The green loan – arranged by Credit Agricole CIB and MUFG Bank – will finance AirTrunk’s 110MW West Tokyo data centre, AirTrunk TOK2 (pictured), and will be the first green loan for a data centre in Japan.
It will hold AirTrunk’s business to account, said CFO Prashant Murthy. “We continue to drive sustainable innovation throughout the design, build, operations and financing of our data centres. The green loan closed today has set several industry benchmarks including being the first for a data centre in Japan.”
It is the first to use eligibility criteria based on operating power usage effectiveness (PUE) and water productivity, Murthy added.
The framework complements Airtrunk’s sustainability linked loan of A$2.1 billion (US$1.42 billion), which was announced in late 2021.
That loan was the largest in global data centre history and first in the region, said Airtrunk, and has subsequently materially increased in size to support AirTrunk’s expansion in the Asia Pacific and Japan to address recent customer demand.
Prashant said: “AirTrunk’s financing platform, including the new green financing framework and [sustainability linked loan], takes AirTrunk to a clear leadership position in sustainable data centre financing. Linking our debt facilities to sustainability performance holds our business to account on our commitments.”
AirTrunk’s green projects must meet certain eligibility criteria which have a positive impact on the environment, in order to be financed through green loans. The company has defined three categories as eligible for green loan s– green data centre, renewable energy and water efficiency.
“The categories we selected as eligibility criteria for the framework are key priorities for AirTrunk and its customers to ensure we continue to deliver the most sustainable digital infrastructure in the region,” he said.
The framework ensures that AirTrunk’s green loans are aligned to the four Loan Market Association green loan principles, being the use of proceeds, the process for project evaluation and selection, management of proceeds and reporting. It also aligns to six of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
