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Both Meta and Microsoft issued strong corporate sustainability mandates several years ago that cover their company-wide operations.

However, the recent growth of data centres and the amount of steel and concrete normally associated with large facilities such as these has created a new challenge. As they begin to roll out what will be an impressive network of data centres, both companies have indicated Mass Timber ��������ion (MTC) will play an important role.

For its part, Meta’s goal is to achieve net-zero emissions across its operations by 2030, including Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 that encompass emissions from suppliers, construction, travel and product use. While the company has been a member in the Rocky Mountain Institute’s , and has , it is increasingly looking at wood as a better means to achieve their objectives.

“In general, sustainably-sourced, bio-based materials like wood entail lower embodied carbon than engineered materials like concrete and steel, and these materials store carbon sequestered during the natural processes that created them,” the company .

Meta’s first MTC structure was an administrative building in Aiken, S.C. This was followed by buildings in Cheyenne, Wyoming and Montgomery, Ala. More will follow, the company says.

The decision to increase the use of MTC is due to the carbon reduction achieved by the material itself versus traditional or even low-carbon concrete and steel.

“The carbon emissions associated with sustainably harvesting timber, milling it and manufacturing it to create usable materials for industrial application is typically far less than the emissions associated with manufacturing steel and concrete.”

And although MTC can be five to 10 per cent more expensive to use than traditional materials, assembly of prefabricated wood components reduces construction time and labour. These savings scale up in massive projects like data centres, significantly reducing carbons in the process. Being lightweight, any concrete required for foundations is reduced, another carbon saving. Meta also finds the density and char layer of MTC offer good fire resistance.

There are also proven benefits in terms of the health, well-being and productivity of staff when structures that include biophilic design utilizing exposed mass timber in work spaces help connect occupants with the natural environment.

Yet simply specifying mass timber is not going far enough, Meta has decided. 

“We require third-party audits to ensure wood is sourced and milled responsibly,” the company says. “These audits must demonstrate that wood can be transparently traced to the forest of origin, and these forests must be managed for long-term ecological health and social impact, including safe working conditions and fair wages for local communities.”

For its part, Microsoft has the ambitious goal to be “carbon negative” — that is removing more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits — across its operations by 2030. Going even further it intends by 2050 to remove the equivalent of all the carbon from the atmosphere the company has emitted since its founding in 1975.

For the construction of its newest data centres, Microsoft is taking a similar but somewhat different path than Meta towards achieving its corporate sustainability objectives. It will use MTC in combination with steel and concrete as a hybrid solution.

By its calculations, Microsoft its hybrid building model will reduce the embodied carbon footprint of two new data centres under construction in northern Virginia by an estimated 35 per cent compared to conventional steel construction and 65 per cent compared to typical precast concrete.

Emissions from current data centres are already impacting the environmental goals of both companies.

For example,  last May it had achieved a 6.3 per cent reduction in direct emissions over the previous three years. However, indirect emissions increased 30.9 per cent, driven by the growth of data centres and the hardware housed inside. The company will therefore impose a number of requirements covering not only the construction of new data centres but also on their massive computers and the energy that powers them.

Meanwhile, Microsoft will continue its commitment to its which invests in companies and venture funds to accelerate the development of markets for climate solutions like lower carbon building materials and clean energy.

The company has also invested in Swedish green steel producer which is currently building the world’s first large-scale green steel plant in northern Sweden that promises as much as a 95 per cent reduction in carbon emissions compared to traditional steelmaking.

Shifting away from traditional building methods and materials towards MTC is a complex exercise. However, the commitments demonstrated by Meta and Microsoft are a strong example for others.

John Bleasby is a freelance writer. Send comments and Climate and ��������ion column ideas to editor@dailycommercialnews.com.