Sustainability Pulse
We take the pulse of the industry so we can build a playbook it can actually use.
The dcently Sustainability Pulse is a series of short, recurring studies capturing how the data centre industry's sustainability agenda moves over time and across markets. Every Pulse feeds the dcently ESG Playbook.
The Pulses
Live studies you can take part in, and published findings you can explore.
The framework
Where the Pulse sits in the bigger picture.
01
Connect the ecosystem
Sustainability challenges rarely stop at company boundaries. dcently brings operators, suppliers, customers, investors, researchers and policymakers into a neutral space for conversations that are difficult to have inside a single company.
02
Take the pulse
The Sustainability Pulse regularly captures perspectives from across the value chain: what the industry sees as its biggest challenges, where different actors disagree, and where we are — and are not — making progress.
03
Build the ESG Playbook
Insights from the Pulse, our network, research and thematic work feed the dcently ESG Playbook — practical, industry-informed guidance on what good practice looks like across environment, social and governance.
04
Turn gaps into collaboration
Where the Pulse exposes an important challenge without a good answer, we bring companies, researchers and organisations together in projects and workstreams. From sharing today's best practice to developing tomorrow's better practice.
Methodology
How a Pulse is made.
Short, recurring studies
Each Pulse contains 5–10 questions and takes under five minutes. Benchmark questions are stored in a central library and repeated across Pulses, years and markets so trends can be tracked over time.
Independent by design
Partners may contribute questions, but every question is reviewed and approved by dcently, and partner-contributed questions are always labelled as such. No one buys a conclusion.
Who responds
Participants describe their organisation type, country and role. This lets results be segmented across the value chain without collecting names, employers or contact details alongside answers.
How percentages are calculated
Percentages are based on the number of respondents who answered each question, not the total number of participants. Multiple-choice percentages therefore sum to more than 100%. Scale questions report both distribution and average.
Privacy thresholds
Segmented results are only displayed where at least 5 respondents are represented. Individual responses are never identifiable in public results. Email addresses for result updates are stored separately from survey answers.
Open-text analysis
Free-text answers are grouped into themes by dcently. Themes are editorial analysis, not raw data, and are reviewed before publication. Original responses remain accessible only to dcently administrators.
Compounding value
Every Pulse makes the next one sharper.
The objective is not to collect survey responses. It is to build a growing dataset showing how the industry's sustainability agenda moves over time and across markets.
- More respondents→ more industry data
- More Pulses→ more historical data
- More markets→ wider geographic coverage
- More research→ better questions and methodology
- More partners→ greater resources and distribution