Rack Centre Becomes First IFC EDGE Certified Data Centre in Europe, Middle East, Africa

Emma Okonji

Rack Centre, an Actis majority owned data centre and the leading carrier-neutral Tier III data centre in West Africa, with operations in Nigeria, has become the first International Finance Corporation (IFC) EDGE certified data centre in Europe, Middle East and Africa. 

Edge, an innovation of IFC, member of the World Bank group, is a preeminent international green certification system that focuses on empowering developers of residential and commercial buildings to deliver resource efficient buildings in a fast, easy and affordable way, enabling such developers and builders to quickly identify the most effective strategies to achieve energy saving, water saving and embodied energy materials.

The green building certification recognises the significant savings the centre will achieve in energy and water use, incorporated as part of the design to expand the facility’s IT load from 1.5MW to 13MW. On completion of the expansion, Rack Centre is forecast to achieve 35 per cent more energy savings, which is estimated to avoid carbon emissions totalling 100 tonnes each year.

Rack Centre’s Chief Operations Officer, Mr. Ezekiel Egboye, said: “Rack Centre has a track record of setting the standard for power usage efficiency in the region. Sustainability is at the core of what we do, a quest that permeates through all our actions. We are delighted to be the first to be certified in Europe, Middle East and Africa, which is really a continuation of Rack Centre’s firsts in Africa.”

CEO of Actis-Convergence Partners, pan African Data Centre platform, Jasper Lankhorst, said: “Sustainability is key to meeting the growing demand for digital infrastructure on the African continent. At Rack Centre, being the first data centre to secure the IFC Edge certification in Europe, Middle East and Africa, make us very proud. Our goal is to implement similar improvements across future investments made by our pan-African data centre platform to help the continent secure a low carbon data revolution.”

Director for Climate Business Department at the IFC, Vivek Pathak, said: “It had been a hugely rewarding process to work in partnership with Rack Centre to develop this EDGE assessment tool for data centres. We hope other data centre operators will follow in Rack Centre’s footsteps and take the necessary action on the digital economies environmental impact by becoming IFC EDGE certified.”