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The social media giant has announced it will restore more water than it uses globally within the next decade, intensifying the competition between tech firms to become carbon neutral.
Your nan’s favourite source of stale memes and clickbait headlines, Facebook, has just announced plans to become ‘water positive’ by 2030.
This means the company intends to restore more water than it consumes across the world – not just its US offices and firms. It hopes to be the first of the top-end Silicon Valley brands to do so.
Yes, believe it or not, giant tech companies use vast amounts of water to run and operate. Datacentres, which store servers and user information, require a ton of electricity. This in turn generates heat and is regulated and cooled with water.
Facebook uses so much water that it has begun to affect farmers and local industries, particularly in America. The Guardian highlights one datacentre in Albuquerque, US, which is granted access to 0.5 billion litres of water rights a year.
This has caused issues with local businesses as they also need similar levels of access, and any expansion by Facebook could force them to cease operations.
The social media giant has already begun work to reduce its reliance on water with the development of new cooling technologies for its datacentres.
It says this has boosted the company’s water efficiency by 80% compared ‘to the industry standard’, but a water positive operation will require active restoration in struggling local areas – not just a net zero cooling model.
So far, Facebook has invested in projects that restore 850 million gallons of water annually in six US states. These include New Mexico, California, and Utah. Other areas around the world are expected to follow suit soon, with the UK and India having plans already in place.
Microsoft has also been experimenting with water and servers in recent years too. In 2020 the company announced its first ‘underwater server’ that was far more environmentally friendly and efficient than traditional office spaces, providing local users with more consistent and reliable internet.
