Sustainability

Driving water efficiency in our data centers helps us achieve our water positive goal by decreasing the amount of water we need to restore. In a recent pilot project at our Los Lunas data center in New Mexico, we realized increased water savings by testing our relative humidity set points. Through the success of this pilot, we have rolled out new relative humidity set point changes to the majority of our operating fleet.

This report provides a closer look into our sustainability progress in 2020, as well as our broader commitment to address climate change.

This report shares the impact around our latest water restoration efforts.

Learn more about our commitment to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2030.

This report provides a closer look into our sustainability progress in 2019, as well as our broader commitment to address climate change.

Since 2011, we've shared our environmental footprint. Included are the last five years of electricity, greenhouse gas, and water data covering Facebook's operations.

We believe sustainability is about more than operating responsibly. It's an opportunity to support the communities we're a part of, and make a bigger impact on the world.

We are constantly exploring ways to drive data center efficiency and sustainability. A key piece of our approach is circular thinking, which is embedded into how we design, operate and manage the hardware in our data centers. By maximizing use of our server equipment, we stay ahead of rising power demands while also reducing our impact.

When we build new office spaces for our people, we strive to create sustainable workplaces by prioritizing the use of healthy and sustainable materials, creating solutions that advance employee wellbeing and minimizing our impact on the environment. While we will source 100% renewable energy for our operations in 2020, we also work to reduce our overall demand, which is why energy efficiency at our offices and other facilities is a key focus for Facebook.

In April 2016, when we began building the Clonee Data Center in County Meath—our first data center in Ireland and the second in Europe—we saw an opportunity to work with our general contractor to foster a zero-waste culture by finding inventive ways to reduce our materials footprint and recycle as much as possible

While we already minimize water use in our buildings by installing efficient restroom and kitchen fixtures and investing in drought-resistant landscaping, we wanted to do more to reduce overall water consumption. That’s why we collaborated with public and private sector partners to install our first blackwater treatment system at our headquarters.

Minimizing our water use is a key focus at Facebook, and we are proud to say our data centers use 80% less water than the average data center. When we started building our Los Lunas Data Center in New Mexico, a region known for its dry climate, we knew we wanted to partner to find sustainable solutions to address a shared water challenge with the community.