Item 1. Business

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Item 1. Business

Overview: Powering the World’s Digital Leaders

Equinix is the world's digital infrastructure companyTM. Digital leaders harness our trusted platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that powers their success. We enable our customers to access all the right places, partners and possibilities they need to accelerate their advantage. Platform Equinix® combines a global footprint of International Business Exchange™ ("IBX®") data centers in the Americas ("AMER"), Asia-Pacific ("APAC"), and Europe, the Middle East and Africa ("EMEA") regions, interconnection solutions, edge services, unique business and digital ecosystems and expert consulting and support. Equinix was incorporated on June 22, 1998 as a Delaware corporation and operates as a REIT for federal income tax purposes.

Al Avery and Jay Adelson founded Equinix as a vendor-neutral multi-tenant data center ("MTDC") provider where competing networks could connect and share data traffic to help scale the rapid growth of the early internet. The company’s name, Equinix (composed from the words "equality", "neutrality" and "internet exchange"), reflects that vision. The founders also believed they not only had the opportunity but also the responsibility to create a company that would be the steward of some of the most important digital infrastructure assets in the world. Two decades later, we have expanded upon that vision to build Platform Equinix, with unmatched scale and reach.

Our interconnected data centers around the world allow our customers to bring together and interconnect the infrastructure they need to fast-track their digital advantage. With Equinix, they can scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences and multiply their value. We enable them to differentiate by distributing infrastructure and removing the distance between clouds, users and applications in order to reduce latency and deliver a superior customer, partner and employee experience. The Equinix global platform, and the quality of our IBX data centers, interconnection offerings and edge services, have enabled us to establish a critical mass of customers. As more customers choose Platform Equinix for bandwidth cost and performance reasons, it benefits their suppliers and business partners to colocate in the same data centers and connect directly with each other. This adjacency creates a network effect that attracts new customers, continuously compounds our existing customers' value and enables them to capture further economic and performance benefits from our offerings.

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In 2021, we opened nine new IBX data centers, opened six new xScaleTM data centers via our joint ventures, and entered three new markets resulting in an increase in our total number of IBX and xScale data center facilities to 240, which includes the MU4 and GN1 data centers which opened in January 2022. 2021 highlights include:

  • New data center openings included nine new IBX sites in the following metros: Bordeaux, Frankfurt, Genoa, Milan, Munich, Osaka, Perth, Silicon Valley and Singapore, with Bordeaux and Genoa being new market entries.

  • Six additional xScale sites opened in 2021 in Frankfurt, London, Osaka, Paris, Sao Paulo and Tokyo, bringing the total number of xScale data centers to eight. xScale data centers serve the needs of the growing hyperscale data center market, including the world's largest cloud service providers, and are engineered to meet the technical and operational requirements and price points of core hyperscale workload deployments. xScale data centers also offer access to our comprehensive suite of interconnection and edge services that tie into the hyperscale companies' existing access points at Equinix, thereby increasing the speed of connectivity to their existing and future enterprise customers. In xScale sites, hyperscale companies can consolidate core and access point deployments into one global provider to streamline and simplify their growth.

  • In December, we announced our expansion into Africa through the planned acquisition of MainOne, a leading West African data center and connectivity solutions provider, with presence in Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. The transaction has an enterprise value of $320 million and marks the first step in Equinix's long-term strategy to become a leading African carrier neutral digital infrastructure company. The acquisition is expected to close in Q2 of 2022, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions including the requisite regulatory approvals.

*•*In September, we announced that we extended Platform Equinix into the strategic Indian market, following the completion of the acquisition of the India operations of GPX Global Systems, Inc. ("GPX India"). The $170.5 million transaction includes a fiber-connected campus in Mumbai with two data centers. The expansion into India is intended to unlock opportunities for Indian businesses expanding internationally and for multinational corporations pursuing growth and innovation in the Indian market.

