GoDaddy 2023 Sustainability Report: Our Operations | Our Environmental Impact

Originally published in GoDaddy's 2023 Sustainability Report

Our Environmental Impact

We operate with future generations in mind.

As part of our ambition to be a powerful force for good, we embrace our responsibility to protect the environment. By focusing environmental efforts on our greatest areas of impact and influence, like our data centers and corporate real estate, we can do our part to protect the planet.

Climate Change Commitment 

We acknowledge that climate change is an urgent threat to our planet. We believe everyone has a critical role to play in addressing the climate crisis. Our position statement on climate change, published in 2022, highlights GoDaddy’s commitment to support urgent climate action.

GHG Emissions 

We set a goal to reduce scope 1 and 2 (market-based) emissions by 50% by 2025 from a 2019 baseline. We are happy to report that we achieved this goal in 2023 — two years earlier than anticipated. While we’re proud of our success, we know we still have more work to do. Moving forward, we hope to develop new and thoughtful plans that push us to reduce our environmental impact even further.

As of December 31, 2023, we reduced our scope 1 and 2 (market-based) emissions by 82% relative to our 2019 baseline. Scope 1 and 2 (marketbased) emissions totaled 9,602 mt CO2 e. The 2023 GHG inventory reflects increases in renewable energy coverage, improvements in energy efficiency, and consolidation of our physical footprint, which decreases our overall energy use. The inventory results also inform key areas where we can improve as we continuously evaluate the environmental impact of our operations.

GoDaddy follows the GHG Protocol and our established Inventory Management Plan to complete our annual emissions calculations. To determine the achievement of our scope 1 and 2 (market-based) emissions goal and the percent reduction achieved as of December 31, 2023, we calculated our scope 1 and scope 2 (market-based) emissions for 2023 and compared this to the same emissions from December 31, 2019. Prior to achieving our goal, we measured our interim progress annually by comparing our scope 1 and scope 2 (market-based) emissions at the end of the relevant reporting year to the same emissions from December 31, 2019.

50%: We achieved our goal to reduce our scope 1 and 2 (market-based) GHG emissions by 50% by 2025 from a 2019 baseline.

• <1% Scope 1
• 6.4% Scope 2 – Market-Based
• 67.4% Scope 3 – Purchased Goods and Services
• 8.5% Scope 3 – Capital Goods
• 3.6% Scope 3 – Fuel and Energy Related Activities
• 1.3% Scope 3 – Upstream Transportation and Distribution
• <1% Scope 3 – Waste in Operations
• <1% Scope 3 – Business Travel
• 1.3% Scope 3 – Employee Commuting
• 9.5% Scope 3 – Use of Sold Products
• <1% Scope 3 – End of Life Treatment
• <1% Scope 3 – Investments

Operational Emissions (Thousand mt CO2e)

• 2019: 
  Scope 1 - 1.36 
  Scope 2 - 50.68
• 2020: 
  Scope 1 - 1.30 
  Scope 2 - 48.78
• 2021: 
  Scope 1 - 1.22 
  Scope 2 - 47.81
• 2021: 
  Scope 1 - 1.24 
  Scope 2 - 32.38
• 2022: 
  Scope 1 - 0.83 
  Scope 2 - 8.77

Renewable Energy Coverage (%)

• 2019: 28%
• 2020: 27%
• 2021: 27%
• 2022: 40%
• 2023: 65%

The Impact of Our Data Centers 

Our data center footprint drives our scope 1 and 2 emissions. Globally, we minimized the environmental impact of our data centers through energy efficient technologies and renewable energy. We also implemented energy management systems to monitor and optimize energy usage routinely. 

We increased our workload density in 2023, allowing us to consolidate our data center footprint, where we leverage scale efficiencies and improved power usage effectiveness, a key measure of data center energy efficiency. We also leveraged co-located data centers run by third parties and used key performance indicators to track our progress over time. 

