Equinix and AT&T Collaborate to Help Customers Meet Climate Goals

In today’s global economy, there is an increasing responsibility for companies to actively incorporate measurable sustainability targets into their corporate strategies. So much so that it is quickly becoming a prerequisite for business investments and customer requirements. According to Gartner®, “The pressure on organizations to meet environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria is more widespread than most finance leaders might realize — 85% of investors considered ESG factors in their investments in 2020.”[i]  To achieve ESG goals, businesses need to collaborate with socially responsible and sustainable vendors and partners with a commitment to reducing scope 3 emissions.

Today we are announcing a new collaboration between Equinix and the recently launched AT&T Connected Climate Initiative. By joining forces, Equinix is helping AT&T in their efforts to enable their customers to reduce 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2035.

Collectively accelerating digital transformation

In addition to collaborating on environmental sustainability, Equinix and AT&T share a long history of delivering sustainable high-performance network services that reduce latency and scale seamless data exchange across secure digital infrastructures to our customers. Our combined services have helped digital leaders sustainably modernize their networks through greater network optimization and agility.

As the world’s digital infrastructure company™ with more than 220 data centers worldwide and the largest, most active global ecosystem of networks, clouds, and IT service providers, Equinix enables digital leaders to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that powers their success. AT&T Business is a valued reseller of Equinix colocation and interconnection services and has established direct on-net networking in most of Equinix’s data centers around the globe.

This collaboration provides enterprises with industry-leading connectivity solutions that accelerate digital transformation initiatives and facilitate the seamless and secure exchange of data, while reducing latency, increasing flexibility and improving overall network performance. One example of how Equinix and AT&T co-innovate is the development of an end-to-end metro edge infrastructure that delivers a consistent fan experience to live streaming and on-demand sports content.

Collectively meeting customers’ sustainability requirements

Equinix and AT&T are aligning with each other and their customers and partners on a common sustainability journey. The newly formed AT&T Connected Climate Initiative is setting an industry-leading target to work with businesses collectively to use connectivity solutions to reduce a gigaton of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which is equivalent to nearly 3% of total global emissions in 2020, by 2035.

Through the initiative, AT&T will work with customers and technology leaders to identify best practices, develop new product offerings and support innovative startups to scale existing and develop new 5G- and broadband-enabled climate solutions. Equinix will work with AT&T to provide highly secure access to energy-efficient sustainably designed and operated digital infrastructure, helping customers expedite their digital transformation and lower emissions.

The energy used to power technology solutions is a growing part of a company’s carbon footprint. Many companies don’t have the resources to focus on the energy efficiency of their digital operations. Together, Equinix and AT&T can provide customers with high-speed, low-latency interconnectivity while also lowering emissions — and that’s attracting sustainable, like-minded companies.

When customers use our solutions, they can transfer the operational scope 1 and 2 emissions of their data center footprint to scope 3 emissions, which are attributed to Equinix and AT&T as the suppliers. With our carbon reduction goals, proven expertise in power efficiency, and commitment to renewable energy usage, we are able to reduce our customers’ scope 3 emissions.

Collective driving sustainability 

Here are ways that Equinix and AT&T are reducing our own environmental impact on global operations and advocating for sustainable business across the industries we serve:

Equinix

As part of our Future First strategy, Equinix is committed to reaching global climate neutrality by 2030 and achieving our science-based target which aligns with the goals of the Paris Agreement 1.5 degree scenario. We have issued over $3.7 billion in Green Bonds to solidify our commitments and ensure the funding of our ongoing efforts to decrease our carbon footprint, improve our power usage effectiveness (PUE), and meet our pledge to use 100% clean and renewable energy across our global portfolio.

We are the only data center provider in our industry that is both working towards greening our own operations and supply chain, and also greening the supply chains of our customers who leverage our sustainable infrastructure. Our environmental commitments are important to our customers across both the private and public sectors — where environmental sustainability requirements are growing across their industries and showing up in their requests for proposal (RFPs). Our focus on customers will allow us to create a greener future for everyone.

Our commitments do not stop within our four walls; we are also committed to using our voice to influence our broader industry. By collaborating with like-minded companies, such as AT&T, to advance low-carbon energy policies, sharing renewable energy buying knowledge, driving sustainable supply-chain best practices and encouraging innovation in the design and operation of sustainable data centers, we are caring for the planet and doing our part to accelerate the world’s transition to a clean-energy economy.

Our environmental milestones include:

• Achieving over 90% renewable energy in 2020 for the third year in a row.
• Reducing carbon emissions by 50% from 2015 to 2020, even as our global use of power has doubled.
• Leading the formation of the Climate Neutral Data Centre Operator Pact, which commits Equinix and its European data center peers to becoming carbon neutral across Scope 1 and 2 emissions in Europe by 2030.
• Issuing $3.7 billion+ in green bonds in the U.S. and Europe to support multiple areas of innovation in green buildings, renewable energy, energy and water efficiency, waste reduction and clean transportation.
• Being noted as the 6th largest user of renewable energy in the U.S. by the U.S. EPA.

AT&T

As one of the world’s largest companies, AT&T is playing a role in creating a better, more environmentally sustainable future. We’re acting to address climate change and prepare for its impacts because it is good for our customers, for our stakeholders and for our planet.

As part of AT&T’s ESG goals, the Connected Climate Initiative complements our efforts to pursue carbon neutral operations by 2035.

To eliminate our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, we’re:

• Supporting the renewable energy marketplace – to date, we’ve purchased more than 1.5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity.
• Transitioning to a low-emissions fleet (hybrid and electric vehicles) and optimizing routes.
• Implementing thousands of energy-efficient projects across our networks and operations to reduce electricity use, emissions and costs.

Learn more about the Equinix and AT&T Sustainability programs.

You may also be interested in reading:

Equinix Sustainability Report

IDC – Equinix’s Sustainability Progress – IT Provider Corporate Responsibility Profile

[i] Gartner, “The ESG Imperative: 7 Factors for Finance Leaders to Consider,” Swetha Venkataramani, June 9, 2021.

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