3DS OUTSCALE’s Alliances & CSR Director took the opportunity to point out that OUTSCALE has been labeled LUCIE 26000 since 2017, which testifies to “our commitment to ethics, transparency in business, but is also evidence of how aware we are of the societal and environmental impact of all our activities.” These values are shared by 3DS OUTSCALE’s technology partners, who are also working to build a sustainable, responsible economy around the Cloud. Indeed, 98% of 3DS OUTSCALE’s suppliers are compliant with SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative), the initiative that encourages companies to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“At 3DS OUTSCALE, we are committed to working with stakeholders to stimulate sustainable and responsible innovation,” continues Raja Chiky.

Our CSR commitments apply to OUTSCALE products and services through, for example, the Sustainability by Design approach adopted by our teams and the project for a carbon footprint calculator that will enable our customers to understand the impact of their consumption of Cloud services.

Among the other examples of actions cited by Raja Chiky, SimuGreen allows users to test several configurations for applications deployed in the Cloud, using a number of optimization options to calculate energy consumption. Users can therefore find the configurations with the lowest possible environmental impact. This open source tool was developed by 3DS OUTSCALE in collaboration with Sagemcom and ISEP. CSR also covers education and awareness, which are part of the OUTSCALE Academy program announced by Jérôme Sandrini, CFO at 3DS OUTSCALE.

DOME, a European Cloud marketplace

Raja Chiky’s talk also introduced collaborative projects such as DOME, which integrates several European Cloud marketplaces (38 partners from 14 countries) and aims to develop a complete industrial data ecosystem enabling inter-company data sharing with the purpose of generating value and creating new or improved products, processes and services. All this in compliance with the highest standards of data sovereignty and security.

The replay is available below. You will also watch the speech given by Tomas Petru, Policy Officer at the European Commission during the CLOUD DAYS 2023 event, and learn more on the DOME project, a European Cloud marketplace.

Click here to learn more about our commitment to sustainability

From value creation…

At 3DS OUTSCALE, we take our commitment to eco-responsibility very seriously. Indeed, our commitment to sustainability goes back a long way. This commitment, which we made in 2017, is deeply rooted in our DNA and was recognized by the LUCIE 26000 label in 2018, making 3DS OUTSCALE the only Cloud player in France certified for its CSR commitments.

Beyond compliance requierments, 3DS OUTSCALE has supported the “Climate Neutral Data Center Pact” (CNDCP), developed in collaboration with the European Commission, which encourages self-regulation by industry players and focuses on reducing carbon emissions directly linked to data storage.

It’s a commitment which, in addition to responsibility, ethical conduct and transparency, also involves taking into account the social and environmental impact of our activities. In addition, we require our suppliers to comply with the SBTI (Science Based Target Initiative, which encourages companies to set science-based greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement). Today, we are proud to say that over 90% of our suppliers are SBTi compliant.

Beyond our commitment, we recognize that our responsibility extends to our products and the way we design them. That’s why we have adopted a “sustainability by design” approach, placing environmental impact on the same level of importance as security and data protection when it comes to the design of the products and services we offer.

…Towards experience

Our commitment is not limited to our internal activities. It’s about experimenting with the value we create. We’re also committed to educating and raising awareness of the importance of responsible Cloud adoption.

With this in mind, we set up the Outscale Cloud Academy, offering special training courses on sustainability. We have organized several hackathons and participated in scientific symposia on Green IT and IT4Green, to stimulate greater awareness of the importance of responsible Cloud adoption.

Finally, we help our customers to adopt the Cloud in an eco-responsible way. We provide them with tools and information to help them measure their own carbon footprint and understand how they can reduce their environmental impact.

As you were able to discover at CLOUD DAYS 2023, one of these tools is SimuGreen, an open source simulator that estimates the energy consumption of an information system or application deployed in the Cloud.

All these efforts are achieved by working closely with an ecosystem gathering our partners and our customers. Thanks to these close collaborations that we can innovate and help shape a responsible digital world.

According to IDC, following the sudden surge in the use of digital technologies, the creation and replication of data continue to grow with a yearly average rate of 23% between 2020 and 2025. Therefore, storage capacity must increase significantly. 

