Facebook vowed to power its operations with 100 percent renewable energy by 2021. The company seems to be well on its way to this goal – last year 86 percent of the company’s energy usage came from renewable sources.
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They published their first sustainability report last week, where they accounted that their sustainable energy usage was up 35 percent from the previous year, nearing their goal ahead of schedule. To power the company’s operations, Facebook now has 1.3 gigawatts of wind and solar projects online. This includes a new massive solar farm in Texas, which provides 359mW of the company’s energy usage.
According to their report, they offset more than 100,000 metric tons of carbon emissions in 2019, which is the equivalent of taking 22,000 passenger cars off the road. It reduced its greenhouse gas emissions from its operations by 59 percent.
Facebook also claimed that it is committed to giving back to the communities where their facilities are located. It mentions as an example its servers located in Odense, Denmark. Here it plans to recover heat generated by these servers and will donate it to a local district heating company. This will help the city to phase out coal by 2022.
It will also try to improve its water usage footprint. According to Facebook, it saved over 3 billion gallons of water in 2019 (11.36 billion litres). It has also invested in watershed restoration projects in various US states.
“All that said, we know there is more work to be done. Now more than ever, businesses need to think not only about managing their operational impact but about working with others to leverage their technical strengths and address sustainability challenges,” Rachel Peterson, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure, wrote in the report.
