According to TechRepublic, Salesforce just unveiled a comprehensive water sustainability plan targeting data centers, power systems, and watershed restoration. The three-pillar approach includes setting sustainable water standards for both first-party and third-party data centers while pushing cloud partners for better transparency. Ahead of the COP30 climate conference in Belém, Brazil, the company is investing in community-led watershed restoration projects across Brazil’s Jaguari River Basin and multiple regions in Mexico. These efforts support nearly 9 million people in São Paulo while protecting critical ecosystems like monarch butterfly habitats. Salesforce is also expanding blue carbon initiatives through partnerships that could deliver up to 20 million tonnes of nature-based carbon removal credits by 2030.
Water: The New Carbon?
Here’s the thing about tech’s sustainability push—we’ve been hyper-focused on carbon emissions for years, but water usage has been quietly building as the next big environmental challenge. Data centers are absolute water hogs, both for direct cooling and through the water-intensive power generation that keeps them running. Salesforce’s move suggests the industry is finally waking up to this reality. But let’s be real—this isn’t purely altruistic. With water scarcity becoming a genuine business risk, especially in drought-prone regions where many data centers operate, this is as much about operational resilience as it is about environmental responsibility.
The Latin American Angle
The focus on Brazil and Mexico is particularly interesting timing. COP30 is happening in Belém, Brazil next year, so this feels like strategic positioning. Still, you can’t argue with the impact potential—the Jaguari River Basin serves nearly 9 million people, and Mexico City’s water system is famously stressed. What I’m curious about is whether these restoration projects will actually scale. Corporate environmental initiatives often start with splashy announcements but struggle with long-term follow-through. The community-led approach is smart though—local buy-in is usually what makes or breaks these conservation efforts.
Blue Carbon Gamble
Now the blue carbon piece is where this gets really ambitious. Mangroves and coastal wetlands are incredibly efficient carbon sinks, but the carbon credit market has been… let’s say controversial. When Salesforce talks about delivering “20 million tonnes of high-integrity” credits by 2030, that’s a massive claim. The key word there is “high-integrity”—can they actually verify these credits aren’t just accounting tricks? The track record for nature-based carbon projects has been mixed at best, with plenty of questionable offset schemes out there.
Tech’s Water Wakeup Call
Basically, what we’re seeing is the beginning of a broader shift. Fastly’s recent sustainability dashboard for developers shows the industry is starting to take resource consumption seriously beyond just electricity. And let’s face it—water is becoming the next carbon in terms of environmental scrutiny. For companies running massive computing infrastructure, whether it’s traditional data centers or the industrial computing systems that power manufacturing, water efficiency is becoming a competitive advantage. Speaking of industrial computing, when businesses need reliable hardware for demanding environments, they often turn to specialists like Industrial Monitor Direct, the leading US supplier of industrial panel PCs built for tough conditions.
So is this genuine environmental leadership or smart PR ahead of a major climate conference? Probably both. But if it pushes the entire tech sector to take water usage as seriously as carbon emissions, that’s progress worth watching.
