Equinix takes the initiative

Not only is Equinix practising what it has committed to but is engaging with other companies to help promote change towards renewables.

Equinix also announced today that it has signed on to the World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles, joining 34 founder signatories that includes Digital Reality. The intention of the principles is to effect a market shift to achieve their sustainable energy goals and has six criteria to achieve those goals:

  1. Greater choice in procurement options
  2. More access to cost competitive options
  3. Longer and variable-term contracts
  4. Access to new projects that reduce emissions beyond business as usual
  5. Streamlined third-party financing
  6. Increased purchasing options with utilities

Equinix has also joined the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center (BRC), a platform aimed at creating pressure on power companies to provide power through renewable energy. SunEdison is one of the founder members.

It will be interesting to see whether it can also translate this to other regions. As these lobby groups grow either power companies will need to consider how they can provide the energy or companies like SunEdison will try to find ways to bring energy to those companies using its renewable expertise.

Hervé Touati, Managing Director at Rocky Mountain Institute
Hervé Touati, Managing Director at Rocky Mountain Institute

Hervé Touati, managing director, Rocky Mountain Institute is delighted that Equinix is joining the platform and in a canned statement said:

“Equinix is demonstrating its sustainability leadership in the fast growing, power intensive, data center industry. It is exciting to have Equinix as a member of the BRC, working with SunEdison, one of our founding members, to reach impressive renewable targets in record time.

“I am also pleased that, as a member of our BRC community, Equinix is ready to take steps to share some of its experience with other corporate buyers to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy. The shared goal of our community is to add another 60 GW of wind and solar energy by 2030, and we need more companies like Equinix to blaze the trail.”

Conclusion

This is a huge step in the right direction for Equinix, both for the company and for those seeking to change from Carbon emitting power sources to renewables. The more companies that take initiatives such as this the lower the carbon output will be. Investment in renewable energy will also be boosted by this deal and it will help lower the cost of entry for the technology.

Karl Strohmeyer, President of the Americas at Equinix (Source LinkedIn)
Karl Strohmeyer, President of the Americas at Equinix

Data centres globally are hungry for power and while many service providers are announcing new datacenters, not all of them are green yet.  Equinix are one of the companies leading the way in the charge for green data centres. Something that  Karl Strohmeyer, president, Equinix Americas is clearly proud of as he commented:

“Equinix’s purpose is to power the digital economy and we believe that it is important to do this in an environmentally sustainable way. This PPA is a major milestone in achieving our long-term goal of reaching 100 percent renewable power and it solidifies Equinix’s position as a global data center leader in sustainability.”

1 COMMENT

  1. […] brush proceed identical to Equinix as it looks to go green. Whether they will go as distant as Equinix in their query stays to be seen as a Equinix CO footprint is distant higher. Workday talks about VPPA’s rather than PPA’s nonetheless as in Pleasanton they will cruise […]

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here