When Zayo – a leading provider of communications infrastructure services – went private in 2020, its investment groups required a new focus on climate.
One of the first steps the new ESG lead took was to calculate Zayo’s emissions inventory for the first time to establish a baseline. They knew this would be a critical step in paving the way to set science-based targets, report to the CDP, and disclose progress in an annual ESG report.
Challenge
Zayo has over 49,000 global sites, ranging from data centers to cell towers, offices, warehouses, and more. Their ESG lead knew they would face significant challenges in gathering and validating the data necessary for their GHG inventory, specifically in Scope 2. Their main challenges were:
- Tracking down how many sites existed, which of those sites were owned vs. leased, and who would own data – like utility bill info, specific addresses, etc. – from each of those sites, all from scratch.
- Filling the gap from roughly 45,000 sites where utility bill data was not available.
Solution
In 2021, Zayo selected Optera to help with their 2020 inventory, largely based on Optera’s expertise in complex GHG emissions calculations.
Optera worked alongside the ESG lead to establish working groups of Optera sustainability consultants and subject matter experts (SMEs) from across Zayo’s business units. The SMEs taught Optera about Zayo’s operations and in return, Optera provided the Zayo team with GHG accounting education.
By collaborating with these working groups, Optera identified the data needed, where Zayo’s SMEs could find that data, and how they could collect it efficiently. Data collection across Zayo was supported from the top down, enabling stronger collaboration.
Zayo’s first-year inventory relied largely on modeled estimations but still provided the ESG lead with a baseline understanding of their emissions.
Year 2: Improving over time
The following year, Zayo and Optera conducted a gap analysis to improve both the accuracy and efficiency of the prior inventory process. Zayo implemented a utility bill management system for more seamless tracking of utility bill data where available.
For the ~45,000 remaining sites without utility bill information, Optera worked with Zayo’s SMEs to strengthen the estimation models, tailoring them to the unique equipment and characteristics of each technical site. This more accurate model was validated by Zayo and their 3rd party assurance firm and was established as the source of truth for scope 2 calculations moving into future years.
“Not only has Optera helped us increase the accuracy of our inventory year-over-year, improve our CDP climate score, and shorten the third-party verification process, they have also made me feel like I have an extended team of experts to learn on, which has been a game changer as an ESG team of one.”
Sondra Smith | Director, ESG/Sustainability at Zayo
Through this ongoing, collaborative effort, Zayo has realized a variety of other ESG achievements, including:
- Calculating their scope 3, category 13 (downstream leased assets) emissions, a complex process that required additional collaboration between Zayo’s internal stakeholders and Optera consultants
- Improving their CDP climate score from a D to a B
- Reducing the amount of time it takes to complete third-party verification from 12 weeks to just 8 weeks
- Setting an SBTi-validated net-zero target across their full value chain by 2045
Zayo has made significant progress in just four years, and they plan to push that momentum even further. To achieve their Net Zero 2045 SBT, they have many decarbonization efforts underway, including building energy efficiency measures, continuing to move to renewable energy where possible, and collaborating with their suppliers on decarbonization.
To learn more about Zayo’s ESG program, click here.