CyrusOne: Balancing Data Centre Legislation & Sustainability

Emma Fryer is the Director of Public Policy Europe for CyrusOne, a global data centre operator. With a background in technology policy, sustainability and resilience, her job is to try and reduce risks to the business posed by changes in policy and regulation, public perception and reputation. 

“Well intentioned legislation can have unintended consequences, because policy makers are not familiar with the market and operational characteristics of the sector,” she explains. “I identify potential shortcomings in their proposals and seek ways to reduce burdens and threats to our business without compromising the policy outcomes.” 

Data centre infrastructure to support the global economy 

CyrusOne is a leading global data centre developer and operator with more than 100 data centres in operation and development worldwide. 

“We build the data infrastructure that underpins the digital economy: our secure, resilient facilities support government services, logistics, healthcare and bioinformatics, smart systems and IOT, media, finance and e-commerce in every form. Our facilities support nearly 800 customers, including approximately 200 Fortune 1000 companies,” says Emma. 

She joined the company in January 2024. After completing her first degree in English from Durham University, Emma decided that she wanted to know more about natural history and completed a degree in Environmental Science in London. 

“The combination worked for me as the second degree gave me the technical grounding that is essential for the roles in sustainability that I’ve held. The English degree gave me the written communication skills that are critical for policy work,” she says. “Most of my career has been spent in technology policy, with the last 14 years working in the data centre sector. I certainly didn’t expect to end up here, but I am really pleased that it’s worked out this way.”

When not working, Emma can be found in the garden at home in North Yorkshire, trying to defend the vegetables from the unwelcome attention of slugs and pigeons. 

“It’s a glamorous life,” she says.

Emma has developed a few unique skills to protect her garden, as well as those for her work in the data centre. 

“I have developed quite a few useful skills over the years. Firstly, getting to the nub of an issue quickly and identifying what needs to be done, then getting on and doing it. 

“Secondly, having spent many years providing a collective voice for the industry, I am pretty good at finding enough common ground to get consensus and also ensuring that I advocated for what our industry needed, rather than just what it wanted at the time.”

These are not necessarily the same thing and it required some devil’s advocacy to ensure that positions are defensible and the evidence robust. 

However, Emma believes that the most important skill she has developed is being able to explain technical issues in simple terms. 

“I usually resort to ridiculous or unnecessarily flamboyant analogies to get the message across - and it works, the more unlikely the analogy, the more memorable it tends to be. Making something complicated seem simple is much trickier than most people think - it’s a bit of an art form and I’m quite proud of this skill.”

Maximising biodiversity in data centres

Data centres aren’t usually associated with high levels of biodiversity, but one of the reasons that Emma joined CyrusOne is because of the impressively creative way that biodiversity is being supported on its sites. 

The company introduces soft landscaping wherever possible, replacing hard surfaces if they are superfluous, with berms to create variety and shelter and plants a wide variety of native species. 

“Thoughtful planting is critical - pollinator species for insects and plants that will afford habitat as hedges or green walls, plus trees wherever we can fit them,” she explains. “At our Amsterdam site, we are producing honey from our bees and welcome all sorts of avian and mammalian visitors.” 

Staff and customers have enjoyed watching March hares boxing inside the perimeter fence. CyrusOne has also created wetland areas at our Dublin data centre that were promptly colonised by breeding ducks and the company has even more ambitious plans for some of the sites we have in development. 

As Emma is still new in her role at CyrusOne, the next twelve months will be focused on building a solid understanding of the business and identifying who does what.

“As a generalist, I can get a feel for the things likely to be problematic for us, but I need technical subject matter expertise on hand to ensure I reflect our position correctly,” she says. “I also need to get abreast of regulatory developments - we have facilities in multiple jurisdictions across Europe so I need to familiarise myself with those regimes and identify priorities.” 

Emma is also trying to ensure that CyrusOne makes the best use of resources and will be working closely with and through national trade associations and industry alliances where the company can benefit from collective action and cross-industry collaboration. 

“I’m also very keen to develop a few explainers that will help external stakeholders understand some of the more arcane aspects of the sector – such as PUE – wish me luck!”

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