Meta says it plans to be "water positive" by 2030
Meta sets targets and projects to reduce and restore water use in its data center watersheds.
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta has detailed steps and cited progress toward becoming "water positive" in 2030, in its data center operations.
The social media and AI company said, in a blog post, its water stewardship rests on three pillars: maximizing efficiency and minimizing water use, supporting water restoration projects, and publishing detailed water data.
Meta added that it plans to restore 200% of what it consumed in "high water-stress regions" and 100% in "medium water-stress regions".
It described efforts to limit operational water use by selecting data center cooling designs that match local conditions, highlighting that some sites use closed-loop liquid cooling with dry coolers, which it said requires no operational water for cooling and limits water to domestic, cleaning and fire protection needs.
Meta said its Beaver Dam, Wisconsin data center will use such a system and that its estimated annual water use, once operational, will be less than that of two full-service restaurants.
During the construction of its Kansas City, Missouri, data center, the company said it saved more than one million gallons of potable water by capturing and repurposing stormwater for dust suppression.
Meta noted that it uses AI to optimise cooling performance.
The company claimed that it had funded or supported more than 40 water restoration projects since 2017 across nine 'watersheds'. It also reported that, in 2024, operational restoration projects returned more than 1.59 billion gallons of water to high and medium water-stress regions, and that once fully implemented the projects are expected to restore between 2.9 and 3.4 billion gallons annually.
Meta said it is also funding local water infrastructure, including more than $70 million to build a water and wastewater treatment facility in Kuna, Idaho that was gifted to the city, and more than $200 million in infrastructure investments for its Richland Parish, Louisiana site.
It also pledged to continue disclosures of water withdrawals, restoration projects and progress in its annual sustainability report and environmental data index, and to share cooling advancements through the Open Compute Project.
The Recap
- Meta aims to become water positive in 2030 for watersheds
- 2024 projects returned more than 1.59 billion gallons
- Progress will be reported in the annual sustainability report