  • In June, we entered into an agreement to form another joint venture in the form of a limited liability partnership with GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, to develop and operate additional xScaleTM data centers in Europe and the Americas (the “EMEA 2 Joint Venture”). In October, we also entered into an agreement to form a joint venture in the form of a limited liability partnership with PGIM Real Estate ("PGIM"), to develop and operate xScale data centers in Asia-Pacific (the "Asia-Pacific 2 Joint Venture"). Combined with our existing xScale joint ventures in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas, these joint ventures will bring our global xScale data center portfolio to more than $7.5 billion across 34 facilities when completed and fully constructed.

  • In June, we opened our first data center in Bordeaux, France ("BX1"). With direct fiber links to Equinix's International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) sites in Paris, this new facility will provide global businesses and local authorities located in the region with the ability to connect directly and securely to the world's digital economy, via comprehensive digital ecosystems. Increasing connectivity opportunities further, BX1 will provide a landing hub for the new submarine cable, AMITIE, which will link France to the United States and Great Britain, creating a new European gateway for data traffic between the United States and Europe.

  • In March, we announced that Equinix Metal™ had significantly advanced its global scale, features and ability to enable as a service consumption of the full value of Platform Equinix®. With these new and enhanced capabilities, Equinix Metal customers can consume interconnected infrastructure with the control of physical hardware and the low overhead and developer experience of the cloud, helping them move faster in today's competitive environment. This announcement also included the expanded availability of Equinix Metal in 18 global metros, the addition of new networking features to support hybrid multicloud architectures, the certification of new software integrations on Equinix Metal and the launch of a managed appliance as a service solution.

Industry Trends: Large-scale global trends are driving a digital-first strategy

Digital transformation is changing where and how businesses deploy and deliver IT services to employees and is creating new digital business models for partners and customers. The convergence of these global trends and the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have created additional pressure for many companies to transform. The collective influence of these trends is driving complexity and risk that must be addressed in multiple locations for companies to effectively compete in the global digital economy. These trends include:

  • The Digital services trend** is the continued digitizing of the back office to support digital business throughput. By 2022, 65% of global GDP will be digitalized, and most organizations will realize greater value by combining digitization and sustainability. This trend forces the need for a digital infrastructure optimized for proximity to, and interconnection with, networks and clouds. This in turn enables digital development with elastic scale and has contributed to a 3x increase in the multicloud, multiregion adoption rate over the last two years as businesses scale the digital core.

  • The Digital participation trend** is digitizing trade and accessing digital marketplaces (digital B2B commerce). By 2025, 75% of organization leaders will leverage digital platforms and ecosystem capabilities to adapt their value chains to new markets, industries and ecosystems. This forces the need for organizations to interconnect digital infrastructure with research communities, supply chains and marketplaces, which enables composable business models. The fifth annual Global Interconnection Index ("GXI"), a market study published by Equinix, shows that SaaS is now the largest IT spend line item as companies move to public and private SaaS alternatives. Organizations that fail to leverage cloud, SaaS or partner digital ecosystems have shown two to three times slower growth over the past two years.

  • The Digital proximity trend** means digitizing the front office for localized and personalized delivery—to customers, employees and operations where business happens, as well as digitizing the physical world for the physical infrastructure and operations intelligence needed to optimize commercial and environmental impact. Data shows that shifts in population and commerce centers will result in over 50% of new infrastructure being local by 2023, which will require a digital infrastructure in proximity to, and interconnecting, experiences, things (IoT) and intelligent operations.

These trends are accelerating the need for companies like Equinix who can provide a secure, agile global business platform that leverages digital interconnection—or private data exchange—to deliver real-time interactions around the world.

As part of their digital transformation, businesses in most industries are shifting their centralized IT infrastructures to the edge to bring digital services closer to users for better performance, which has become a significant driver of digital business value. To realize the full potential of the edge, IT organizations require greater interconnection bandwidth. Interconnection bandwidth is defined as the total capacity provisioned to privately and directly exchange traffic, with a diverse set of partners and providers, at distributed IT exchange points inside carrier-neutral colocation data centers. Private interconnection capacity between businesses, as reported in the GXI, is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 44% by 2024, reaching 21,485+ terabits per second of data exchanged annually.

