Status: v1.0 — adopted 23 July 2026. One first-pass assessment (Verne Keflavik) is published as a pre-review draft, pending right of reply. Formal Index scoring on both axes begins once right-of-reply responses are in. See the changelog at the end of this page.
The Greenpool Index scores AI-compute facilities and providers on two independent axes. A facility can be genuinely green and jurisdictionally exposed, or fully sovereign and quietly fossil-backed — the two questions deserve separate answers.
Axis 1 — Green (0–100)
| Dimension | Weight | What we look for |
|---|---|---|
| Power source verifiability | 35% | Physical PPA or direct supply beats certificates (GOs/RECs). Grid-mix honesty. Named counterparties. |
| Energy & water efficiency | 25% | Published, audited PUE beats “design target”. Measurement standard disclosed (ISO/IEC 30134-2). Disclosure of WUE (water usage effectiveness) is explicitly rewarded. |
| Heat reuse | 20% | Waste heat delivered to district heating or industry, with named offtaker and volume. |
| Grid additionality & impact | 20% | Does the facility bring new renewable generation, or consume scarce existing hydro? Grid-connection transparency. |
Heat reuse N/A rule: where no feasible heat offtaker exists within economic distance of a facility, the heat-reuse dimension is marked N/A and its weight is redistributed pro-rata across the remaining Green dimensions. The redistribution is noted on the scored page. Geography is not a behavior; the Index scores behavior.
Axis 2 — Sovereign (0–100)
| Dimension | Weight | What we look for |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership & ultimate control | 35% | Ultimate beneficial owner, jurisdiction of parent, foreign-control exposure (e.g. US CLOUD Act, Chinese parent). |
| Legal jurisdiction of operations | 25% | Operating entity’s jurisdiction; contract governing law; EU/EEA data-protection reach. |
| Operational control | 25% | Who holds root? Where are operations staffed? Remote-management exposure. |
| Data residency guarantees | 15% | Contractual, auditable residency vs. marketing statements. |
Scoring rules
- Only public or provider-confirmed evidence counts. Unverified claims score as absent, not as true.
- Sponsors never touch scores. Commercial relationships are disclosed on every scored page.
- Uncertainty is published as uncertainty. Every score carries a confidence grade (A: audited/primary, B: corroborated secondary, C: single-source).
- Right of reply. Providers see their assessment before publication and their response is published verbatim.
- Corrections policy. Errors are corrected in place with a dated changelog; the original wording remains visible.
What the Index is not
Not a ranking of “best datacenter” — workloads differ. Not pay-to-play. Not a substitute for your own due diligence; it is the map you start it with. Hardware supply-chain sovereignty (e.g., GPU vendor concentration) is industry-wide and outside facility-level control; it is out of scope for the Index and addressed in Greenpool’s editorial coverage instead.
Changelog
v1.0 — 23 July 2026, adopted by the founder.
- Heat reuse N/A rule added: no feasible offtaker within economic distance → dimension marked N/A, weight redistributed pro-rata across remaining Green dimensions, noted on the scored page.
- Efficiency dimension renamed “Energy & water efficiency”: PUE remains the primary measure; WUE disclosure is now explicitly rewarded.
- Scope clarification added to “What the Index is not”: hardware supply-chain sovereignty is out of scope.
- Weights on both axes confirmed unchanged from v0.1 after founder review.
v0.1 — 23 July 2026. First published version.