environment
Natural Resources
When constructing and operating our facilities, we strive to account for the varying needs of our customers, stakeholders, local communities and ecosystems.
Water management
Water can be used to cool IT equipment in data centers, preventing overheating and system failure and keeping customer workloads up and running without consuming large amounts of energy. Therefore, effective water management is one of the best ways to reduce energy usage. Balancing the trade-off between water and energy —the water-energy nexus—is a critical objective for Equinix and our industry. Global water availability is challenged by climate change, growing populations and pollution. Simultaneously, the demand for data processing is increasing, putting further strain on water resources in some regions. We aim to be responsible water stewards and are working proactively to ensure our operations do not impact the ability of our communities to meet their water needs.
Understanding the water-energy nexus
There is an inverse relationship between energy and water use in data center cooling systems. Using evaporative cooling improves energy efficiency, while air cooling methods require more energy resources. Our blog explains how design choices for data center cooling systems impact both PUE and WUE.
Withdrew
5,440
megaliters of water
Discharged
1,260
megaliters of water
Consumed
4,180
megaliters of water
Withdrew
37%
of water from non-potable sources
Water usage effectiveness
Water usage effectiveness (WUE) is a metric that quantifies the water-energy nexus, relating water used for evaporative cooling to IT energy consumption. A lower WUE reflects a more efficient use of water. Since 2023, we have published our global average WUE across our entire data center portfolio. This transparency allows us to compare our performance with industry peers.
Building on our ISO PUE review work, our Global Operations water lead has been selected as the new project lead for the ISO/IEC 30134-9 Water Usage Effectiveness review. This ambitious project, set to span the next three years, will involve a thorough assessment of water use practices and aims to achieve optimal water efficiency across our operations.
In 2024, our data centers achieved
WUE
0.95
Entire global data center portfolio
WUE
1.55
Data centers with evaporative cooling
Water risk
Selecting the cooling technology most appropriate for a data center depends on a variety of factors. If water is available, evaporative cooling can be a cost-effective and less energy intensive cooling solution. However, we pursue alternative cooling methods in areas of water stress. Evaporative cooling can be particularly effective in managing energy usage in areas with power-constrained grids. In contrast, avoiding evaporative cooling in water-stressed areas minimizes water consumption, thus reducing pressure on the local water supply. Thirty-four percent of our sites use water for cooling.
To assess and monitor water risk at our sites, we use tools such as Aqueduct from the World Resources Institute in conjunction with water risk studies to help us understand the full local water context. These tools enable us to consider factors such as water availability, infrastructure and local resilience planning and make well-informed selections of sites and cooling technologies. In 2023, we codified our commitment to avoid the use of evaporative cooling at new builds in highly water-stressed areas and to explore opportunities for alternative water sources, such as reclaimed water, instead of potable water, where available. As of 2024 year-end, 34% of our sites are in highly water-stressed1 areas, and among these sites, 43% utilize evaporative cooling.
In addition to employing different cooling methods, we also optimize water use in areas with low or medium levels of water stress by controlling factors such as cycles of concentration (CoC). CoC measure the concentration of dissolved minerals in recirculating water compared to that in water added to compensate for evaporation losses. A higher number of CoC means less additional water is needed at a data center, reducing the overall water withdrawal volume and improving WUE. We optimize water consumption to avoid scaling in our circulation system, making heat transfer more efficient.
1 The World Resources Institute defines a region’s water stress based on the ratio of total water demand to available renewable water supply. Highly water stressed regions have a ratio of 40-80%, while very highly water stressed regions have a ratio over 80%.
Case Study
Use of advanced technologies for water filtration
The quality of the water supply in an IBX is directly linked to our ability to increase the CoC, and higher CoC measurements help us save water by reducing the amount of water discharged.
In one of our sites in Frankfurt, we piloted an innovative type of water filtration using nano technology. The system has proven to be very effective at reducing the number of particulates in the water and helped increase the CoC from a baseline of four up to an average peak of six, resulting in 10% water savings.
Optimized water consumption
We are ramping up our efforts to use water resources responsibly from many angles, including:
- Higher operating temperatures: By raising data center operating temperatures, cooling systems may be able to run more in dry mode on hybrid systems resulting in less water use for cooling.
- Improved monitoring solutions: In 2024, we rolled out metering technology to better track water use volumes and identify improvement opportunities at water-cooled data centers. Moreover, the data we capture is made available to customers in Customer Water Reports (CWRs) to equip them with the data they need to support their sustainability goals and respond to regulatory reporting requirements.
