CyrusOne is a leading global data center developer and operator specializing in delivering state-of-the-art digital infrastructure solutions. With more than 50 high-performance mission-critical facilities worldwide, the Company ensures the continued operation of digital infrastructure for hundreds of customers, including approximately 200 Fortune 1000 companies.
The IT equipment that fills our data centers consumes large amounts of electricity and generates substantial heat as a byproduct of operations. To keep this equipment cool, many data centers evaporate huge amounts of water – millions of gallons a month at a single facility. Water scarcity is one of the most commonly predicted consequences of climate change, and in many regions the impacts are already being felt. Approximately half of our facilities are in regions already experiencing high water stress, according to the World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, while other regions where we operate are predicted to become high stress by 2040.
, data centers that consume large amounts of water to operate are a liability. As competition for water increases, these facilities may face operational interruptions or require costly retrofits to less water-intensive cooling methods. Also, water issues could cause friction with local communities, damaging the reputations of companies and the industry at large.
In an attempt to do not only “less harm” but also “more good,” we have set a target to make all our facilities in high water stress regions into net positive water facilities. In partnership with environmental nonprofits, we fund restoration of water flows in these regions through verifiable mechanisms like Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) Water Restoration Certificates® (WRCs). If we can restore at least 20% more water than we , we consider this to be a net positive water facility.
Since starting the program in 2019, we have restored more than 90 million gallons of water in Arizona and Texas. We restore at least 20% more water than we withdraw at these facilities each year, resulting in a net impact of more than 17 million gallons of additional water in regional watersheds over the past six years.
To illustrate the impact of our water restoration, let’s look at CyrusOne’s data center campus in Phoenix, Arizona, a region designated as “extremely high water stress” by WRI. When we opened our most recent facility on the campus – Phoenix (PHX8) – in October 2023, we were committed to making the new facility net positive water from the start. In its first 12 months of operation, PHX8 consumed approximately 538,000 gallons of water for irrigation, maintenance, and humidification, while using water-free cooling. To ensure net positive water status, we restored 646,000 gallons, or 20% more than withdrawn, to the regional watershed.
However, the real scope of our water impact is only visible when compared to the amount of water that PHX8 would be withdrawing if it used traditional evaporative cooling. In contrast to PHX8’s estimated annual water consumption of approximately half a million gallons, a water-cooled data center of the same size might use as much as 150 million gallons each year. Over the expected 30-year life of the facility, that would amount to more than 4.5 billion gallons of water at a water-cooled facility, the equivalent of more than 6,700 Olympic-sized swimming pools. In contrast, we estimate that PHX8 will use only about 17 million gallons (about 26 Olympic pools) over the same time period. With our net positive water program, we expect to restore about 20 million gallons over the facility’s lifetime instead of withdrawing 4.5 billion gallons – a huge difference in lifetime impact, especially considering this is only one of our eight Phoenix facilities!
Arguably more important than our internal water stewardship efforts has been our success raising awareness of water issues within the data center industry since we initiated our net positive water program in 2019. By the end of 2022, several major technology companies had announced their own net positive water ambitions, largely following our methodology. For example, this Data Center Dynamics article “AWS pledges to be water positive by 2030” highlights that AWS aims to return more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations by 2030. It also mentions that Google, Meta, and Microsoft have pledged to become water positive by 2030. There’s been a marked increase in water discussions in industry sustainability reports as well. While we can't claim full credit for this shift, we believe our advocacy for water conservation has inspired others to scrutinize their own water use more closely.
