CyrusOne updates 2022 Sustainability Report after ISOS Group validation
Transparency and resilience are at the heart of CyrusOne’s sustainability practices, and now we continue that mission with an updated version of our 2022 Sustainability Report thanks to completing third-party assurance.
ISOS Group, a pioneering corporate responsibility and sustainability firm that helps drive value creation for the world’s most innovative brands, has reviewed and validated the data in our third annual Sustainability Report. While many companies validate their renewable energy use and carbon footprint, CyrusOne has gone beyond and validated additional metrics, demonstrating our broad approach to being a responsible partner.
In addition to assuring greenhouse gas emissions, CyrusOne went beyond the industry norm to seek assurance and provide transparency for these important topics:
- Water: Validating CyrusOne’s net-positive water claims required assuring a variety of water metrics, including water restoration.
- Waste: CyrusOne sought assurance of waste metrics to provide transparency, even though waste is not a material issue for its business.
- Safety: CyrusOne sought assurance on the three different layers of safety data that we report: construction safety, operations contractor safety (security and facility maintenance), and employee safety.
- Diversity: As part of CyrusOne’s commitment to the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion Pledge, we received assurance on diversity metrics for both employee diversity and diverse supply chain spend.
“This is our way of telling our customers ‘Don’t take our word for it’,” said Kyle Myers, vice president of Environmental Health, Safety and Sustainability at CyrusOne. “We want customers to know that whether we’re talking about carbon emissions or safety performance, our numbers are solid and can be relied upon, just like our data centers.”
As a newly private company with the backing of partners KKR and GIP, we remain as firmly committed as any publicly traded company to full disclosure about our impact on the world. Our commitment to transparency was already evidenced by our sustainability report’s compatibility with four third-party standards: Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards, The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and Sustainable Development Goals Alignment.
In the report, we are proud to note how we:
- Met the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact Early: As of June 2021, CyrusOne’s European facilities met their 2030 carbon reduction commitments to the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact eight years early, achieving 100% renewable electricity and offsetting the small amount of diesel used for backup generation.
- Expanded Renewable Electricity Procurement: 2021 saw a seven-fold increase over 2020 in CyrusOne’s total megawatt hours of renewable electricity purchased, all without the use of national unbundled RECs. We also signed contracts for future delivery of an additional 107-megawatt hours/year in renewable power. In addition, our updated report reflects the renewable electricity procured by customers for their equipment in our data centers.
- Expanded our Net Positive Water Commitment: In 2021, CyrusOne achieved net positive water status at its growing data center in Allen, Texas – the third data center in its net positive water portfolio. This began with water-free cooling at the facility and continued with restoring water using BEF Water Restoration Certificates® to exceed the remaining consumption by 20%, providing benefits to regional wildlife and the local community.
- Pushed the Boundaries of Water Disclosure: The 2022 report again promotes increased water disclosure in the data center industry by not only sharing onsite Water Usage Effectiveness data, but also providing estimates of electricity supply chain water consumption that challenge the industry’s conventional wisdom that evaporating water onsite saves total water consumption.
- Expanded Enterprise Risk Management: The latest report provides industry-leading transparency into CyrusOne’s Enterprise Risk Management process, including details on the company’s approach to data protection, information security, business continuity and climate risk assessment.
- Acted on Diversity & Inclusion: In2021, CyrusOne joined the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion pledge, providing the company with an enhanced framework to engage with stakeholders on DEI issues and an opportunity to bring third-party expertise and additional resources to existing DEI efforts.
The 110-page publication covers corporate governance, environmental impact and social responsibility. You’ll find exhaustive reporting, charts, graphics, statistics, numbers, methodology and highlight stories that confirm our successes and reveal areas where we plan to improve. Read the full report here.
