Digital Realty (Interxion) registers an exclusive corporate forest in the MITECO registry in collaboration with Reforestum

Today's society is more digital than ever and is expected to continue to evolve steadily upwards in the coming years. Internet adoption and usage reached new highs, with currently 5.16 billion internet users (65% of the world's population) spending more than 6 hours a day using the internet.

Large volumes of information need to be stored, processed and connected to sustain this digital lifestyle. This is done in buildings called data centres, where the IT infrastructure of companies and service providers is housed and interconnected to generate the services that make up the digital economy.

These facilities can have a considerable environmental impact as they require a significant supply of electricity to power and cool the equipment, among other resources.

Aware of their responsibility in consuming the resources needed to develop and sustain the digital world, data centres have always focused on a sustainable and environmentally friendly service. "Data centres are an inherent part of the digital transformation of society," says Raquel Figueruelo, Marketing Director of Digital Realty in Spain. "We are a recent sector that was born and developed in a context of sustainability awareness, therefore caring for the environment is in our DNA," she adds.

As an example of climate responsibility and commitment, it is interesting to explore the trajectory of Digital Realty (formerly Interxion). In line with industry trends, Digital Realty has practised energy efficiency principles since its inception and has incorporated additional carbon footprint reduction targets. It has also had a renewable energy supply at its Madrid facility since 2008 and has incorporated energy efficiency and responsible use of resources into the design, construction and operation of its buildings since it was born.

The company's climate journey includes its adherence to the Data Centre Climate Neutrality Pact in 2021, an initiative of data centre operators in Europe and associations of cloud service providers with the European Union through which they commit to achieving climate neutrality in 2030 to meet the objectives of the European Sustainability Pact in advance. At the group level, it also stands out for setting climate impact reduction targets by joining the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

In this context of climate commitment, in 2020 Interxion implemented a system for measuring its emissions. Since then, it has set targets for reducing its carbon footprint by committing to a 5% reduction in emissions each year and has also decided to support offsetting projects. "These initiatives are tailored to each country. In our case, we considered initiating rigorous local afforestation projects, since our objective is that the plantations should be on Spanish territory and certified," says the Marketing Director".

That same year, he began to look for the supplier that best met his requirements. "We chose Reforestum because, in addition to offering projects that met our requirements and being agile, the tool for viewing the areas included in our offset contract gave us added value regarding credibility and traceability.

Thus, the company has invested through Reforestum in several certified Spanish reforestation projects with the capacity to absorb all the emissions generated by its activity from 2019. As can be deduced from Digital Realty's corporate profile on the Reforestum platform, this organisation has contributed to planting some 1,700 trees of more than 20 different species since the collaboration with Reforestum began.

This contribution started with acquiring a forest share in the Genesis project, followed by a Shared Forest in the Calahorra de Boedo project, culminating in an exclusive Corporate Forest, which has been registered in its name since 22 February 2023 in the MITECO registry as a carbon sequestration project. "Over the years Reforestum has easily adapted to our needs by offering different shared or exclusive reforestation spaces according to our needs. After several years of investing to offset our carbon footprint, we wanted Digital Realty to be included in the MITECO registry".

Beyond covering their carbon footprint offsetting needs, they also highlight the added value of the Reforestum platform: "It helps us to get involved in the initiative and see that our efforts are going to a specific place that we can even visit. It is not only a communication tool but also supports the action we are taking".

The registration of Interxion's first exclusive corporate forest in MITECO marks a milestone in the relationship between Digital Realty and Reforestum, opening the door to more alternatives in using the platform in the near future.