Our Sustainability Goals
As a global organization, Leaseweb is dedicated to creating a better world. We take meaningful steps to make green computing a reality, from optimizing our data centers and reducing energy consumption to reducing plastic packaging in our offices. We are committed to making a difference, read more about this in our sustainability statement.
Climate Neutral Certification
Leaseweb Netherlands and Leaseweb Germany have been awarded the Climate Neutral Data Center Certificate. This certificate confirms that our data centers meet the requirements of a circular economy, to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. Successfully passing this audit was a requirement for us as a signatory of the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact.
Green Initiatives at Leaseweb
Green Data Center Selection
Globally, we choose data centers with the best Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). PUE is a metric that helps determine the energy efficiency of a data center. It is a ratio of the amount of power needed to operate and cool the data center vs. the amount of power drawn by the IT equipment in the data center. Data centers that do not operate efficiently will use more energy and have higher PUE readings. At Leaseweb, we choose data centers that have the lowest PUE readings.
Additionally, wherever we can, we use green power. For example, all our Montreal data centers use 100% hydroelectric energy, and in the Netherlands, we select data centers that incorporate adiabatic cooling. This is a process of reducing heat by a natural phenomenon that regulates temperature and humidity, allowing for a more sustainable solution.
Energy Efficient Infrastructure Selection
At Leaseweb, we optimize our equipment to be energy efficient so that our customers use and spend less. We select servers with energy efficiency modes that deliver, by default, the most energy-efficient performance. This includes a mode that consumes a low amount of energy when the servers are idle. The servers that are not sold to a customer are switched off entirely.
We focus on offering cloud platforms that allow our customers to combine workloads and optimize how the equipment is being used. Additionally, we offer a balanced product portfolio with efficient Central Processing Units (CPUs) that consume as little power as possible but provide the power our customers need. We use FLASH-storage as our chosen type of storage since it has high-speed performance and low power consumption. This provides the best possible power-to-performance ratio.
Recycling and Packaging Hardware
When a server has lived out its life, we don’t throw it away. Rather, we destroy the data and reuse what we can. The rest is sent to a third party to be recycled. In doing this, we significantly reduce our waste. Additionally, when we order new equipment in bulk, individual small pieces are not packaged separately to reduce the amount of plastic we use.
Employee-level Initiatives
At Leaseweb, we pride ourselves on communicating sustainability to our employees. The Leaseweb Green Team is responsible for spearheading new green initiatives and consists of members from every department within Leaseweb. All offices include recycling bins, automatic and efficient lighting, and no plastic cups (we avoid plastic as much as food regulations allow). We have implemented a hybrid work policy which reduces employee travel and to top it all off, this website is run on green energy and has been verified by the Green Web Foundation!
European Regulations We Comply With
The Energy Efficient Directive (EED) regulation is implemented by the European Union. Large enterprises are required to perform energy efficiency audits every four years. If your organisation falls under the EED Audit Obligation, you need to report to the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO).
The Do No Significant Harm principle (DNSH) identifies six criteria for determining whether an economic activity causes ecological harm. Leaseweb complies with all six criteria, including GHG emissions, water protection, circular economy, pollution control, climate change adaptation, and ecosystem protection.
The European Green Deal aims to have zero net emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) by 2050 and includes policies for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030. In accordance with European climate laws and the Green Deal, the Climate Neutral Data Pact is an agreement to make data centers climate neutral by 2030. Leaseweb, in cooperation with the European Commission, helped create this pact. The agreement was initialized through Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE), of which we are a founding member.
