Methodology - Green Power Reporting
This topic details the Equinix methodology used for calculating customer allocated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to customers’ use Equinix co-location services. Calculated GHG emissions are made available to customers in the Equinix Sustainability Tool tab located within the Customer Portal.
For detailed instructions on using the Equinix Sustainability Tool, please view our product manual. For information on data interpretation, view the Sustainability Tool FAQ. If you are unable to find the answers to your questions within the above resources, for additional support, customers can open a help ticket in ECP.
Greenhouse Gas Accounting
Equinix conducts its annual GHG emissions accounting process in accordance with the World Resources Institute (WRI) Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard. Corporate energy, renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions data are externally verified by a third party in accordance with Limited Assurance ISO 14064-3 Standards.
Location- and market-based GHG emissions factors for each of Equinix’s approximately 270 International Business Exchanges (IBXs) are identified annually as a part of Equinix’s ongoing greenhouse gas accounting program. Location-based emissions factors are derived from data sets published by government agencies and/or from other publicly available sources relevant to the geographic location of each individual IBX. For market-based emissions calculations, Equinix uses emissions factors from our relevant electricity suppliers if available and applies emissions factors related to Energy Attribute Certificates or related to renewable energy procured directly for each IBX, as applicable. Sites that are 100% covered by renewable energy can claim zero associated market-based emissions.
Equinix follows best practice as defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol in sourcing our emissions factors. As this dataset is prepared by a third-party consultant for Equinix’s use, we are not able to disclose it publicly. See Appendix for emissions factors sources.
Organizational Reporting Boundary
Equinix uses the operational control approach as defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to define our organizational boundary for emissions accounting. As Equinix controls the power purchased at sites, Equinix reports on the carbon impact of purchased electricity for customer IT equipment and mechanical and electrical (M&E) overhead as within our (Equinix’s) Scope 2 emissions. Therefore, Equinix procures renewable electricity coverage for electricity consumption at our sites and retires associated Energy Attribute Certificates in Equinix’s name.
Our Green Power Reports can serve as an attestation of the retired renewable energy against our sites and can be used by our customers as evidence of decarbonization of their attributed electricity emissions at the site in market-based accounting
Logic and Calculations
The Sustainability Tool contains calculated electricity usage and GHG emissions metrics. Calculation methods for the metrics that fall within these two categories are detailed in this section.
Electricity Usage
Customer electricity usage falls into two categories: customer IT equipment electricity usage and overhead M&E electricity usage. Customer IT equipment electricity usage is the electricity consumed by the customer’s equipment deployed within Equinix facilities. Overhead M&E electricity usage is the portion of overhead electricity usage for the site allocated to the customer. M&E usage is calculated in accordance with ISO 30134 standards.
Customer IT Equipment Electricity Usage
Customer IT Equipment Electricity Usage will, in most cases, match power usage in customer power usage reporting. Differences may occur due to estimation logic present in the Green Power Report.
Customer power usage is pulled from our databases based on contract data: for each cage that was active during the reporting year, the Sustainability Tool seeks out consumption data for that contract.
Customer IT equipment electricity usage data utilized by the Sustainability Tool is collected through Branch Circuit Monitoring (BCM) power metering where available. BCM data is metered at the circuit level and aggregated into monthly, cage-level totals for use in the Sustainability Tool. For the small number of sites that are not BCM-enabled and any other instances in which no metered power usage is available for a given cage, monthly IT usage is estimated based on customer draw-cap.
BCM versus non-BCM IT usage calculations are determined as follows:
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If all BCM data is available for the reporting period, IT usage is calculated using metered BCM data.
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If BCM data is available for the reporting period but incomplete due to missing or inaccurate readings,
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Customer draw cap is used to estimate monthly cage-level usage for any entire month with missing readings.
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A mix of BCM metered data and estimates based on draw cap is used to estimate monthly cage-level usage when one or more days in the month have BCM data but one or more days are missing BCM data.
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If no BCM data is available for the reporting period, customer draw cap is used to estimate monthly cage-level usage for the entire reporting period.
Calculations for BCM IT electricity usage are as follows.
Customer Overhead M&E Usage
M&E overhead electricity usage is allocated to each customer based on the intensity of their IT consumption relative to the site’s total IT consumption. M&E consumption is calculated as follows, where Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is total site IT electricity consumption divided by total site electricity consumption.
Total Customer Electricity Usage
Total Renewable Energy
Total renewable energy is the portion of total electricity consumption covered by Equinix’s renewable energy purchases.
Emissions
Location-Based Emissions
Market-Based Emissions
Data and Logic Changes
Equinix continually strives to improve the quality of data we provide to customers. To this end, we periodically make changes to our backend data and product logic that may result in differences between historically provided reports and newly generated reports. In most cases, any differences that result from these methodology refinements will be small, but questions or concerns may be submitted via an ECP support ticket.
Non-BCM Customer IT Equipment Electricity Usage
Conversion Factors
| Conversion | Conversion Factor |
|---|---|
| kVA to kWh | 730.5 |
| kWh to MWh | .001 |
| kVA to kW | 1 |
| Pounds to metric tons | 0.000453592 |
Equinix Scope 2 Emissions Factor Sources
| Emissions Source | Emissions Factor Source |
|---|---|
| Scope 2 (Electric - US) | Utility Emission Factors (2024) US EPA eGRID 2023 (2021 data) |
| Scope 2 (Electric - EU) | Utility Emission Factors (2024) RE-DISS Residual European Mix - 2022 v.1 |
| Scope 2 (Electric Power - Canada) | Utility Emission Factors (2024) Environment Canada - 2023 National Inventory Report (2022 Data) |
| Scope 2 (Electric Power - Australia) | Utility Emission Factors (2024) Australian Government National Greenhouse Account Factors. Published 2024 |
| Scope 2 (Electric Power - Global if not listed) | Utility Emission Factors (2024) International Energy Agency (IEA) CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion 2023 - Year 2021 |