Reflective of CyrusOne’s aggressive commitment to Sustainability, we were very excited to recently announce that we have accelerated our net zero carbon pledge by 2030, moving up our commitment by a decade.

In September 2020, we announced our promise to become carbon neutral by 2040. Over the past two years, we have made tremendous strides in sustainability and have earned the accolades to show for it – yet more work remains.

Our sustainability initiatives are a core tenet of everything we provide and do, as we strive to improve the world we work and play in. Our efforts are not because of outside pressure – we do it because we believe in it and it’s the right thing to do. Accelerating our goal our next, very important step. At CyrusOne, we believe it is necessary to help the world meet the minimum goals on reducing greenhouse gas emissions as set forth by the Paris Agreement. It’s time for us, and others in all industries around the globe, to double-down.

Additionally, we must also meet ever-growing customer demand for renewable Energy resources to help them reach their own sustainability goals. Our customers are sophisticated and have some of the most aggressive goals in the world. We have worked to meet their needs and will continue to keep pace with them as their renewable requirements change.

It’s already part of our three-pronged approach to sustainability:

• Sustainable Future – We build data centers that are compatible with a sustainable future. We cannot just build a data center to meet today’s challenges; we need to build it with the future in mind.
• Energy and Water Conservation – We are committed to conserving both energy and water through the effective design, maintenance, and operation of our facilities. We cannot just trade water for energy and ignore its impact.
• Strategic Partners – We collaborate strategically with our customers to move their sustainability goals forward. Our customers have some of the most ambitious sustainability goals of any industry, so the best thing we can do for the environment is to help them succeed.

We have not wavered in our strategy, and our holistic sustainability approach includes efforts in energy, water, biodiversity and the circular economy. These efforts have already yielded impressive results.

For example, our data center campus in Allen, Texas, is a sterling example of sustainability achievements in all four areas. The facility runs on 100% renewable energy, is net water positive, hosts electronics recycling, and has a certified wildlife habitat thanks to planning and plantings designed to benefit local wildlife.

We also operate on 100% renewables in Europe, eight years ahead of our new global net zero carbon by 2030 goal and the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact. And in collaboration with our customers, we have ramped up the use of renewable energy at all our facilities from 2% in 2020 to 47.7% in 2021. This includes 32.4% customer-procured renewables and 14.7% CyrusOne-procured renewables.

Further, we cut our greenhouse gas footprint from about 991,000 metric tons in 2020 to about 646,000 metric tons in 2021. That reduction is equivalent to one year of emissions from 74,300 gasoline-powered vehicles, or enough to produce the energy required to power 43,457 homes for an entire year.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of our sustainability missions, efforts and results. You can read more about our sustainability work in our comprehensive 2022 Sustainability Report, which boasts third-party validations for all our progress.

As we march forward to our new goal of net zero carbon by 2030, we will continue to implement renewable energy to power data centers in key markets and continue designing energy-efficient solutions to new and existing facilities.

Hitting that target will be an enormous milestone for the company, CyrusOne Vice President of Environmental Health, Safety, and Sustainability Kyle Myers said.

“Our customers’ commitments to reduce their carbon footprints has inspired us to quicken our efforts,” said Myers. “It is becoming more and more evident that our previous target of climate neutral by 2040 was ambitious for its time, but is no longer ambitious enough. We not only plan to reach carbon neutrality by the end of this decade, but to do so while decreasing our water consumption in vulnerable regions.”

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