A major change that raises the question of the management of their environmental impact. Indeed, if digital technology represents today less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), the sector shows nevertheless a growth rate of 9% per year (French only). This trend may be irreversible, but it can be downplayed through the implementation of appropriate measures, if started today. 

CSR Commitment, a Foundation for Building Trust

If the public health crisis has considerably stimulated data consumption, the global geopolitical situation in 2022 raised fears of an unprecedented energy crisis. In this context, and from now on, Cloud actors must also be held responsible for their impact on society and the environment. In an increasingly demanding market, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) has become a major competitive factor and a decisive criteria for trust.

3DS OUTSCALE started, in 2017, a CSR certification process labeled LUCIE 26000, the CSR reference label in France, aligned on ISO 26000, the international standard on corporate and social responsibility. An initiative completed in 2020 by the signing of the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact, a European pact for neutral datacenters by 2030. The goal: building a Cloud that enables sustainable and environmentally responsible innovation (French only).

That is why, facing such a crucial issue, 3DS OUTSCALE commits to working exclusively with trusted partners, such as Telehouse, one of our datacenter partners, themselves involved in a sustainable approach. Beyond energy consumption, the operator works on improving all of the datacenter’s lifecycle, from the equipments’ production to their usage.

While Making Data Security a Priority

However, with cyberattacks on the rise, the environmental aspect is far from being the first decision criteria. 1 out of 2 French companies fell victim to a cyber attack in 2022, according to the CESIN (Club des Experts de la Sécurité de l’Information et du Numérique) barometer, reminding the critical importance of data protection. A case in point is the ransomware attack incurred by the Centre Hospitalier Sud-Francilien (CHSF) in Corbeil-Essonnes in August 2022, which was strongly paralyzed for several days. Or the case of André-Mignot hospital in Versailles on December 3, 2022…

Particularly sensitive health data requires very strict conformity standards from a host: HDS certification (Health Data Hosting), SecNumCloud qualification, GDPR compliance and sovereignty (for protection from the enforcement of extraterritorial laws such as Cloud Act).

So many signs of trust that 3DS OUTSCALE services are offering. Security has been a key value in 3DS OUTSCALE’s DNA since its beginnings, over a decade ago. Our cloud infrastructure is SecNumCloud qualified by the ANSSI, and ISO 27001-27017-27018, HDS and TISAX certified. It is also important for us to rely on strategic suppliers [such as Telehouse] to be able to offer a real chain of trust between the customer, the cloud provider which is 3DS OUTSCALE, and the datacenter providers.

How to Prioritize both Security and Environmental Responsibility?

Security and environmental responsibility are not incompatible. But if customers are more and more concerned by environmental issues, the sole involvement of the Cloud provider is not sufficient to reduce the environmental footprint. All of the ecosystem (employees, suppliers, partners, customers…) must be involved to create a virtuous circle and lay the foundations of a strong trust along the technological chain.

The partnership between 3DS OUTSCALE and Telehouse perfectly illustrates this state of mind according to Sami Slim, General manager of Telehouse France: “3DS OUTSCALE has been working with Telehouse for many years, it is a trust-based collaboration. Actors like 3DS OUTSCALE drive us to take our security logic further. They challenge us on security and trust levels such as expected by their own customers, and we are compelled to adapt. Offering a new SecNumCloud qualified infrastructure has been a real challenge, but Telehouse was able to deliver, in due time, a space meeting the criteria of the SecNumCloud qualification defined by the ANSSI.

On the one hand, Telehouse proves itself as a trusted and well-known supplier, able to support 3DS OUTSCALE in its development strategy. On the other hand, 3DS OUTSCALE is an asset in our system approach because they push us to stay at the forefront of innovation.”

Shared responsibility

Datacenters have never played such a crucial role as they do today. The world of tomorrow will definitely be a connected world. And, as Sami Slim reminds us: “Each infrastructure choice is a choice for the planet.” 

Today, the task of Cloud operators is to lead the industry towards more responsibility, security, innovation, expertise and trust. At 3DS OUTSCALE, together with our ecosystem, we are ready to meet the challenge.

Learn more about the partnership between 3DS OUTSCALE and Telehouse and the security standards implemented in their datacenters!