Sustainability conversations in the data center sector have historically focused almost entirely on operational performance — the energy consumed, and increasingly the water used, once a facility is up and running. This focus has left a significant blind spot: the carbon already embedded in a facility's structure before it ever processes a single workload.
What Embodied Carbon Actually Captures
Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing, transporting, and installing the materials that make up a building — predominantly concrete and steel in the case of a large data center, alongside the substantial mechanical and electrical equipment required to fit it out. For a building of this scale and structural intensity, embodied carbon can represent a meaningful share of the facility's total lifecycle carbon footprint, particularly in the years immediately following construction, before operational emissions have had time to accumulate to a comparable scale.
Concrete and steel manufacturing are both carbon-intensive industrial processes. Cement production alone is responsible for a substantial share of global industrial carbon emissions, and steel production carries its own significant footprint depending on production method. A data center's foundation, structural frame, and equipment housing draw heavily on both materials, often at a scale considerably larger than a comparably sized conventional commercial building, given the structural demands of housing heavy mechanical and electrical equipment.
Why This Has Been Under-Addressed
Embodied carbon has received less attention than operational efficiency for understandable reasons: it is harder to measure consistently, it depends heavily on regional material sourcing and construction methods, and unlike operational energy, it cannot be improved after the fact through equipment upgrades — the emissions are locked in once construction is complete. This makes embodied carbon a decision that has to be made well, at the design stage, rather than one that can be iteratively optimised over a facility's operating life.
- Low-carbon concrete formulations, using supplementary cementitious materials or alternative binders, can meaningfully reduce embodied emissions without compromising structural performance
- Steel sourced from electric arc furnace production, particularly using recycled content, typically carries a lower embodied carbon footprint than primary blast furnace production
- Design choices that reduce overall material intensity — more efficient structural design, modular construction that reduces waste — can meaningfully affect total embodied carbon independent of material selection
A facility can achieve an excellent operational PUE for decades and still carry a substantial, irreversible carbon debt from the day construction was completed.
Procurement Strategy as a Sustainability Lever
Addressing embodied carbon meaningfully requires treating material procurement as a sustainability decision, not purely a cost and schedule decision. This means engaging concrete and steel suppliers earlier in the design process to evaluate lower-carbon material options, and in some cases accepting modest cost premiums or schedule adjustments to secure materials with substantially lower embodied carbon profiles. As demand for verified low-carbon construction materials grows across the broader construction industry, the cost premium for these options is likely to continue narrowing.
Lifecycle Assessment Tools Are Becoming More Accessible
Whole-building lifecycle assessment, which quantifies embodied carbon across a structure's full material bill, has historically been a specialist discipline applied selectively in high-profile commercial or institutional buildings. Growing demand from data center developers — driven both by genuine sustainability commitments and by anticipation of future regulatory and investor scrutiny — is helping make these assessment tools more standardised and accessible specifically for data center construction, including emerging sector-specific benchmarks that allow more meaningful comparison between facilities than generic commercial building lifecycle assessment frameworks previously allowed.
Integrating Embodied Carbon Into Sustainability Strategy
DATAPERT incorporates embodied carbon assessment into the sustainability strategy work we conduct with clients during design and procurement planning, complementing our focus on operational efficiency metrics. Explore our broader data center development advisory or start a project to discuss a comprehensive carbon strategy for your next facility.
