Archive for September 5, 2024

Equinix Issues More Than $750 Million in Green Bonds to Drive Sustainability Initiatives

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 5, 2024 by itnerd

Equinix, Inc., the world’s digital infrastructure company, today announced that it issued more than $750 million in green bonds across two completed offerings. The green bonds will enable Equinix to advance on its sustainability initiatives and drive improvements in the operational eco-efficiency of its business. With these latest issuances, Equinix will have issued a total of approximately $5.6 billion of green bonds, making it one of the top 10 largest U.S. corporate issuers in the investment-grade green bond market.

Equinix issued €600 million principal amount of 3.65% senior green notes due 2033. This follows the issuance of Swiss Franc 100 million principal amount of 1.5575% senior green notes due 2029. Equinix used rate locks to hedge a significant portion of the interest rate risk associated with the issuance of both the Euro and Swiss Franc green bonds. Accounting for such hedges, the Euro and Swiss Franc green bonds are expected to carry an effective coupon of 3.62% and 1.67%, respectively. The Euro offering closed on September 3, 2024, and the Swiss Franc offering closed on September 4, 2024.

Equinix intends to allocate an amount equal to the net proceeds from the green bonds to finance or refinance, in whole or in part, recently completed or future Eligible Green Projects. Equinix’s allocation strategy includes covering project expenditures up to two years before the issuance of the green bonds and three years following the green bond issuance. These projects, which form the backbone of the company’s sustainability mission, span a wide range of impactful categories—from green building development and renewable energy innovations to advanced energy efficiency, resource conservation and cutting-edge decarbonization solutions.

Highlights/Key Facts

  • Equinix’s Eligible Green Projects follow its 2024 Green Finance Framework based on the Green Bond Principles of June 2021 and Green Loan Principles of February 2023, a set of guidelines that promote transparency and integrity in, and advance the standardization of, green debt disclosures. The Framework aims to increase Equinix’s focus on protecting the environment and addressing global climate change through greenhouse gas emissions reductions, increasing resource efficiency and driving corporate transparency and accountability. 
  • Equinix had previously issued an aggregate of $4.9 billion of investment-grade green bonds under its 2020 Green Finance Framework to advance its progress toward its near-term science-based target to become climate neutral by 2030 and improve the operational eco-efficiency of its business. As of the end of June 2023, Equinix had fully allocated the proceeds from these green bonds in accordance with the 2020 Green Finance Framework. 
  • Globally, Equinix continues to invest in new and innovative technologies in energy efficiency, renewable energy and heat export projects as part of its global Future First sustainability strategy, focusing on areas that have the greatest impact on customers and key stakeholders.
    • In 2023, it maintained 96% renewable energy coverage across its portfolio. It also remains highly focused on improving the energy efficiency of its facilities as measured by power usage effectiveness (PUE), which improved 8%+ compared to the prior year.
    • In addition, Equinix was recognized for its climate performance and transparency in 2023 by achieving the highest ranking of the CDP’s prestigious Climate Change A List for the second consecutive year. Of 23,000+ companies that disclosed environmental data to CDP in 2023, less than 2% received the top score. 
  • Equinix continues to advance its green initiatives through its participation as a founding signatory of the Climate Neutral Data Centre Operator Pact and Self-Regulatory Initiative, which is leading advocacy and steering the development of sustainability requirements for the EU data center industry to become climate neutral by 2030. 

Additional Resources

2023 Equinix Sustainability Report and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Metrics 

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Brazil’s President Calls Out Elon Musk…. And I Am Totally Here For It

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 5, 2024 by itnerd


Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in an interview with CNN called out Elon Musk in epic fashion. Here’s what he said:

“The Brazilian justice system may have given an important signal that the world is not obliged to put up with Musk’s extreme right-wing anything goes just because he is rich,” the president said.

I agree with this 100% simply because the best way to take down Elon Musk is to call out his behaviour and punish him for it. And surprisingly the Brazilians were the first to do that. I had my money on the EU to be first, but at least someone is doing God’s work. Hopefully, this emboldens other countries and the like to make Elon pay for his behaviour. Again, I’m looking at you EU. But the US can step up and do the same thing as well.

Bravo Brazil!

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Twitter Is Hiring Security And Safety Staff… Is This A Hail Mary?

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 5, 2024 by itnerd

Elon Musk fired a whole lot of people when he took over Twitter. And others, particularly those who were responsible for guardrails around the platform simply left. That has made the platform a train wreck next to a dumpster fire as it has become to every right wing nut job and Nazi among others. That in turn, along with Elon’s antics, have driven away advertisers. But the guardrails may, and I stress may be about to go back into place. Tech Crunch is reporting that Twitter is doing some hiring:

Nearly two years after the layoffs across X’s trust, safety and security teams, Elon Musk’s social media company is now trying to hire new employees to help moderate content and secure its platform, according to X’s official job listings. 

In the last month, X posted two dozen job openings evenly split across its safety and cybersecurity teams. 

The jobs on X’s safety team range from director of strategic response on X’s safety team to government affairs managers. On its cybersecurity teams, X is hiring several security engineers and a threat intelligence specialist. 

I personally think that this might be a Hail Mary from Elon. Assuming that he isn’t actively trying to destroy Twitter. Which to be frank, I wouldn’t put it past him to do that. He’s got to make money somehow. And having the appearance of a group of humans who are capable of moderating content on Twitter would help with that as Elon could use that to appease and attract advertisers back to the platform. And in turn make money that way. There’s also the fact that the EU is demanding that Elon moderates content on Twitter. And perhaps he doesn’t want to fight the EU because Elon knows that he’d lose.

The question is, who would want to work for Elon given his behaviour to date? I sure as Hell wouldn’t want to. And I suspect that he might have difficulty filling these roles as a result of that.

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CIRA’s ‘What’s up with the internet?’ podcast premieres second season exploring today’s most pressing cybersecurity problems

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 5, 2024 by itnerd

Today, CIRA announces the premiere of season two of its podcast, What’s up with the internet? focusing on the enduring subject of cybersecurity, online safety and the evolution of cybercrimes. Hosted by award-winning Canadian tech journalist Takara Small, this season of What’s up with the internet? is a revelatory journey full of eye-opening discussions around a topic that has impacted everything from our economy to our healthcare system—and even our elections.

Across six episodes, What’s up with the internet? explores the headline-grabbing cyber attacks on our public institutions, the government’s role in cybersecurity, the stories of those impacted by cybercrimes, the high stakes world of ransomware negotiations and more. Listeners will also receive expert advice on how to keep themselves safe in a shifting online threat landscape.

Season two features commentary and guest interviews from a variety of experts including Sami Khoury, Head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, security guru Bruce Schneier, David Shipley, CEO and Co-Founder of Beauceron Security, Jon Ferguson, Vice-president, Cyber & DNS, CIRA and more.

Ahead of the release of season two, CIRA surveyed its membership on their experiences with hacking and cybersecurity.

Key facts

  • 61 per cent of CIRA members have been the victim of a hack or an online scam, with the most common being phishing scams
  • 60 per cent of CIRA members don’t trust private organizations with their data, while 39 per cent were only somewhat trusting
  • 45 per cent reported that they had experienced their personal data being breached or stolen online

Listeners can learn more at cira.ca/podcast and subscribe to What’s up with the internet? on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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