The News: Scality announced it achieved a silver-level rating from environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating firm EcoVadis. This rating is based on several metrics spanning environmental sustainability, human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement practices. The silver rating awarded in 2023 is an improvement on previous ratings and puts Scality in the top 25% of global companies for improved sustainability efforts. Find out more from the Press Release on the Scality website.
Scality Enhances Sustainability Practices
Analyst Take: Scality, the vendor behind RING and ARTESCA object storage solutions, recently announced it received a silver-level sustainability rating from EcoVadis, a leading organization in sustainability and ESG assessments. Scality has stated that the rating places the company in the top 25% of 100,000 global companies for improved sustainability efforts.
The EcoVadis rating is measured based on four distinct pillars: environment, labor and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement. The rating for Scality reflects a broad range of ESG initiatives within the company, including the following:
- Environmental awareness and sustainability training for employees
- Coral reef restoration projects
- Reforestation efforts
- Investment in carbon offsets
- Reduction in corporate travel
- Lowering data center emissions
- Employee wellness and mental health programs
- Fully funded employee health insurance
- Long-term family leave for both men and women
These examples, as well as other sustainability initiatives by Scality, and the new silver rating by EcoVadis, demonstrate Scality’s commitment to ESG and corporate sustainability. Scality CEO Jerome Lecat has further promoted Scality’s sustainability efforts by stating, “I am personally committed to growing Scality into a sustainable business for all stakeholders: its customers, employees, partners, shareholders, technology, and the planet.”
When considering this statement, Scality’s sustainability initiatives, and the overall rating it has received, there are two major takeaways – both of which are slightly outside the typical thoughts regarding IT sustainability.
First, the efforts demonstrated here, and summarized into a score by EcoVadis, represent ESG metrics and overall sustainability – not just environmental sustainability. Typically, when considering sustainability, most people’s minds rush to the environment, carbon emissions, and in the case of IT, typically energy efficiency. All of these are certainly major components of sustainability and are in fact quite important when considering environmental issues such as climate change. The topic of sustainability, however, is not limited solely to the environment. An example of this is the United Nations’ Sustainability Goals. There are 17 goals, and although Climate Action is represented, there are 16 goals that include items such as gender equality, no poverty, and good health and wellbeing.
Similarly, the term ESG is often used interchangeably with environmental sustainability, when in reality environment is only one-third while the other two-thirds include issues such as diversity, inclusion, treatment of workers, leadership structures, and other social or governance issues. It is notable that Scality’s sustainability efforts include not only obvious environmental efforts such as reforestation and carbon offsetting but also broader sustainability initiatives such as volunteering and employee health benefits. The EcoVadis scoring is also measured using this broader understanding of sustainability, so it is fitting that this mixture of sustainability initiatives seen from Scality places the company in a high EcoVadis standing.
The second idea that jumps out to me is that this rating is focused on sustainability initiatives within Scality as an organization – not necessarily a rating of how much more efficient RING or ARTESCA might make a data center. Certainly, Scality is not the only organization to do, or even promote, such initiatives, but often IT sustainability messaging is focused on the sustainability benefits of an organization’s products, rather than the organization’s own initiatives. This is not to say that RING and ARTESCA have no sustainability benefits nor that sustainability benefits of products don’t matter – rather, it is to point out that organizations truly committed to IT sustainability should consider the sustainability initiatives of the IT vendors they do business with as well.
In many cases, IT organization’s push for sustainability comes from a corporate directive to reduce emissions by a certain percentage – and therefore the solution is to find products or services that reduce energy consumption and reduce carbon emissions. If the overall goal is simply to reduce energy usage, then this focus is great. However, if the goal is to actually increase sustainability as a data center, as a company, and in the IT sector as a whole, then I believe considering good sustainability practices of vendors also plays an important role.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Mitch comes to The Futurum Group through the acquisition of the Evaluator Group and is focused on the fast-paced and rapidly evolving areas of cloud computing and data storage. Mitch joined Evaluator Group in 2019 as a Research Associate covering numerous storage technologies and emerging IT trends.
With a passion for all things tech, Mitch brings deep technical knowledge and insight to The Futurum Group’s research by highlighting the latest in data center and information management solutions. Mitch’s coverage has spanned topics including primary and secondary storage, private and public clouds, networking fabrics, and more. With ever changing data technologies and rapidly emerging trends in today’s digital world, Mitch provides valuable insights into the IT landscape for enterprises, IT professionals, and technology enthusiasts alike.
