ARK DATA CENTRES
Carbon offsets are not for all industries , but Squire advocates their importance in the company ’ s ability to reach its emissions reduction target of net zero by 2030 . The only way to mitigate emissions is to look deeper into their sources , which is challenging .
Squire says that due to the nature of Scope 3 , “ you don ' t have any real control over it . And we started last year looking at our Scope 3 emission and looking at the ones that we thought we could directly impact or have the most chance of impacting in our day to day operations .”
“ There ' s been quite a significant change . COVID-19 has done a lot for meetings over the internet , but you can ' t substitute key meetings with a zoom call . So there will be an increase in our business travel in 2022 compared to 2020 and 2021 , but it ' s going to be nothing as big , I hope , as it was in 2019 .”
The company is also very active in seeking changes beyond the data centre and employee commuting is an important one to consider . Based on the 2019 figures – as the unprecedented events in 2020 and 2021 saw increased homeworking – the company was able to analyse and report on the greenhouse gas ( GHG ) emissions involved in employee commuting .
“ We have reports on greenhouse gas emissions for 2019 and 2020 based on questionnaires from our staff and from our mileage records and in parallel to that , we ' ve started sharing our data ,” says Squire .
The firm is also encouraging its employees to make the switch to alternative energy sources for travel through the installation of electric vehicle charging points across its sites .
Squire says : “ All our data centre campuses now have electric vehicle charging points to promote electric vehicles on our sites and their use by those who have been sold on the idea of going electric .”
200 June 2022