CyrusOne’s recent work to become net water positive has been rewarded by The Environment + Energy Leader Awards program. The company has received a Top Project of the Year Award, lauding its exemplary environmental and energy management work in the data centre industry.
The Environment + Energy Leader Awards recognise excellence in products and services that provide companies with environmental and energy benefits and in projects implemented by companies that improved environmental or energy management and increased profitability. It honoured CyrusOne for making the Chandler, Arizona, campus the first net positive water data centre.
The Chandler campus is in an extremely high water-stress region. The company significantly cut the facility’s water intake by using their water-free cooling design, using only small amounts for humidification, facility maintenance, and domestic water. The company also teamed with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation and the Arizona Land and Water Trust to restore water flows to the region using Water Restoration Certificates, which are generated by helping local farmers switch to high-efficiency irrigation systems that allow more water to stay in natural waterways. Through these credits, the company restored 40 per cent more water than they used in 2019.
The project reduced embodied water in the supply chains of customers, gave more water supply in the regional watershed for local communities and protected the local habitat by the San Pedro River, the last major free-flowing river in the American Southwest. Today, the campus restores more water than it withdraws.
The company will use the knowledge gained from the Chandler campus at other facilities to meet its 2040 net positive water target. The company has already applied these same techniques to their second net positive data centre in Carrollton, Texas, another high water-stress region.