Worldwide Interconnection Bandwidth Capacity Growth (2020 - 2024) in Terabits per Second (Tbps)

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Source: GXI Volume 5

Equinix Business Proposition: To be the platform where the world comes together, enabling the innovations that enrich our work, life and planet

In 2021, we continued to build new data center, interconnection and edge services capabilities to further our vision to power the world’s digital leaders. On Platform Equinix, digital leaders can reach the most strategic global markets with the largest ecosystem of digital partners, with infrastructure that assembles and deploys virtually in minutes. We offer a comprehensive, integrated suite of data center, interconnection, edge services and products to over 10,000 enterprise and service provider customers worldwide.

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The following are the leading revenue generating product and other offerings that collectively make up Platform Equinix:

Data Center Solutions

Our global, state-of-the-art data centers meet strict standards of security, reliability, certification and sustainability. Offerings in these data centers are typically billed based on the space and power a customer consumes, are delivered under a fixed duration contract and generate monthly recurring revenue ("MRR").

  • International Business Exchange****TM** Data Centers consist of more than 230 IBX vendor-neutral colocation data centers worldwide, providing our customers with secure, reliable and robust environments (including space and power) that are necessary to aggregate and distribute information and connect digital and business ecosystems globally. IBX data centers provide access to vital ecosystems where enterprises, network, cloud and SaaS providers, and business partners, directly and securely interconnect to each other.

  • xScale****TM** Data Centers are designed to serve the unique core workload deployment needs of a targeted group of hyperscale companies, which include the world's largest cloud service providers. With xScale data

centers, hyperscale customers add to their core hyperscale data center deployments and existing customer access points at Equinix, allowing streamlined expansion with a single global vendor.

  • IBX SmartView** is a fully integrated monitoring software which provides customers visibility into the operating data relevant to their specific Equinix footprint as if they were in-house. The software provides online access to real-time environmental and operating data through the Equinix Customer Portal or API integrations. With real-time alerts and configurable reporting, IBX SmartView allows customers to maintain their IBX operations and plan for future growth.

Interconnection Solutions

Our interconnection solutions connect businesses directly, securely and dynamically within and between our data centers across our global platform. Our interconnection solutions are typically billed based on the outbound connections from a customer and generate MRR.

  • Equinix Fabric™** provides secure, on-demand, software-defined interconnection. Built specifically for digital infrastructure, Equinix Fabric enables businesses to connect globally to their choice of thousands of networking, storage, compute and application service providers in the industry’s largest infrastructure ecosystem. As the foundation of Platform Equinix’s interconnection capability, Equinix Fabric enables customers to quickly and easily connect their physical and virtual digital infrastructures.

  • Cross Connects** provide a point-to-point cable link between two Equinix customers in the same IBX data center. Cross Connects deliver fast, convenient, affordable and highly reliable connectivity and data exchange with business partners and service providers within the Equinix ecosystem.

  • Equinix Internet Exchange™** enables networks, content providers and large enterprises to exchange internet traffic through the largest global peering solution. Service providers can aggregate traffic to multiple counterparties, called peers, on one physical port and handle multiple small peers while moving high-traffic peers to private interconnections. This reduces latency for end-users when accessing content and applications.

  • Equinix Connect** is an agile, scalable, resilient and high performing internet access solution. With at least two upstream ISPs in each market, Equinix Connect offers the resiliency that organizations demand and direct connections to major content destinations, resulting in superior performance. It provides the convenience of a one-stop shop and the flexibility required to connect to the internet as a primary or secondary access solution. Available globally in more than 40 markets, Equinix Connect allows businesses to grow as their needs grow with scalable bandwidth options to meet their emerging usage requirements.

  • Fiber Connect** provides dark fiber links between customers and partners in multiple Equinix IBX data centers. Fiber Connect enables fast, convenient and affordable integration with partners, customers and service providers across the global Equinix digital ecosystem. It supports highly reliable, extremely low-latency communication, system integration and data exchange.

Edge Services

Our edge services help businesses rapidly deploy as-a-service networking, security and hardware across our global data center footprint - as an alternative to buying, owning and managing the physical infrastructure. Our edge services are typically billed based on the number of instances and the capacity used by a customer and generate MRR.

