Renewable and carbon-free electricity procurement is the biggest part of meeting our climate-neutral goal because we defined our target to include the emissions from electricity supplied to customer equipment. Reducing our energy demand with efficiency measures only affects our support equipment, and efficiency alone won’t get us to climate neutrality. We have to make the switch to carbon-free electricity. 

In addition to considerations of cost and reliability, CyrusOne follows a carbon-free energy procurement hierarchy to guide our energy planning and purchases. We screen all of our energy purchases, screening for generation sources that do no significant harm. Beyond that aspect, we strive to support renewable energy generation projects that are additional (the project would not have happened otherwise), regional (contributing to the same grid where the energy is used), and bundled (where delivery of power remains “bundled” to renewable energy certificates).  

Since 2021, all of our European facilities have operated on 100% renewable electricity, and since 2022 more than half of our global electricity has been procured as renewable. Even facilities that are not 100% renewable can offer customers some form of renewable electricity as an upgrade. We continue to sign new renewable and carbon-free deals each year, quickly growing our renewable electricity portfolio.