Equinix has issued $1.2 billion in green bonds to keep advancing its sustainability initiatives, which include helping to reduce Scope 3 emissions, implementing fuel cells to power data centers and making its facilities emissions neutral by 2030.
This is the fourth green bond the digital infrastructure company has issued, now totaling $4.9 billion. Equinix says it is the world’s fourth-largest issuer of green bonds.
The company will use the bonds for existing and future eligible green projects. The disbursements can cover project expenditures for up to two years of the green bonds’ issuance date until the maturity date of the bonds and can be used in development and redevelopment of projects that include green buildings, renewable and efficient energy, sustainable water management and clean transportation.
Equinix has developed a green finance framework and additional standards for using green bonds and loans to be transparent in its use of the funds.
There is a growing focus on sustainability in energy-intensive data centers. They use what the Department of Energy estimates to be 2% of all the electricity in the US and markets for the data center power and liquid cooling markets surging. Companies like Meta and Bluebird Network are advancing their own efficient data centers.
The company plans to help curb Scope 3 emissions from its own operations as well as its customers, especially in light of new SEC regulations, and has committed to making its data centers net zero in Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030. Equinix is using Science Based Targets initiative standards to reduce emissions and obtain renewable energy goals.
Some of Equinix’s projects using green bonds include its Co-Innovation Facility in Virginia that showcases advanced power, cooling and control technologies for use in future data centers. That includes using fuel cells and liquid cooling.
In February, Equinix opened an IBX data center in Germany with green principles and in the next construction phase will install an aquifer thermal energy storage system; the data center will be powered with 100% renewable energy. The company is also looking at ways to provide waste heat from the data center to external customers.
Sustainable debt, including green bonds, surpassed $1.6 trillion in 2021, nearly doubling from the year before, according to BloombergNEF. Last year Walmart issued a $2 billion green bond, which was reported to be the largest by a US corporation. Amazon also issued a $1 billion sustainability bond last year.
