Climate crisis in the current world is not a subject we are unaware of. The crisis demands action from all of us in order to protect and preserve the planet Earth. The only home we ever know. Facebook has taken a step forward by investing in renewable energy and it is now committed to reach a net of zero emissions across its value chain in 2030. Facebook is also working “to connect people with authoritative climate information.” Now Facebook is building on these efforts and has announced a new goal to be water positive by 2030. This means Facebook “will return more water to the environment than we consume” for our global operations.
Facebook says that reaching this ambitious goal will require the combination of “water restoration efforts starting in regions that are highly water stressed, as well as technologies to increase water efficiency” at their facilities. It has also invested in new ways to make their data centers more water and energy efficient with a focus on sustainable solutions.
As of 2020, Facebook’s entire global footprint of offices and data centers has been supported by 100% renewable energy and they reached net zero emissions. The same was achieved by investing in the development of new clean energy generation in the places where Facebook used the most electricity.
“We’ve already been taking a similar approach with water, and have invested in water restoration projects that will replenish more than 850 million gallons of water per year. In regions experiencing high levels of water stress, these projects have already restored about 595 million gallons of water in 2020. These water restoration projects offer significant benefits both to local communities and their surrounding ecosystems, particularly in water stressed regions.” Facebook says on their website.
The range of these efforts is from “sustaining aquatic habitats by supplying fresh water to river systems during dry seasons and providing drinking water to Navajo Nation families, to modernizing agricultural irrigation infrastructure to reduce the amount of water being extracted from at-risk sources.“
For their current water restoration work which is under way in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Utah, Oregon and California. Facebook has partnered with trusted, local environmental non-profits and utility providers to identify projects that would have the greatest impact. In the years to come Facebook plans to expand this work internationally, in Ireland, Singapore, India, UK, and Mexico.
“Beyond restoring water to local watersheds, we will continue to find ways to reduce our water usage across our operations. For example, we use onsite recycled water systems at some of our global offices. And we’ll keep working to develop new technologies and operational efficiencies to make our data centers even more water efficient.”
“Over the last decade, these technologies, including allowing our data centers to be cooled with outside air, have enabled our data centers to operate 80% more water efficiently on average compared to the industry standard. And we see opportunities for additional gains in the coming years, particularly as our infrastructure grows, and we’ll need to develop water-efficient designs for different climates.” says Facebook.
Becoming water positive by 2030 is a long term goal for the social media giant but Facebook is confident that it can be achieved. It even believes that it is commitments like these which make meaningful contributions to the global race for building a sustainable future.