- Alternative cooling technologies: We use free cooling air-cooled chillers and hybrid cooling systems—including indirect evaporative cooling, hybrid dry adiabatic cooling and air-cooled condensers with adiabatic trim—at some sites. We are also executing closed-loop liquid cooling at select locations and piloting the technology at additional sites. These technologies are critical for operations in areas where avoiding water consumption is a priority.
- Alternative water sources: We are exploring innovative methods to reduce potable water demand. For example, we utilize techniques such as aquifer thermal energy storage and deep lake water cooling to make use of natural cooling provided by the earth’s thermal mass.
Learn more about how data centers use water and responsible management approaches through our blog.
Case Study
Enabling liquid cooling at our co-innovation facility
At our Co-Innovation Facility, we partner with peers to test digital infrastructure solutions and shape the Data Center of the Future. When we identify a technology that can improve operational efficiency and better serve our customers, we elevate it from our prototype environment to live data centers.
In 2024, we piloted cooling distribution units (CDUs) that isolate facility water from technical fluids used for liquid cooling. CDUs protect water resources by preventing leaks and contamination, which enables low-risk liquid cooling.
As we enhance our water management practices, we identify new opportunities to adapt our strategy to address emerging issues and incorporate new innovations. For example, we are sponsoring an academic research project to explore our upstream water-energy nexus in one region by comparing the embedded energy from water delivery with the embedded water in power delivery. The project—set for completion in 2025—will improve our understanding of how to balance water and energy needs for our operations.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is an important signal of ecosystem health. Development can lead to habitat destruction or fragmentation and cause noise and air pollution, among other impacts to biodiversity. We are dedicated to addressing these impacts and growing our footprint more sustainably.
Our Global Design Standards require all new builds to dedicate a portion of site area to green space, to support biodiversity and employee well-being. In late 2023, we updated the standards to prescriptively guide biodiversity consideration at new sites and, in 2024, developed a set of strategies to encourage the adoption of more impactful landscape and site design decisions. This “menu” of recommendations includes installing native plants, converting lawns to meadows, providing homes for pollinators, minimizing irrigation and increasing outdoor seating and access to natural spaces.
Benefits of biodiversity
Supports pollinators
Provides food security
Purifies air and water
Enhances soil health
Improves wellbeing
At existing sites, we empower employees to lead biodiversity initiatives. During our 2024 Earth Month competition, site teams globally submitted biodiversity enhancement projects, demonstrating our employees’ dedication and passion. We selected one winner from each region to receive funding to apply toward their biodiversity project. For example, our APAC site winner converted a lawn into a pollinator garden featuring local plants. Project participants also hosted an event to educate the community on the importance of pollinators and developed signage about Equinix’s biodiversity program—which we have customized and rolled out for other sites. Beyond the competition, employees and WeAreEquinix teams independently implemented projects to enhance biodiversity.
Biodiversity areas also benefit our customers and communities. At an IBX in Zurich, Switzerland, teams host customers, regulators and community members for tours of the site’s dedicated biodiversity area. An Equinix data center in Warsaw, Poland provides community members, employees and customers with honey from its beehives.
We are working to track the biodiversity projects that have been implemented across our global footprint to establish a baseline that will allow us to measure the impact of these initiatives. Armed with this knowledge, we can further hone our recommendations and strategies for new and existing sites.
As we work internally to develop processes and metrics, we are also contributing to efforts to publish a standardized methodology for biodiversity benefit accounting (BioBA) to measure the impact of offsite water stewardship projects, like our project to restore peatland in northern Finland (see below). This methodology is being developed by the Pacific Institute, the CEO Water Mandate, LimnoTech, The Nature Conservancy and Second Nature Ecology + Design to help businesses and governments better understand and address biodiversity loss.
Case Study
Private sector support for public land restoration
Recognizing biodiversity as a critical factor in combatting climate change and maintaining planetary health, we extend efforts beyond our own sites. With Neoen, one of our renewable energy partners, we have co-funded a peatland restoration for an old-growth forest in Hyrynsalmi, Finland. Our financial support will help return drained peatlands to their natural state and restore streams to protect endangered species. The project demonstrates that cooperation between companies and the public sector can enable new multichannel ways of financing effective activities that support nature.
