LONDON, Dec. 4 – Atos, an international IT services company, offers carbon neutral hosting services across its worldwide datacenters to support clients on increasing their sustainable operations. The growing demand for energy-efficient data center services in Europe has encouraged Atos to build a new cloud data center project in Finland. In 2009 Atos implemented a drastic carbon abatement program and realized a 34% Carbon Footprint reduction in all its worldwide activities. On its journey to become a “Zero Carbon” Company, Atos has now set a new objective to reduce its Carbon Footprint by 50% by 2015 (2008 baseline).

With environmental regulation strengthening, many Atos customers are increasingly mindful of their carbon emissions and the cost they represent. Clients that choose to outsource their IT infrastructure and applications to Atos carbon neutral datacenters benefit from the Ambition Zero Carbon Program aimed at further reducing its CO2 footprint in its worldwide activities, particularly in its data centers. Atos Worldline datacenters, part of Atos core expertise in Hi-Tech Transactional Services, enable to process billions of critical electronic transactions, also operate under similar carbon neutral requirements.

The new data center in Viikinmäki, Helsinki – being constructed with Academica and Helsingin Energia - offers a well-functioning model for the decentralized production of district heating that utilizes renewable energy. For Atos, the project means the completion of the world’s greenest high-availability cloud center in Helsinki expected to start operating in March 2013. The company already operates from the Suvilahti data center which was the first phase of its global cloud service center in Finland.

Atos carbon neutral hosting services are based on three key activities. Firstly, an energy efficiency program to reduce its Power Usage Efficiency (PUE), reinforce the virtualization, develop green innovations; secondly a global Carbon Audit program applied to all its main data centers; thirdly a renewable energy sourcing strategy; and finally the carbon offset emission produced by its datacenters (127 000 t CO2) through the financing of a windmill turbine project in Tamil Nadu (India) thanks to a partnership with South Pole Carbon and EcoAct.

Eric Grall, Executive VP Global Managed Services, in charge of the Datacenter strategy at Atos, said: “Our datacenters represent a significant share of our Carbon footprint. To dramatically abate our carbon emissions, we have implemented several initiatives like virtualization, consolidation of our datacenters, and improvement of our energy efficiency ratios. We are proud to continue to be the first European IT provider to offer fully integrated carbon neutral hosting services to help our clients decarbonize their activities. With an increased focus on reducing their carbon footprint, our clients are looking for ways to innovate and to improve their environmental performance while reducing their costs. Our investment in the windmill turbine project in India clearly shows this commitment to help our clients to address the environmental impact”.

Windmill turbine project in India – first tangible outcome

Atos has funded and developed a windmill turbine project which is producing renewable energy for the southern electricity grid of India. The project installed 22 new grid-connected Wind Energy Generators with an individual capacity of 1.5 MW in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.

• The windmill project has greatly increased the power available to the grid from emission-free and renewable resources, reducing the use of fossil fuels and its associated waste.
• The project has contributed greatly to the local community. It has increased the availability of power to households, replaced pollutant producing energy sources with renewable energy, provided more employment in the region, is planting more than 1000 trees per year and is providing a clean water supply to local villages.

The project meets the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) requirements and the credits have been verified and registered on the Voluntary Carbon Standard registry, hosted by APX.

Philippe Mareine, EVP General Secretary at Atos, in charge of Corporate and Social Responsibility at Atos said: “This initiative is a concrete demonstration of our commitment to become a best in Class Company in term of Sustainability. To become a zero carbon company, Atos strives to improve Carbon performance in all areas of its activities. In this respect, we have launched many initiatives including remote working, Zero Email TM, building energy management, and carbon audits. In addition, we have developed sustainable solutions to help our clients improving their sustainable performance like Ambition Zero Carbon, Cloud Computing, Smart Grid and Zero Email and social collaboration.”

Transforming towards the Firm of the Future

Under the umbrella of the Firm of the Future, Atos works in partnership with clients to create more sustainable business operations. Its Ambition Zero Carbon approach supports clients in their actions to reduce their footprint and create a more sustainable IT infrastructure. Based on four simple steps – measure, reduce, report and offset - the program includes a detailed carbon audit, a roadmap and solutions for improvements and finally a performance management dashboard to measure progress. This strategy helps clients transform to a sustainable, collaborative and adaptive organization addressing both strategic and operational levels and the supporting infrastructure.

About South Pole Carbon

A Global Carbon Company: Zurich based South Pole Carbon is one of the world’s leading premium carbon offsetting companies. Its staff is comprised of more than 80 carbon professionals from 23 countries, located in 10 offices around the globe – as close to its projects as to its clients. In over 20 countries, the company enables the implementation and operation of high-quality projects that efficiently reduce greenhouse gases, while at the same time benefiting local communities and the environment. South Pole Carbon offers tailor made solutions for supply chain emission reduction projects, distinctive consultancy services in the carbon credit market and related sectors, and remains ahead of the pack when it comes to new market mechanisms. South Pole Carbon is pleased to be working with Atos and its many clients in fostering more sustainable and productive business models. With companies like Atos leading the way in corporate responsibility, South Pole Carbon stands ready to supply the information, technology and expertise required to meet carbon reduction targets, focusing on local solutions for a global carbon neutral environment.

About EcoAct

Founded in 2005, EcoAct is an organization dedicated to the fight against climate change offering a full support to public and private sector organizations willing to evaluate, reduce and offset their environmental footprint. EcoAct is a proud member of ICROA and works for the development of best quality carbon offsets projects which also bring a lot of social and environmental benefits to the local communities. EcoAct has a worldwide presence via its six offices located in Paris and Toulouse (France), São Paulo (Brazil), Nairobi (Kenya), Niamey (Niger) and as well as through its representatives in New Delhi (India), Beijing (China), Cape Town (South Africa) and Mexico (Mexico City).

In order to help Atos in valorizing its Ambition Zero Carbon initiative, EcoAct offers consulting and support services for building up Atos Communication & Marketing plan. Through a very collaborative way of working - including employees consultation through the organization of workshops and thorough analysis of the carbon management strategy and actions carried on by Atos – EcoAct is working towards the identification of more adapted and powerful way of conveying Atos initiative, both to internal and external stakeholders.

About Atos

Atos is an international information technology services company with annual revenues of EUR 8.5 billion and 74,000 employees in 48 countries. Serving a global client base, it delivers hi-tech transactional services, consulting, systems integration and managed services. Atos is focused on business technology that powers progress and helps organizations to create their firm of the future. It is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games and is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market. Atos operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldline and Atos Worldgrid.

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Source: Atos