documents communicating the environmental impact and performance of a product based on life-cycle assessments. According to a release, Schneider Electric has maintained an extensive library of PEPs since 2008.

They include third-party audited embodied carbon information and environmental impacts encompassing energy use, water and air. Also included is a breakdown of the constituent materials which make up the product.

Schneider Electric and the ICA will undertake a project together aggregating the PEP data for use in the creation of future ICA standards.

“Schneider is ready to work with all other ICA signatories to share our processes and tips for measuring and reporting embodied carbon – so that they too can create and provide PEPs to their customers,” the release reads.

In an interview with ITWorld Canada in June, Timme indicated only 43 per cent of data centre providers had comprehensive sustainability programs.

The iMasons Climate Accord

The goal of the iMasons Climate Accord is to achieve carbon neutrality in the digital infrastructure industry. The organization was founded by Dean Nelson, CEO of Milpitas, Calif.-based Cato Digital, which helps customers maximize their data centre infrastructure.

“The ICA represents an unprecedented collaboration between leading digital infrastructure companies to accelerate our journey to carbon neutrality,” Nelson said in the same statement. “We are excited to add Anna Timme, from Schneider Electric to the leadership team.”

In 2021, digital infrastructure included 7 million data centres worldwide representing 105 GW of power capacity consuming 594 terawatt-hours of energy. This equates to 2.4 per cent of global energy consumption. That capacity will grow 20 GW by 2025.

Digital automation and infrastructure was a prominent theme of the first stop of Schneider Electric’s Innovation Summit World Tour in Las Vegas.

“We've gone through what (Aamir Paul, president of Schneider Electric North America) termed in his talk was 10 quarters of the pandemic era, and we have another 30 quarters before we have to hit all these 2030 climate goals,” said Adrian Thomas, Schneider Electric Canada's president in an interview with SustainableBiz at the time.