©2024 Akamai Technologies
Cambridge, MA USA | January 25, 2021
Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the intelligent edge platform for securing and delivering digital experiences, today publishes the company's year-end report on its global sustainability practices. By instituting a number of efficiency initiatives, Akamai has continued to decouple its platform growth from energy usage. While 2020 traffic on the Akamai platform increased, driven by COVID-19 quarantine mandates, Akamai’s greenhouse gas emissions also decreased through platform efficiency and the use of renewable-sources of power.
Akamai is proud to be a part of the essential fabric of the internet. It believes that operating its business with a small environmental footprint is important to unlocking the potential of the internet and is an essential value for its customers and the communities in which it operates. In 2015, the company implemented a five-year plan focusing on reducing energy intensity across its global intelligent edge platform, investing in net-new renewable energy projects, reducing and managing greenhouse gas output, and responsibly managing e-waste. The sustainability report summarizes Akamai’s innovative efforts to reach those goals.
"The internet poses challenges for the environment and is responsible for what is said to be about 2% of global energy usage. And it emits as much carbon dioxide as the airline industry," said Mike Mattera, director, corporate sustainability, Akamai Technologies, Inc. "As a leading performance, security, and delivery provider, we share the responsibility for reducing the internet’s carbon emissions. That’s why back in 2015, we set goals to lessen our emissions by 30%, power our edge platform with 50% renewable energy, and recycle 100% of our e-waste all by the end of 2020. I am proud that we have met each of these goals."
Highlights of the Akamai 2020 sustainability report
- The company reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by over 30% since 2015.
- The 50% renewable energy goal was met through investments in net-new grid-connected renewable energy projects. Akamai’s three projects are now fully online: a wind farm in Texas, a solar array in Virginia, and a wind farm in Illinois. The renewable energy produced from those projects covers about 23% of Akamai’s global power needs.
- Akamai's intelligent edge platform used ten times less energy per unit of capacity than it did in 2015, even while the available capacity of the edge platform grew by more than 350%.
- In 2020, available capacity on the Akamai global platform grew by over 60% while the company was still able to reduce its scope 2 emissions by more than 50% from 2019 levels.
- To help customers meet their own sustainability goals, Akamai provides a customized report that details their unique global emissions as a result of their server and energy usage on our platform.
- Akamai established meaningful supply-chain education by partnering with sustainability organizations, engaging in public advocacy, and, with like-minded companies, to focus on expanding the benefits of a carbon-free internet.
- Akamai was an active proponent in key sustainability legislation in the commonwealths of Massachusetts and Virginia. The company was a vocal member of a coalition of clean energy businesses, environmental groups, grassroots groups and lawmakers that came together in support of the passage of the Virginia Clean Economy Act and Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Sustainability at Akamai
Akamai strives to take a leadership role in minimizing the environmental impact of information technology systems. The company’s sustainability initiatives are designed to measure and mitigate the impact of our business operations while maximizing and enhancing the benefits from sustainable business practices. Sustainable programs focus on several key areas – network carbon efficiency, electronic waste management, renewable energy procurement and an environmentally lower-impact corporate office selection and renovation program. #GreenwithAkamai
About Akamai
Akamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online. Our market-leading security solutions, superior threat intelligence, and global operations team provide defense-in-depth to safeguard enterprise data and applications everywhere. Akamai’s full-stack cloud computing solutions deliver performance and affordability on the world’s most distributed platform. Global enterprises trust Akamai to provide the industry-leading reliability, scale, and expertise they need to grow their business with confidence. Learn more at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog, or follow Akamai Technologies on X and LinkedIn.