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Verifiable Sustainability in Data Centers

Syed Rafiul Hussain, Patrick McDaniel, Anshul Gandhi, Kanad Ghose, Kartik Gopalan, Dongyoon Lee, Yu David Liu, Zhenhua Liu, Shuai Mu, Erez Zadok

TL;DR

This work analyzes the security and privacy challenges of measuring and reporting data-center sustainability, arguing that verifiable, auditable footprint data is essential to counter greenwashing and enable trustworthy regulation. It introduces a security-oriented architecture for verifiable footprint collection, privacy-preserving collection and aggregation, and public ledgers, anchored by trusted hardware, TEEs, and cryptographic techniques. The paper identifies a comprehensive threat model (involving operators, tenants, users, and observers) and enumerates seven core security challenges, offering research directions such as MPC, differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and blockchain-based ledgers. By combining technical primitives with standardization and policy incentives, the authors aim to enable transparent, accurate carbon accounting that scales across data-center types and supports broader sustainable-system goals.

Abstract

Data centers have significant energy needs, both embodied and operational, affecting sustainability adversely. The current techniques and tools for collecting, aggregating, and reporting verifiable sustainability data are vulnerable to cyberattacks and misuse, requiring new security and privacy-preserving solutions. This paper outlines security challenges and research directions for addressing these pressing requirements.

Verifiable Sustainability in Data Centers

TL;DR

This work analyzes the security and privacy challenges of measuring and reporting data-center sustainability, arguing that verifiable, auditable footprint data is essential to counter greenwashing and enable trustworthy regulation. It introduces a security-oriented architecture for verifiable footprint collection, privacy-preserving collection and aggregation, and public ledgers, anchored by trusted hardware, TEEs, and cryptographic techniques. The paper identifies a comprehensive threat model (involving operators, tenants, users, and observers) and enumerates seven core security challenges, offering research directions such as MPC, differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and blockchain-based ledgers. By combining technical primitives with standardization and policy incentives, the authors aim to enable transparent, accurate carbon accounting that scales across data-center types and supports broader sustainable-system goals.

Abstract

Data centers have significant energy needs, both embodied and operational, affecting sustainability adversely. The current techniques and tools for collecting, aggregating, and reporting verifiable sustainability data are vulnerable to cyberattacks and misuse, requiring new security and privacy-preserving solutions. This paper outlines security challenges and research directions for addressing these pressing requirements.
Paper Structure (12 sections, 1 figure, 1 table)

This paper contains 12 sections, 1 figure, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Sustainable Systems and Focus on Data Centers
  2. Data Center Architectures
  3. Why is Sustainability a Security Problem?
  4. Threat Models in Data Centers
  5. Security Challenges for Sustainability
  6. Research Directions for Securing Sustainable Data Centers
  7. Verifiable Footprint Collection Architecture
  8. Privacy-Preserving Footprint Collection
  9. Privacy-Preserving Footprint Aggregation
  10. Public Sustainability Ledgers
  11. Enhancing Standardization of Security Mechanisms
  12. Conclusion

Figures (1)

  • Figure 1: To enable the verifiability of sustainability metrics, we propose that sustainability-aware data centers be equipped with a sustainability collector, certification agent, sustainability aggregator, and sustainability storage. We mark components in the data center with an adversary symbol to denote potential compromised components. Unchanged items in data centers are shaded blue, modified items are shaded orange, and new items added for sustainability are in green.