2024 Data Centers sustainability report

Building a greener future for customer data

Our customers are transforming the ways that people live and do business around the world. At the same time, in the face of the climate crisis, these companies have set ambitious decarbonization targets. We take our responsibility to enable the delivery of these commitments extremely seriously. 

Corporate sustainability is often referred to as a journey, but it can also be seen as something you build piece by piece over time. It requires strong foundations, significant investment, consultation and collaboration, a clear and durable blueprint for the future and a broad mix of expert suppliers and workers. Over the past decade, Iron Mountain Data Centers (IMDC) has become an acknowledged expert in this process as it applies to data centers, and 2024 saw us move up another level.

In 2024 our facility design continued to align with all Climate-Neutral Data Center Pact targets for Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE). By the end of the year, ahead of target, we also aligned all of our new builds with the BREEAM sustainable building certification criteria. In addition to reaching these targets, we made significant progress with the restructuring of our power procurement to hourly-matched carbon free energy, expanding our tracking capability internationally. We invested in battery storage system design, renewable backup fuels, solar and tidal power. Based on this and all the work that has gone before, we improved our Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE), PUE and WUE to their best levels ever, while delivering advanced decarbonization solutions for customer power.

This impacts our core business. As the world continues its shift to a digital economy, data centers have become a crucial part of the customer energy supply chain. We provide power to customers in the same way that utilities provide power to us, and we have similar opportunities to support a clean energy transition. As our customers report their GHG emissions, they need to know the details of the power they use in our data centers - not just the number of kilowatt hours, but the sources of those hours, and the provenance of those sources. Only then can they communicate clearly to their customers, investors and regulators how sustainable their digital footprint is. 

Sustainability targets can be hard to reach, particularly in such a fast-growing and demand- driven sector, where speed to market is a major advantage. Reaching these targets is a major achievement for our design and planning, construction and environmental team as well as a testament to the long-term commitment of senior management to the IMDC sustainability program.

I am also extremely pleased to see our levels of customer and community engagement getting stronger year on year. We want to be the best possible service provider and neighbour, and I ́d like to take this chance to congratulate all the employees who consistently go the extra mile, whether it is to satisfy our customers or to support the communities where we operate. A customer Net Promoter Score of +54.2 and 41,759 volunteer hours create a great platform to build on, and one we should be proud of.

I believe that this report shows that our ability to build sustainability into our data centers and operations globally at a time of steep industry growth is second to none, covering everything from design and build to operational efficiency, the provision of carbon-free power, and offering exceptional customer and community support. I hope that when you have read this overview you will agree.

Yours sincerely,