CyrusOne goes public with pledge to become carbon-neutral provider by 2040

CyrusOne has become the latest colocation giant to set out plans to cut the carbon emissions generated by its global datacentre portfolio.

The company, which operates more than 50 datacentres across the world, has publicly committed to becoming a carbon-neutral organisation by 2040 to ensure the continued growth of the business does not come at the expense of the environment.

To this point, CyrusOne said it plans to ramp up the amount of renewable energy it uses to power its facilities, while embarking on a series of sustainability-focused equipment upgrades across its existing sites, while ensuring any new builds are designed with energy efficiency in mind.

“As CyrusOne expands into new markets, the company is focused on purchasing renewables, leveraging green power and integrating sustainable design components for all facilities,” the organisation said in a statement outlining its pledge.

“At existing locations, CyrusOne is strategically evaluating upgrades and technologies that reduce carbon intensity and add renewable power to the grid, while remaining cost-effective to meet customers’ needs.”

These initiatives will be followed up with the publication of CyrusOne’s first ever Sustainability report in October 2020, the company confirmed.

It has already made some steps towards improving the sustainability of its operations, with the company confirming in 2019 that its three London datacentres are running exclusively on renewable energy, as part of a push to meet the infrastructure requirements of its customers in a more sustainable way.  

To this point, Bruce Duncan, president and CEO of CyrusOne, said the 2040 carbon-neutral pledge is also a show of its commitment towards helping its customers improve the sustainability of their operations too.   

“Making a pledge to become carbon neutral within the next 20 years is an important milestone in our mission to increase our global sustainability efforts, and help customers toward their sustainability goals,” he said.

“We recognise sustainability as a company-wide priority and are working to reduce our environmental footprint.”

News of CyrusOne’s carbon reduction commitment follows on from the announcement by fellow colocation Digital Realty in May 2020 about its plans to double-down on sustainability by embarking on a wide-ranging body of work geared towards cutting its emissions by 2030.

In Digital Realty’s case, it plans to follow the United Nations-backed Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTI), which will see it set a series of sustainability goals geared towards reducing its carbon emissions to levels needed to keep global warming below 2°C, from pre-industrial levels.

The datacentre sector, as a whole, has found its use of renewables and sustainability track-record come under close scrutiny in recent years from regulators, lobbyists and governments, out of concern about the toll its growth is having on the environment.

This, in turn, has seen hyperscale cloud firms, internet service providers and colocation firms all make public commitments to power their facilities using sustainable sources of energy, and make better use of the waste products generated by their operations.