IONOS, a leading European digitalisation partner for small and medium-sized businesses, has announced its Climate Strategy 2030. While IONOS has long been committed to environmental sustainability, the new strategy includes a long-term plan for the future of its data centres as well as its office targets.
By 2030, IONOS aims to reduce data centre carbon emissions by 55% from 2019 levels, actively working to reduce Scope 1 emissions from diesel by switching to biofuel-powered generators where possible. The company is also continuing its commitment to sourcing 100% renewable electricity. This is the most significant contributor to IONOS‘ minimised Scope 2 carbon emissions, under the Greenhouse Gas (GHP) Protocol.
In addition, IONOS plans to have renewable energy generation, such as solar photovoltaic panels, on-site at 50% of its own data centres. While the company currently uses trusted carbon offsets (Scope 1 and 2), its primary goal is to reduce reliance on these through proactive carbon reduction measures.
Measuring and reducing the value chain
IONOS will also look beyond its direct operations. The company commits to measuring and reducing carbon emissions from its value chain (Scope 3). It will establish a carbon footprint in 2024 and explore actions in areas that are most likely to be high-impact, such as server lifecycle and data centre construction. As a first step, IONOS will engage 90% of its key tech-ops suppliers by spend, to set supplier climate targets.
While data centres account for the majority of IONOS’ impact, the company will target 100% renewable electricity in its global offices, adding up to 100% renewable electricity use overall. Additionally, IONOS will target 100% electric vehicles in its company car fleet.
“We are proud of our environmental sustainability achievements so far,” said Achim Weiss, CEO of IONOS. “Our new 2030 Climate Strategy will build upon our previous initiatives and target 100% renewable energy across all operations, as well as further reduce our carbon footprint and push our suppliers to follow suit. The next step towards this strategy is evaluating the use of waste heat from our data centres.”
Worcester data centre as a blueprint
In October 2022, IONOS opened its most sustainable data centre to date in Worcester, UK. This will serve as a blueprint for how the group will build and design data centres in the future. Some of the sustainability design features incorporated include:
- 10% of total energy from on-site solar power
- Backup generators powered by biofuel, reducing carbon emissions by 90%
- Carbon-neutral (offset) steel used in construction
- On-site bee and bug hotels to improve local insect biodiversity
- Best-in-class energy efficiency
