Reducing the environmental impact of X-Road

Introduction 

Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) has set a long-term goal to make X-Road the most sustainable data exchange solution in the world. To better understand the direct and tangible environmental impacts of the use of X-Road software, NIIS commissioned research to assess the current emissions profile across X-Road’s operations and services. In doing so, it delivers targeted recommendations for emissions reduction and sustainable business practices that may be integrated into future decision making.

The study was performed by Gofore and Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn (SEI) in close collaboration with NIIS and the X-Road Governing Authorities in Estonia and Finland. Together, experts built an emissions calculator to assess the emissions profile of the X-Road instance, subject to the emissions boundary defined in our first blog post. The calculations used in this process have been derived from peer-reviewed literature and tailored to X-Road use cases in Estonia and Finland, which is well described in our previous blog post. However, the emission calculator is comprehensive enough to perform calculations for any instance residing in any region.

Results

The results of the calculator give a clear picture of the total carbon footprint of X-Road, as well as its individual components. The key findings demonstrate: 

  1. Around 96 % of total emissions are related to the operations of X-Road Security Servers. 

  2. Data transmission and storage provide marginal contributions to the total carbon footprint (around 1 % and 3 %, respectively).

  3. The annual carbon footprint for Estonia and Finland was approximated as 45,685 KgCO2e and 22,593 KgCO2e, respectively.

  4. The discrepancy between the two countries relates mostly to the difference in average electricity grid emission factor – this reflects the larger percentage of low carbon electricity sources in the Finnish grid and the relative reliance in Estonia on shale oil.

Based on these results, we have derived recommendations to manage or mitigate emissions relevant to different stakeholder groups. These groups have been determined based on their different levels of access and influence over the way X-Road is used; including X-Road user organisations (X-Road members), the X-Road governing authorities overseeing regulations guiding the service application, NIIS as the product owner and developer of X-Road, and the broader public. The recommendations can briefly be summarised as follows:

  1. The future development of X-Road could ensure flexibility for stakeholders to disable or reduce the emissions of components, such as message logging and timestamping, subject to potential performance and security requirements.

  2. Wherever possible, NIIS can recommend an energy tracking application to enable emissions modelling of X-Road in real-time. This will integrate transparent monitoring of emissions in reporting and encourage users to evaluate ways to reduce emissions as they will have a reference (Business As Usual) data set to experiment with and understand their emissions footprint.

  3. X-Road governing authorities can provide clear information and support emissions reduction strategies, such as granting permission to host servers on the public cloud and reducing mandatory requirements for message logs and/or timestamping.

  4. X-Road members should implement X-Road services efficiently and in a manner optimised for emissions reduction from the outset. This could include ensuring that equipment is efficient and server utilisation is maximised. Alternatively, servers could be hosted on the public cloud – as it is beginning to be allowed for organisations requiring the highest level of security, such as UK Defence – if permitted by local regulations and the governing authority.

  5. Where the option exists, infrastructure should be powered using renewable electricity. Moreover, best practice should be followed, such as using power-efficient hardware devices and optimised data compression. 

Process of the study

As discussed in previous blog posts, this study was divided into three phases, with results and methods published for feedback by a steering committee and technical experts after each phase. The phases were as follows:

  1. Determining an emissions boundary and mapping the main causes of environmental impacts of the X-Road instance.

  2. Building a Carbon Footprint calculator for X-Road, based on best practice and X-Road use cases.

  3. Defining recommendations for improving the sustainability of X-Road.

The calculator was designed to ensure a high degree of flexibility while obtaining directional results that could be accepted with high confidence. This ensured validity across the instances in Finland and Estonia and across the varying circumstances and technical literacy of different X-Road users. 

Outcomes

The report is available here and the simplified X-Road Emissions Calculator is available here.