Start Campus joins Amazon Web Services, Google, Meta, and Microsoft among others in the industry-wide effort to drive the reduction of carbon within the digital infrastructure sector

  • Start Campus joins the iMasons Climate Accord (ICA), signing an industry-wide pledge to battle climate change by reducing data center carbon output
  • Start Campus has a target goal to be carbon-free operations by 2025
  • Fully powered by renewable and affordable energy, Start Campus offers 100% sustainable facilities. The strategic locations are fully powered by renewable and cost-efficient energy, providing a state-of-the-art ecosystem.

SINES, PORTUGAL – October 6, 2022 – Start Campus, an innovator in the site selection, design, and building 100% green energy ecosystems, announces that it has joined the iMasons Climate Accord (ICA), signing an industry-wide pledge to battle climate change by reducing data center carbon output, with the goal to be carbon-free operations by 2025 and fully carbon-free by 2028.

Start Campus is adopting the open standard to report carbon in data center materials and products, carbon intensity in power consumption, and a maturity model to report progress. The ICA is a historic coalition of 168 companies and growing, designed to govern a methodology to measure and reduce carbon in the infrastructure through products, power, and materials. The objective is global carbon accounting of digital infrastructure influencing market-based decisions to drive the industry to achieve carbon neutrality.

The carbon-free goal is achieved through the repurposing of existing energy grid facilities, utilizing ocean water for a state-of-the-art cooling solution avoiding drinkable water consumption, as well as own solar parks, backed by batteries and green PPAs, to optimize costs. These facilities create their own energy, protects the environment, and is not a strain on the community’s energy grid.

Start Campus is responsible for the development of the SINES project, a hyperscaler data center campus in construction of 495MW, in the southwest coast of Portugal. It will be one of Europe’s largest data center campuses. The inauguration of the first building is scheduled for mid-2023.

The project will leverage Sines and Portugal’s strategic geographical position at the edge of Europe with the help of new submarine cables now entering operation, in construction or under development. The SINES project will be one of the largest data center ecosystems with 100% green energy at competitive prices in a premium European location, which is the perfect gateway to Europe and the world.

Fabiola Bordino, Head of Sustainability and Media, says, “Start Campus is proud to be a part of the ICA with other industry leaders who are working in a collaborative effort to reduce carbon output. Start Campus elevates the industry standard on sustainability with our behind-the-meter renewable energy, producing a PUE of 1.1. Our strategic site location provides access to natural resources which allows our data center campus, in Sines, Portugal, to operate on zero-consumption ocean water cooling solutions. We are building the future of sustainable data centers today.”

“We established iMasons to unite the builders of the fourth industrial revolution,” said Dean Nelson, Chairman and Founder of Infrastructure Masons. “The ICA represents an unprecedented collaboration between leading digital infrastructure companies to accelerate our journey to carbon neutrality. Today, we are combining forces to compound the efforts of these firms to make meaningful and sustained progress toward that goal.”

Start Campus is bringing scale to sustainability to meet growing regulatory and capital market requirements. The company delivers proof-of-concept confidence for the Green Giant hub-and-spoke data ecosystem architecture of the future. With the company’s low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), it allows ample margin to get ahead of green and carbon reduction requirements.

Start Campus is also providing sustainable cities and communities by investing in projects that play a pivotal part in the transition to a circular economy. This includes the promotion of sustainable economic growth through a new industry, resulting in local employment and community involvement.

For more information about Start Campus visit: www.startcampus.pt

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About Start Campus

Start Campus is responsible for the development of the SINES project, a Hyperscaler Data Center campus with a capacity of up to 495MW in Sines, an investment of up to €3.5 billion. It will be one of Europe’s largest data center campuses and responds to growing demand from large international technology companies. It will create up to 1,200 highly skilled direct jobs and 8,000 indirect jobs by 2027. It will be in Sines and will benefit from all strategic advantages such as ocean water cooling systems, access to the high voltage power grid, connectivity through the connection to high-capacity international fiber optic cables with North America, Africa, and South America. SINES project will be one of the largest data center ecosystems with 100% green energy at competitive prices in a premium European location, which is the perfect gateway to Europe and the world. The inauguration of the first building is scheduled for mid 2023.

Editorial Contact:

Afonso Vaz Pinto
JLM & Associados
Tel: (+351) 969-658-256
Email: avazpinto@jlma.pt 

Media Contact:

Ilissa Miller
iMiller Public Relations
Tel: 1.914.315.6424
Email: startcampus@imillerpr.com