Healthy & Sustainable
We are developing global programs to promote sustainability within our office environments. Some of our offices are built with USGBC LEED Green Building Certifications including our corporate headquarters in Redwood City, California.
A variety of regional programs exist to enhance the resource efficiency of our physical spaces. For example, even though Equinix does not generate a lot of waste, we are working to reduce waste in our offices and data centers.
Here are a few examples of how we are working on environmental sustainability within our offices:
- In London, Equinix is the lead participant in a community recycling program for Devonshire Square. Individual desk bins were replaced with shared recycling stations and employees are now segregating their waste. On a month to month comparison, waste for incineration was reduced by 5% and dry mixed recycling has risen from 4% to 7%
- In Spain, disposable cups were removed from coffee machines and desk bins were replaced with office-wide recycling stations
- In the U.S., we donated seating, building supplies and other furniture items to help fire victims in Marysville, California. Our donations prevented 10.1 tons from going to a landfill and supported local schools
- In Redwood City, our IT department donated 142 retired laptops to The Stride Center, a local nonprofit, which refurbished the computers and donated them to individuals and families in need.
- Throughout the year, our offices sponsor events related to sustainability including Earth Fairs and Bike to Work Days
We are committed to setting a good example for our employees via a variety of programs such as:
- Composting and recycling
- Water stations to eliminate single-use plastic bottles
- Energy efficient coffee dispensers
- LED lighting retrofits
- Innovative approaches to reducing waste such as through expanded use of WiFi instead of wired cabling
- Donating excess foodstuff to community nonprofits
- Donating retired computing equipment to nonprofits addressing the Digital Divide
Making a Difference on Global Earth Day
Every year since 2017, our ever-growing network of Equinix Impact activists (employees who have coordinated past volunteer events) have organized beach, river and lake clean-ups around the world in partnership with the Ocean Conservancy’s CleanSwell app, which allows volunteers to track and submit beach cleanup information to a global database of ocean trash data. The Ocean Conservancy is a nonprofit environmental advocacy group that creates science-based solutions to maintain a healthy ocean that can sustain the wildlife and communities that depend on it. Our volunteer campaign was built upon Equinix’s existing relationship with the Ocean Conservancy, which began with a $15,000 Equinix Impact grant to support the development of the CleanSwell app in 2016.
During Earth Day 2018, employees from Redwood City, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid (just to name just a few locations) organized local clean-ups. Specifically, employees in Madrid organized a clean up of the El Burguillo Reservoir located along the Alberche river. They have since begun partnering with the local Red Cross on their environmental awareness campaign to educate the community about protecting the environment and to clean up the La Corneja Forest Park.
Additionally, through Equinix’s Dollars for Doers program, all volunteers are eligible to earn $20 per hour (or the local currency equivalent) to donate to the charity of their choice.
Addressing Hunger in the Bay Area through
Our Food Recovery Programs
One effort Equinix is passionate about is our food recovery program. Despite the San Francisco Bay Area’s tech boom and the prosperity of Silicon Valley, many families in the area continue to struggle with hunger. More than 30% of Silicon Valley public-school students rely on free or reduced-price lunches, and one in three children may not know where their next meal is coming from. Copia™ uses smartphone technology and on-demand pickup to remedy the imbalance between leftover food at businesses and the severe lack of food many in the Bay Area experience. Copia delivers leftover food to local shelters and food banks for distribution. Since partnering with Copia in mid-2016, we’ve donated several hundreds of pounds of excess food, providing nearly 1,000 meals to Redwood City, California residents.
Map of Initiatives
Each of our IBX data centers is designed with sustainability in mind.