  • Network Edge** allows customers to modernize networks within minutes, by deploying network functions virtualization ("NFV") from multiple vendors across Equinix metros. Companies can select, deploy and connect virtual network services at the edge quickly, with no additional hardware requirements.

  • Equinix Metal™** allows enterprises, SaaS companies and digital service providers to provision interconnected bare metal resources in minutes instead of months, while reducing the capital expenditures and operational requirements of owning hardware. They can also reduce cloud costs while retaining the flexibility and operational expenditures of cloud services via on demand, reserved or spot market capacity in Equinix’s global data centers using the Equinix Metal portal or DevOps-friendly APIs and integrations.

  • Equinix Precision Time™** provides secure Precision Time Protocol ("PTP") and Network Time Protocol ("NTP") Time as a service for distributed enterprise applications on Platform Equinix®. The service uses redundant and strategically located equipment and the high-performance network backbone of Equinix

Fabric™ to deliver secure, reliable and precise time synchronization. Customers gain access to the product portal, allowing them to provision, manage and monitor their service.

Colocation Offerings

Equinix offers a variety of colocation offerings designed to speed and streamline digital transformation and data center deployments for its customers. These services are typically billed based on consumption and generate non-recurring revenue ("NRR").

  • Equinix Smart Hands** provides around-the-clock, on-site, operational support service for remote management, installation and troubleshooting of customer data center equipment. Using Equinix IBX data center technicians, Smart Hands allows customers to manage and outsource their business operations and maximize uptime whether from within an IBX data center or from a remote location.

  • Equinix Infrastructure Services** (EIS) provides customers with a one-stop shop for data center installation, migration and equipment procurement. With proven practices developed over many years of successfully building, migrating and optimizing our customers’ data center needs, EIS services lend expertise to address larger, more complex data center jobs including installation and implementation of new builds, planned migrations, structured cabling, labelling and documentation, procurement recommendations and coordination, and secure de-installation.

Competition

While a large number of enterprises and service providers, such as hyperscale cloud service providers, own their own data centers, we believe the industry is shifting away from single-tenant solutions to outsourcing some or all of their IT housing and interconnection requirements to third party facilities, such as those operated by us.

Historically, the outsourcing market was served by large telecommunications carriers who bundled their products and services with their colocation offerings. The data center market landscape has evolved to include private and vendor-neutral MTDC providers, hyperscale cloud providers, managed infrastructure and application hosting providers, and systems integrators. It is estimated that Equinix is one of more than 2,200 companies that provide MTDC offerings around the world. The global MTDC market is highly fragmented. Each of these data center solutions providers can bundle various colocation, interconnection and network offerings and outsourced IT infrastructure solutions. We believe that this outsourcing trend has accelerated and is likely to continue to accelerate in the coming years, especially in light of the movement to digital business as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Equinix is differentiated in this market by being able to offer customers a global platform that reaches 27 countries and contains the industry’s largest and most active ecosystem of partners in our sites. This ecosystem creates a “network effect” which improves performance and lowers cost for our customers and is a significant source of competitive advantage for Equinix.

Customers

Our customers include telecommunications carriers, mobile and other network services providers, cloud and IT services providers, digital media and content providers, financial services companies, and global enterprise ecosystems in various industries. We provide each company access to a choice of business partners and solutions based on their colocation, interconnection and managed IT service needs, and delivered 99.999% operational uptime across our global data centers in 2021. As of December 31, 2021, we had over 10,000 customers worldwide. No one customer made up 10% or more of our total business revenues for the year ended December 31, 2021.

The following companies represent some of our leading customers and partners:

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We serve our customers with a direct sales force and channel marketing program. We organize our sales force by customer type, as well as by establishing a sales presence in diverse geographic regions, which enables efficient servicing of the customer base from a network of regional offices. We also support our customers with a global customer care organization.

