The IEEE Spectrum article argues that sustainability metrics used in data center reporting capture only a fraction of the true environmental impact of the information-technology sector. Power usage effectiveness (PUE) and water usage effectiveness (WUE) dominate how companies measure efficiency. These figures show how much energy goes into computing gear relative to facility overhead and how much water data centers consume for cooling, respectively. Such measurements are detailed and precise, but they overlook the biggest sources of emissions. Current metrics typically track direct operational energy and water figures without accounting for the lifecycle and broader ecosystem of devices and software that drive the IT industry.
The author highlights that the manufacturing and use of end-user devices, such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets, produce more combined emissions than data center operations. Embodied carbon from devices, created during manufacturing, significantly exceeds what is captured in data center sustainability reports. Under existing frameworks such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and ISO/IEC standards, the bulk of emissions outside direct energy use is classified under broad categories that do not distinguish individual sources, making it hard to track and optimize the biggest contributors.
Software inefficiency also goes unmeasured. Inefficient code and architectural decisions cause servers and client devices to work harder and draw more power. As an example, small improvements in software can have large impacts on energy consumption at scale, yet no accepted metric exists to report software efficiency alongside traditional infrastructure metrics.
The article calls for sustainability frameworks to expand beyond facility energy and water figures. Metrics must include device lifecycle emissions, software energy use, and hardware reuse performance. Standardizing these measurements would make emissions visible at all stages and enable better optimization across the IT stack. Without this change, efforts will address only a fraction of the environmental footprint of global data and computing infrastructure.