Sweden
Microsoft To Build Sustainable Datacenters In Sweden
Sweden has made reducing its carbon footprint a priority for years, and it’s working.
The country currently produces more than half of its energy from renewable energy sources. If that wasn’t enough, Sweden also has plans to become the world’s first fossil-fuel free nation, which comes in accordance to its commitment to Roadmap 2050.
According to Sweden.se, Roadmap 2050 is “an EU initiative whose objective is to reduce GHG emissions by at least 80 percent below 1990 levels for all of EU.”
Sweden’s commitment to reducing its emissions isn’t just good news for the environment, it’s good for its economy. For years, Sweden has led by example in the realm of sustainability, which one could argue, has helped to foster the creation of numerous Swedish companies committed to sustainability – IKEA, Volvo and Einride, to name a few. Now, that same commitment to sustainability is attracting global businesses that hope to expand their reach, without leaving behind a carbon footprint.
In 2018, Microsoft acquired 130 hectares (321 acres) near Gävle and Sandviken in the Stockholm region. But it wasn’t until recently that the company announced in a blog post its plans to build some of the most advanced and sustainable datacenters in the world. The centers will derive their power from 100 percent renewable energy sources and plan for zero-waste operations.
Noelle Walsh, CVP, Cloud Operations & Innovation, Microsoft Corp was quoted in the blog post as saying, “We intend for our datacenters in Sweden to be among the most sustainably designed and operated in the world with the ultimate ambition of achieving zero-carbon operations. The datacenter design we’re developing will further Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future.”
While Microsoft’s decision to build the datacenters in Europe comes in response to the growing need for cloud and internet services across the continent, it’s clear that its decision to build the datacenters in Sweden is the result of wanting to invest in a country that also puts a premium on the importance of sustainability.
