Data centres, energy-hungry infrastructures:
At the heart of the company's IT infrastructure, data centres store and manage information and must operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With the digitalisation of the economy and the growth of artificial intelligence, their growth is exponential. A study by Statista in March 2024 counted more than 10,000 data centres worldwide, including more than 300 in France. They are therefore a major source of energy consumption, relying mainly on electricity for the continuous operation of servers, equipment cooling and security systems.
According to the International Energy Agency, data centRES consume between 2% and 3% of the world's electricity (2023)
How BNP Paribas optimises the climate impact of its data centres:
BNP Paribas is fully integrating the issue of energy efficiency into its environmental real estate policy, seeking to optimise the energy performance of its buildings, particularly in the IT sector with its data centres. We use a number of levers to achieve energy efficiency:
- Eco-design of data centres: the data center work teams and the Technical and Security Department (DTS) work closely with the Group's IT department to design data centres that meet the bank's IT requirements;
- Intelligent use of energy: through an energy management system certified to ISO 50001, an ISO standard that provides practical ways to improve energy efficiency and optimise consumption through the implementation of an energy management system (EMS). All our buildings, including our data centres, are also certified to ISO 14001, a standard that provides a framework for environmental management and helps us to reduce our ecological footprint.
- Ongoing mobilisation of the operations and IT teams: this involves monitoring how we use energy and what our servers consume, identifying and analysing the most energy-intensive elements:
- Increasing the temperature in IT rooms
- Blower optimisation, i.e. optimising the fan speed of HVAC equipment (air conditioners)
- Air treatment units
- Free cooling, where outside air is used to cool rooms when the temperature difference allows.
CUBE d'Or BNP Paribas has won two awards
confirming its commitment to reducing the energy footprint of its data centres
- CUBE d’or - Overall savings: a 2.81% reduction in overall energy consumption
- CUBE d’or - Energy efficiency in buildings: a 28.25% improvement in the energy efficiency of data centres
The trophies awarded to the winners are original creations by artist Nicolas Delay made from computer waste.
These two awards won in the first Cube Datacenter competition are no coincidence. They are the result of the daily commitment of all our teams to reduce the environmental impact of all our IT infrastructures. A collective approach supported since 2012 by the Green Buildings programme, to achieve our energy reduction targets: we're ready for the challenges ahead."
A key challenge as the use of artificial intelligence intensifies:
As we become increasingly reliant on technology, managing our energy consumption is more of a priority than ever and a climate imperative. Digital technology is energy intensive, even more so with the growing development of AI. Each request and calculation requires significant processing power, so optimising data centres is essential to limit the carbon footprint of digital technology.
These awards reinforce the Group's ambition to constantly improve the energy performance of its infrastructures and to contribute to a more sustainable digital future.
Cube Datacenter: a competition to reduce the energy footprint of IT infrastructures
Organised by the French Institute for Building Performance (IFPEB) this competition aims to encourage companies and institutions to reduce the energy footprint of their IT infrastructures. Over the course of a year, participants will be judged on their ability to optimise their data centres in terms of energy consumption.
In this first competition, 11 data centres from major companies and institutions such as EDF, Crédit Agricole, the French Ministry for Ecological Transition and Schneider Electric, as well as specialists such as Data4, were up against each other.
Prizes were awarded in three categories:
- Overall savings (Grand Prix): reduction in total energy consumption
- Energy efficiency: ratio between the total power consumption of the data center (real estate and IT equipment) and the IT power consumption
- IT sobriety: reducing the footprint of IT hardware