GHG Emissions, Commercial, Sourcing Renewables  -  July 15, 2019

QTS commits to 100% RE

QTS Realty Trust, a provider of hybrid colocation and mega-scale data center solutions in North America and Europe, announced its commitment to procure 100% of power from renewable energy sources by 2025. The company has also joined RE100.

QTS announced the target in its recently published 2018 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Initiatives Report - a first for the company and one of the first in the data center industry. 

"For QTS, renewable energy is a very important part of our larger sustainability strategy documented in our recently published ESG Report," said Travis Wright, Vice President, Energy & Sustainability, QTS. "As one of the largest data center services providers, we are committed to lead the industry in minimizing carbon footprint, water reclamation, recycling and a variety of other important clean energy initiatives."

The report noted that QTS is now using more than 304 million kWh of green power annually, which represents more than 32% of its U.S. operations' total power needs. QTS was recently ranked by the EPA as the 4th largest user of green power among data center companies and the 12th largest user among the EPA's Top Tech & Telecom companies overall.

The company’s sustainability strategy includes repurposing brownfield properties and transforming them into state-of-the-art data centers. To date, the company has reused or recycled over 550 million pounds of industrial materials.

To further reduce carbon footprint and power costs for customers, QTS has implemented Energy Star Programs in all facilities that include blanking panels that save more than 4 million kWh annually, time and motion sensors, and other systems including a patent pending with the US Patent Office for air cooling design.