Human Capital

As of December 31, 2021, we had 10,944 employees worldwide with 5,056 based in the Americas, 3,611 based in EMEA and 2,277 based in APAC. Of those employees, 4,693 employees were in engineering and operations, 1,855 employees were in sales and marketing and 4,396 employees were in management, finance and administration. As of December 31, 2021, approximately 74% of our workforce identified as men and approximately 25% identified as women. Women's representation in leadership (VP and above) increased from 28% to 31% year-over-year.

At Equinix, we strive to build a culture where every employee, every day, can say “I’m Safe, I Belong and I Matter” and where our workforce, at all levels, reflects and represents the communities in which we operate. Our objective is to continue to make our culture a critical competitive advantage, engaging every leader and every employee in the process. To ensure we are upholding our core corporate values and making progress towards our aspirational goals, we monitor employee satisfaction through a quarterly pulse survey, which is one of our listening mechanisms. In 2021, employee satisfaction scores ranged between 82 - 84 out of a 100 each quarter. We recognize that attracting, developing and retaining talent at all levels is vital to continuing our success and offer industry competitive compensation and benefits, along with development opportunities to help every employee achieve their full potential. The virtual recruiting environment necessitated by the global pandemic has created new opportunities for Equinix to find talent. We have benefited from new talent sourcing programs such as our global new-to-career programs as well as a pathways program to enable career transition for veterans and women returning to the workforce. In 2021, we continued to enhance our portfolio of development programs for our employees and introduced a system-enabled approach to goal setting and development planning to drive objectivity and achievement. We also continued to offer development tools and opportunities to our employees such as online learning, manager training, professional coaching and 360 degree assessments for eligible employees.

We are integrating a focus on diversity, inclusion and belonging ("DIB") into every aspect of how we run our business. In 2020, we embarked on a multi-year DIB strategy with governance through a DIB Council chaired by our CEO and CHRO, and in partnership with our Sustainability Program Office, that oversees our progress on environmental, social and governance ("ESG") matters. Our DIB strategy focuses on attracting, retaining and developing a diverse, global workforce; building leadership capability; and empowering our people to bring DIB to life. We are focused on creating multiple pathways to reach new talent from diverse communities. In 2021, we forged partnerships and invested in tools and systems to grow and support our inclusive hiring practices and made updates to our recruitment marketing to reach a wider candidate pool more effectively. We also embedded diversity and inclusive competencies and behaviors in our leadership profiles and added coaching tools as well as manager training on leading inclusive teams to our development program. Our Equinix Employee-led Connection Networks ("EECNs") are integral to our DIB strategy and play an important role in creating belonging and advocating for the needs and goals of communities with common identities, cultures or backgrounds. Each of our nine EECNs represents an identity/community that has faced historical discrimination or shares unique challenges. We recognize that creating the best workplace and culture we can requires a global effort with localized awareness and approaches. Late in 2020, we launched WeAreEquinix employee teams empowered to create, localize and promote purpose, inclusion and belonging for their locations across the world. Through live and virtual events, campaigns, and collaboration with the business, these volunteer leaders bring local opportunities to engage in the following areas: Wellbeing, Green and Sustainability, Community Impact, Fun and Creativity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, and Employee Networks. We currently have WeAreEquinix teams in 15 locations.

In 2021, we launched our “I Matter” initiative to enable employees to voluntarily self-identify by adding their data across dimensions of diversity, including race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability in accordance with country regulations so that we may better understand the global employee experience.

Equinix representatives have joined the G100 Talent Consortium Task Force on Racial Inequity in Business to consider core inequity issues, including anti-racism, bias, and hiring and promotability practices, in order to develop tangible best practices that companies can use as guide rails to increase representation and career mobility for black, indigenous and people of color ("BIPOC") employees. In 2021, we hosted a Days of Understanding event as part of an initiative of CEO ACT!ON, a pledge Equinix has taken along with hundreds of other companies to embrace difference in our organizations, educate our people and build more inclusive cultures inside and outside of our workplaces. As part of this partnership, three Equinix employees joined ACT!ON’s inaugural two-year fellowship program focused on identifying, developing, and promoting scalable and sustainable policies and corporate best practices that address systemic racism and social injustice to improve societal wellbeing. Equinix also joined the Alliance for Global Inclusion, a coalition of global organizations working together to bring inclusivity and full equity to the workplace. Finally, in 2021 Equinix partnered with McKinsey to provide leadership development to our Black/African American leaders through the Black Leadership Academy.