Leveraging efficient technologies is part of our commitment to serving our customers. Since 2019, our Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) data centers used 100% renewable energy through purchasing Guarantees of Origin. In 2023, power usage at our Phoenix data center was also covered by 100% renewable energy from renewable energy credits. 

We regularly assess available and emerging technologies to understand how to best implement energy efficient and environmentally friendly solutions at our data centers. For example, in select data centers, we introduced HVO (hydrogenated vegetable oil) as an alternative for backup diesel generators. In 2024, we aim to identify additional opportunities to update infrastructure to enhance operational efficiencies.

Empowering our Entrepreneurs Working to Reduce Environmental Impacts

THE VILLAGE REFILLERY | CORRALES, NEW MEXICO

Entrepreneur Lauren Wenderoth, owner of the Village Refillery based in Corrales, New Mexico is on a mission to empower communities to embrace sustainable living by providing an alluring and accessible low-waste home shopping experience. Aligned with GoDaddy’s mission to empower entrepreneurs everywhere, Lauren uses GoDaddy’s tools and services to further scale her business, amplify her message, and make an even greater environmental impact. She participated in the Empower by GoDaddy program, GoDaddy’s signature social impact program, where she acquired these new digital skills and networks to support her business growth.

Lauren started The Village Refillery to channel her climate anxiety into actionable change. As a zero-waste refill shop, The Village Refillery helps customers avoid virgin packaging for their everyday home products by offering reusable, refillable containers. This keeps perfectly good jars and bottles in circulation rather than sending them to landfill. Lauren makes many of the products inhouse using locally sourced, sustainable ingredients. For products she doesn’t make herself, Lauren sources wholesale from innovative companies who minimize plastic packaging and focus on limiting GHG emissions.

"GoDaddy enabled me to quickly and easily create a professional website that drew people in and led to sales. Being able to create the entire website myself helped me to save money and launch a viable business helping others be more sustainable in their daily lives.”

— Lauren Wenderoth 
     Owner, The Village Refillery

The Impact of Our Workspaces 

GoDaddy’s hybrid work model reduces our demand on the physical workspaces that comprise our corporate real estate footprint. To ensure we're capturing the full impact of our workforce, however, we included emissions associated with employees who work from home in our 2023 GHG inventory. 

In 2023, the Global Real Estate team actively worked to optimize our real estate footprint, considering the utilization of the provided office spaces. Through our optimization efforts, we reduced our active global real estate footprint by more than 77,000 square feet in 2023. This metric reflects properties under our operational control, including owned and leased properties and vacant, non-sublet spaces. We continuously evaluate our environmental impact and make strides to improve for the benefit of our employees, the entrepreneurs we empower, and for the broader communities in which they grow and thrive.

Reducing E-waste in Our Operations

We promote waste reduction and recycling in our operations, including e-waste. This includes our e-waste recycler that repurposes GoDaddy’s unused technology.

In 2023, the Global Logistics team partnered with the Corporate Sustainability and ESG team to evaluate the GHG impact associated with collecting and recycling company e-waste from employees. We then leveraged this GHG analysis to inform changes to our e-waste practices.

To learn more, read our 2023 Sustainability Report.

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About this Report 

The GoDaddy 2023 Sustainability Report details our progress toward our corporate sustainability goals, strategies, and initiatives in support of our overarching corporate mission and values. Unless otherwise noted, this report reflects our corporate sustainability performance across our global operations covering the fiscal year period from January 1 to December 31, 2023. To demonstrate our commitment to transparent communication regarding our sustainability progress, we routinely share updates through our website and our annual Sustainability Report. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback on this report by contacting ESG@GoDaddy.com.

This report references the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and includes select Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) metrics for the Internet Media and Services sector. We also disclose our contributions and progress toward priority UN SDGs. For additional information on how we align with these frameworks and key indicators demonstrating our sustainability performance, please review the Frameworks and Metrics section.