UpCloud
ESG REPORT 2024
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Our North Star: Striving towards a better world
This is UpCloud’s first Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) report since launching our updated ESG program earlier this year. However our commitment to improving the world around us goes back to the founding of UpCloud. We’ve always made a conscious effort to operate sustainably – from the renewable energy we use to power our data centres, to ensuring gender pay parity within our organisation. We are determined to play our part as we strive towards a better world.
We’ve made considerable progress throughout 2024, and have numerous ESG innovations and advancements planned for the year ahead, including lowering our carbon footprint versus revenue trend.
We hope you find this report informative. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, or great suggestions on how we can keep improving.
Highlights from 2024
100%
UpCloud offices run on renewable energy
70%
UpCloud data centres run on renewable energy
100%
Gender pay gap parity achieved in Finland
Environment
Inspired by our customers, we’re creating greater transparency into our own actions, starting with calculating our carbon footprint with the widest possible framework – including scope 1, 2, and 3 according to GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. This year we switched our Singapore office to run entirely on renewable energy, so that all UpCloud offices are now carbon-free on the energy front. We also updated our Environmental Management System and established UpCloud’s science based targets for lowering our emissions.
100%
UpCloud offices run on renewable energy
70%
UpCloud data centres run on renewable energy
0%
Direct emissions
Emissions
Emissions calculations were completed for scope 1, 2, and 3 from 2023 data, according to GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. The largest individual contribution to our emissions was data centre hardware purchases. Our remote-friendly work policy and dedication to taking public transport wherever possible significantly lowered our travel and commute contributions.
Total emissions ⇾ 2831 tCO2e
Carbon emission lowering plan and carbon offset
As a first step during 2025, we aim to lower our carbon footprint vs revenue trend – one of our key indicators as to how we are developing towards a more sustainable direction.
We are committed to reducing our GHG emissions with the ambition of meeting the 1.5 degree scenario, as presented by IPCC8 (November 2018).
To continue taking responsibility for our own direct carbon footprint, we are collaborating with an external partner, compensating this year, as well our 2023 scope 1 and 2 emissions, by investing in projects which have already delivered immediate climate impact, supported biodiversity, and benefitted local communities.
Data centre sustainability
Although 70% of our data centres run fully on renewable energy, with the rest utilizing mixed sources, our biggest carbon footprint remains data centre hardware purchases. In 2025, we’ll be looking into our hardware lifecycle management to uncover any potential ways we can lower this.
We will also aim to improve the energy source visibility for our customers, to help them make more informed choices and join our journey towards a more sustainable cloud.
End-of-life device management
EOL storage devices
End-of-life devices that have hosted customer data go through a comprehensive data deletion process and are destroyed by our ISO27001 certified partners, in accordance with the WEEE directive. All EOL devices are processed in Finland.
EOL servers and routers
Some of our EOL devices which we cannot repurpose any further are cleaned and donated for educational purposes. Servers and routers which have not stored any customer data and which we cannot repurpose are donated to schools and universities. This year we donated devices to Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
Social
UpCloud is nothing without our amazing people, and we are committed to creating the best workplace possible so they can continue to shine.
This year, as part of our diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, we updated our DEI policy and offered refreshed training to all employees. We also updated our health and safety guidelines and global wellbeing opportunities well beyond legal requirements.
DEI
We believe in fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and respected. We’re committed to maintaining a high Inclusion Experience score and providing DEI training to all employees. We’re also determined to achieve pay parity and conducted a 2024 salary evaluation for employees within Finland (representing 69% of employees) which showed no unexplained salary differences between male and female employees working under the same title. All differences were explained by seniority, work experience, work task complexity and business impact. Differences were present in all employees, they were consistent and not over represented in any gender group. In 2025 the analysis will be done internationally and with wider variables additional to gender.
Employee Wellbeing
We’re committed to the well-being of our employees and offer a variety of programs to support their physical and mental health. This includes offering extra weeks of vacation, family days, retreats and team activity days, and comprehensive health care services with additions for mental health care. Our Global Wellbeing Forum also engages employees in planning our policies and actions. Our professionals have great freedom to choose how to deliver their work successfully. Hybrid work is the norm for all our teams and many of us work also fully remotely.
Community engagement
We’re actively involved in our community and support initiatives that make a positive impact, including donating end-of-life devices to schools and hosting campaigns offering free credits for students to use our platform – promoting educational and technological advancements. We are also empowering selected non-profit organisations by sponsoring hosting their websites on UpCloud.
Open-source software
We prefer to utilise open source projects as much as possible in our development work, and have sponsored start-up hackathons and hosted events as a way for us to stay connected with our fellow tech enthusiasts. We also support open source contributions to UpCloud’s product stack.
One such contribution is the UpCloud Terraform Provider, which started in 2017 as a weekend project from Ville Vesilehto – now the Lead Product Manager at UpCloud. It quickly evolved into an essential tool for infrastructure automation and in 2018 we asked Ville if we could make the provider an official part of our developer tooling ecosystem – providing resources and support while maintaining the open source nature of the project. Even better, Ville joined UpCloud in 2021, and improved the project he’d started four years earlier – releasing V5.15.0 in 2024!
Governance
This year we formalised governance for our continuous ESG work, paving the way for continuous improvement and propelling us towards our long-term goals. In 2024 we established:
Compliance forum and leads for ESG work to ensure continuous development
Anti-corruption policy and training for our people
Code of Conduct and supplier due diligence process
Thank you!
We hoped you enjoyed reading our first UpCloud ESG report, and reflecting on the advancements we have made.
We’re looking forward to working hard to improve the world around us throughout 2025.
Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions or suggestions.
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