Our Community Impact program promotes connection and belonging, and enables employees to give back, with the support of Equinix, to the communities in which we work and live. In 2021, our employees volunteered at approximately 2,230 nonprofits worldwide.

We believe our commitment to the highest standards of honesty, integrity and ethical behavior differentiates our business as much as our technology. We promote these high standards through a number of policies including the Equinix Code of Business Conduct. All employees are required to complete trainings on ethics and the company’s anti-bribery and corruption policies. In addition, we maintain a confidential ethics helpline where employees are encouraged to speak up if they have any questions or concerns that our code is being violated. We have a zero-tolerance, non-retaliation policy that protects our employees when they speak up.

In a year again disrupted by the unprecedented global pandemic caused by COVID-19, we continued a number of precautionary measures in line with our business continuity and pandemic plans to minimize the risk of operational impacts and to protect the health and safety of employees, customers, partners and our communities. During the pandemic, we have focused on a careful, safe and responsible opening of our offices based on guidance from health experts and other leaders from around the world. As we look forward to the future of work, and more importantly amplifying Equinix’s vibrant culture, we are providing flexible, hybrid work opportunities in many roles, enhanced collaboration technologies for everyone, and activity-based workspaces at home or onsite. We recognize that the new normal will require changing behaviors. As such, we are providing learning opportunities and best practices to ensure our meetings, events and work sessions are inclusive and equitable for virtual and in-person participation. Employee well-being has been central to these efforts, driven globally through offerings such as health programs, ergonomic support, technology reimbursements, and wellness days.

We believe that all of these programs and initiatives support our human capital goals, align with our company culture, and increase employee satisfaction.

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Sustainability

At Equinix, our Future First sustainability strategy rallies our people and partners to envision a better future and then do what it takes to make it happen. As the world’s digital infrastructure leader, we have the responsibility to harness the power of technology to create a more accessible, equitable and sustainable future. The ESG initiatives comprising our Future First strategy focus on the material issues that have the greatest impact on our stakeholders and our business. We continue to progress on our sustainability goals and look to build a business and world that reflects our purpose to bring the world together on our platform to create the innovations that will enrich our work, life and planet. We document our ESG progress in our Annual Report as well as in the annual Corporate Sustainability Report located on our sustainability website: sustainability.equinix.com.

In 2021, we committed to becoming climate neutral across our global operations by 2030 and set a validated science-based target (“SBT”) for emissions reduction across our global operations and supply chain. Our climate commitments are a critical step to ensure that we continue to advance investments and innovations to reduce greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in alignment with the Paris Climate Agreement.

As a part of our Future First sustainability strategy, we published an Environmental Sustainability and Global Climate Change Policy in 2021 to detail our approach and practices related to the environment, climate change, resource efficiency and reporting. In alignment with our strategy and policy, we are also evaluating our material climate change risks and opportunities based on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”). We are continuing our work to embed climate change risk management into our business where relevant.

Environmental Performance

Equinix was the first data center company to commit to a long-term goal of 100% renewable energy across our global portfolio. We use local renewable energy sources where possible, seek new or recently built renewable sources and advocate for favorable renewable energy policies. In the U.S., we purchase more than 2.3 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of green power annually from a portfolio of renewable energy projects, including 225 MW of wind power under long-term virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs) located in Texas and Oklahoma. In 2020, over 90% of our global electricity consumption, and 100% of U.S. electricity consumption, was covered by renewable energy sources.

We are committed to transparently measuring and reporting our global carbon footprint across direct (Scope 1), indirect energy (Scope 2) and indirect value chain (Scope 3) emissions. Since 2015, we have achieved a 50% reduction in GHG emissions on an absolute basis (Scope 1 and Scope 2 market-based metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (mtCO2e)), even as the company doubled its footprint in both energy consumption and number of sites. In 2021, CDP, a global non-governmental organization dedicated to helping investors and companies measure and manage their climate risks, recognized our commitments, actions and progress on climate change.

