Equinix employees are passionate about the environment and Equinix is committed to cultivating that passion by bringing their priorities to life in the offices they occupy every day. We do this by fostering sustainability in the workplace through office design and employee engagement.
Tackling Office Energy Use
Though our offices represent only a small proportion (~1%) of our overall energy consumption, Equinix recognizes the value in cascading our emissions reduction efforts throughout the organization. In 2021, our largest offices improved and implemented data collection for all Scope 1 and 2 energy usage to create a new baseline. Our Top 10 offices globally will set energy reduction targets aligned with our global corporate emissions targets by the end of the 2022 fiscal year. Beyond energy savings, our 2022 office plans include participating in our annual global procurement for either direct renewable energy or renewable energy credits to support progress against these newly set goals.
Global Design Guidelines
Our global design guidelines for our office spaces incorporate sustainability as a key aspect of our operations and leasing processes. The guidelines contain global design and construction standards which reimagine the efficient use of space and integrate closely with our Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB) approach.
In 2021 we changed our leasing approach to proactively consider sustainability criteria in new leases. Our real estate teams must use a newly created checklist, based on our green lease considerations established in 2020, when negotiating with landlords. This checklist includes questions around the availability of renewable energy, metering of energy and water and monitoring of waste and other adverse environmental impacts.
We seek to reduce waste through our tenant programs. For example, we negotiate our ability to market space with the existing fit-outs when subleasing to an incoming tenant; this reduces the potential for creating waste through needless retrofitting.
This work builds on existing efforts to improve resource efficiency in our office spaces, such as:
- Achieving USGBC LEED Green Building Certifications, such as our LEED Gold corporate headquarters in Redwood City, California
- Diverting waste through composting, recycling, and donating retired computing equipment to nonprofits addressing the Digital Divide
- Reducing waste by providing water and innovative beverage stations to eliminate single-use plastic bottles and expanding the use of Wi-Fi instead of wired cabling, and
- Addressing energy efficiency by implementing LED lighting retrofits and using energy-efficient appliances
Here are a few examples in recent years of how our team has advanced environmental sustainability within our offices worldwide:
- 100% of our largest offices are tracking Scope 1 and 2 energy consumption as of 2021
- Ten largest office sites will set energy reduction targets by end of 2022
- Americas EV charger expansion completed at Redwood City HQ in 2021
Americas
- Redwood city HQ electric vehicle charger expansion project completed in 2022
- 700 furniture items donated in 2021. All furniture is 100% recyclable and 50% recycled content
- single-use plastics removed, bottles and cans reduced
EMEA
- Comprehensive ISO14001 environmental management system
- Single-use plastics removed in Amsterdam avoiding 39,00 bottles annually
- Innovating light sensors and LED lighting retrofit across EMEA
- 5% of U.K breakfast budget reallocated to support global hunger in 2021
- U.K. recycling rate of 64% and all catering delivered by bike in 2021
Asia-Pacific
- New Singapore HQ combined four offices into one, reducing energy by 25% and incorporating sustainable design throughout
Increasing Employee Awareness
We want to empower our employees to support our sustainability efforts; with their buy-in and engagement, we can maximize our positive impact. To embed a culture of sustainability within the organization, in 2020 we rolled out training modules on sustainability topics foundational to Equinix’s work, such as understanding climate change, Net Zero buildings, and the benefits of measuring and reporting environmental impacts. The deployment of these on-demand e-learning modules will help employees connect their daily activities with global environmental challenges.
We are also leveraging new local employee engagement mechanisms to promote education and action on environmental sustainability by our employees and in our communities. “Green and Sustainable” is one of six themes of our WeAreEquinix local groups which are a key aspect of our growing Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging strategy.
Engaging for the Environment
Building on the virtual engagement kickstarted during the rise of COVID-19 in 2020, Equinix employees continued to engage within offices and their communities toward environmental efforts. Our Equinix Impact Exchange enables employees to access matching gifts to fund causes important to them. A summary of environmental-related donations is below.
Equinix in Singapore
In Singapore, Equinix has embarked on a series of local Community and Environmental activities to raise awareness on the importance of giving back to our society and to address Singapore’s 2030 Green Plan priorities, which align well with our own commitments. Led by our local WeAreEquinix team, a local employee volunteer group, these initiatives focus on three areas: Sustainability projects, Community Development, and Greenspace Projects.
- Sustainability projects: Working with the Singapore Environmental Council, Equinix procured and sponsored two Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) to be placed within two local Universities to encourage students to recycle their plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
- Community Development: We headed a charity auction to raise funds for a local charitable organization and volunteered time to help at Willing Hearts, a local secular, non-affiliated charity organization that runs a soup kitchen that distributes free meals to the needy and elderly.
- Greenspace Projects: We participated in community tree-planting initiatives to green industrial estates and business parks. This is part of Singapore’s ‘One Million Trees’ movement, which aims to restore nature back into the city. Equinix is also proud to have donated and sponsored 20 trees to the Singapore Botanic Gardens’ ‘Trees of the World’ initiative.
| SDG # | SDG Category | Volunteer Hours 2021 | Volunteer Hours 2015-2021 | Donations 2021 | Donations 2015-2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Clean Water and Sanitation | 0 | 26 | $62,187 | $86,494 |
| 11 | Sustainable Cities and Communities | 4,305 | 16,100 | $600,611 | $2,229,157 |
| 15 | Life on Land | 1,047 | 4,500 | $124,623 | $334,458 |
Advocacy and Collaboration
Advocacy is a hallmark of our strategy as we leverage the buying power of many companies through a single voice