We received an 'A-' CDP leadership score for climate action and annual disclosures within the CDP Climate Change survey.

We are leveraging technology and innovation to encourage commercialization of solutions that will enable the “Data Center of the Future”. To support our ongoing sustainability initiatives and commitment to innovation, we issued green bonds totaling $1.4 billion in 2020 and an additional $2.3 billion in 2021. Our Green Finance Framework aligns our sustainability commitments with our long-term financing needs and highlights our pipeline of green projects and data center innovations. In 2021, we allocated $2.9 billion in net proceeds to finance or refinance, in whole or in part, ongoing and new projects in categories of green buildings, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

We are committed to advancing environmental progress across other areas of our operations. While energy usage, specifically electricity, is our largest environmental impact, to address the growing importance of water within our operations, we launched a Sustainable Water Management Program in 2021. We consider the consumption of water in the design and operation of our facilities and are developing a coordinated global approach to water measurement and management. Through our efforts to establish the European Climate-Neutral Data Centre Operator Pact in 2021, Equinix and the EU data center industry have also committed to advancing initiatives beyond renewable energy and energy efficiency, including water efficiency, waste reduction, and circular economy principles.

Sustainability Accounting Standards Board ("SASB") Disclosures

SASB published the Sustainability Accounting Standard ("Standard") for the Real Estate Industry in October 2018. We have aligned our SASB disclosures with the Real Estate Standard to enhance corporate disclosure around ESG performance. In our comprehensive disclosures in our annual Corporate Sustainability Report we also document our progress against metrics as outlined in other frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative ("GRI"), UN Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs") and TCFD. The following tables detail our energy metrics, aligned with the SASB Real Estate Standard. We intend to expand our reporting around the Real Estate Standard in the coming years.

The following metrics represent our colocation facilities performance in the calendar years specified. Energy, renewable energy and GHG emissions are independently assured to ISO 14064-3:2006 Standards for the quantification and reporting of GHG emissions (Scope 1, 2 and 3). Calendar year data for 2021 will become available in Q2 2022 and published in our annual Corporate Sustainability Report located on our sustainability website.

Energy Management: Energy Consumption

YearEnergy Consumption Data as a % of Floor AreaTotal Energy Consumed by Portfolio Area with Data Coverage (MWh)****(1)Like-for-Like Change in Energy Consumption of Portfolio Area with Data Coverage (MWh)****(2)Grid Electricity Consumption as a % of Energy ConsumptionEnergy Consumption from Renewable Sources**(3)** (kWh)Renewable Energy as a % of Energy Consumption (4)Like-for-Like Change in Energy Consumption from Renewable Sources of Portfolio Area with Data Coverage (MWh) (2) (3)Renewable Energy as a % of Electricity Consumption
2019**(5)(6)**94.9%5,711,000N/A94.4%5,168,00091%N/A91%
2020**(7)(8)**95.8%6,432,0006.2%93.2%5,695,00089%5.3%91%

(1)The scope of energy includes: energy used onsite (natural gas, diesel, chilled water), energy procured (purchased electricity, electric power from fuel cells under power purchase agreements).

(2)Like-for-like computed for stabilized asset list for the overlapping list of sites designated as stabilized in 2019 and 2020.

(3)Excludes renewable energy inherently supplied by the standard utility grid mix. Equinix buys renewable energy for the entire electricity consumption of sites including customer and overhead load. The instruments used include: Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) from Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPAs), RECs, International RECs (I-RECs), Guarantees of Origin (GOOs) and Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGOs) from suppliers, green tariffs and bundled contracts.

(4)Equinix's global renewable energy percentage reported for RE100 and CDP was 91%, which is comprised of 5,844 GWh of renewables out of 6,427 GWh of electric power consumption. The discrepancy in the totals arises from non-IBX data center sites' energy usage and non-electric power energy consumption

(5)2019 portfolio coverage excludes xScaleTM sites: PA8x, LD13x.

(6)2019 portfolio coverage excludes reseller sites: DA99, JK1, OS99, SH1.

(7)Recently constructed or acquired sites for which no utility data is available are excluded from the 2020 SASB metrics reporting boundary. These include certain data centers in AMER (DC21) and EMEA (MC1). Reseller sites are also excluded in the energy metrics (OS99, SH1).

(8)2020 portfolio coverage excludes xScaleTM sites: LD10x, LD13x, FR11x, SP5x, PA8x.

Energy Management: Green Building Ratings

Our environmental efforts aim to deliver meaningful and measurable progress against sustainability goals that positively impact our customers, partners, investors and employees. Our data centers are designed with high operational standards and energy efficiency in mind. Our data centers are planned holistically to incorporate the needs of our communities and we aim to minimize the use of all resources in our operations. We evaluate cost-efficient opportunities to enhance energy efficiency and buy renewable energy for existing or acquired sites.

We are protecting our planet's resources by pioneering green data center innovations and building and operating energy-efficient data centers around the world. Our Energy Efficiency Center of Excellence is driving a global approach to cooling our existing data centers more efficiently. The program engages customers to manage their implementations more sustainably at our facilities, leading to overall improved site efficiencies.

We certify our data centers to numerous green buildings and energy management certifications and schemes. These include USGBC LEED green buildings certifications, ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Standard, ISO 50001:2011 Energy Management Standard, BCA Green Mark, U.S. EPA Energy Star for Data Centers and others.

Data centers receiving green building ratings in 2020 and 2021 covered 1.1 million gross sq. ft. While we have additional certifications that are pending final submissions, the following new sites received ratings in 2020 or 2021:

Data CenterMetro AreaRating SchemeLevel Achieved
DA11Dallas, TexasLEEDSilver
DC15Washington, DCGreen Globes3 Globes
SV11Silicon Valley, CaliforniaLEEDSilver
SG4SingaporeBCA Green MarkGoldPlus
SG5SingaporeLEEDPending
ML5Milan, ItalyLEEDPending

In 2021, we had 16.8 million gross sq. ft., or 71% of our global footprint, in operation with green buildings and energy management certifications. Within the U.S., we had 3.7 million gross sq. ft., or 43% of our footprint, under certification, including 0.3 million of gross sq. ft., or 3% of U.S. footprint, having achieved U.S. EPA Energy Star for Data Centers. We are currently evaluating enrolling additional sites in the Energy Star program. We disclose these and other site-level details about our data centers on our sustainability website.

YearTotal Gross sq. ft. (million)Area of Eligible Portfolio with Green Building Rating (million sq. ft.)****(1)Eligible Portfolio with Green Building Rating (%)
Global Total through 202123.816.871%
U.S. Total through 20218.53.7 (LEED and Energy Star) 0.3 (Energy Star)(2)43% (LEED and Energy Star) 3% (Energy Star)

(1)Ratings included in our totals: ISO 50001 Energy Management, ISO 14001 Environmental Management, LEED green buildings certifications, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star for Data Centers, BCA Green Mark, NABERS and Green Globes.

(2)We are currently evaluating our approach to U.S. EPA Energy Star for Data Centers. In 2020, two sites received Energy Star for Data Centers recognition, representing 3% of our U.S. portfolio. In contrast, our U.S. portfolio has 18 LEED-certified data centers or 32% of the U.S. portfolio by gross square footage.

Our Business Segment Financial Information

We currently operate in three reportable segments comprised of our Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific geographic regions. Information attributable to each of our reportable segments is set forth in Note 17 within the Consolidated Financial Statements.

Available Information

Equinix owns and maintains intellectual property in the form of trademarks, patents, application programming interfaces, customer portals and a variety of products and other offerings.

We were incorporated in Delaware in June 1998. We are required to file reports under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). The SEC maintains an internet website at http://www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information.

You may also obtain copies of our annual reports on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and our current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to such reports, free of charge by visiting the Investor Relations page on our website, www.equinix.com. These reports are available as soon as reasonably practical after we file them with the SEC. Information contained on or accessible through our website is not part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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