Powering our work

As a technology company, we rely on a significant amount of energy to power our data centers. And with offices around the globe, we’re keeping close track of the energy we’re using to power each of those spaces. In 2015, we invested in some new systems to collect, measure, and report our energy use across locations, since the more information we have about our use, the more we can do to manage it responsibly. We are excited to make this information increasingly visible and available to a wider audience of employees at Etsy, incentivizing the responsible use of energy across all our operations.

Below is our energy use in 2015 compared to 2014, including our total energy as well as two intensity metrics that keep us focused on the relationship between the growth of our business and employee base and our energy use. Our 2014 data has been revised to be consistent with the new methodology applied in 2015.

What does it all mean?

Our total energy use growth rate between 2014 and 2015 was 45%. This growth rate was slightly higher than the previous year (41%), which can be attributed to the electricity used during the renovation of our new headquarters in Brooklyn. If we remove the energy used for this construction project, our year over year growth in energy use has been consistent, coming in around 40% for the past three years.

Energy use per employee is another way we look at our energy use, and our aim is to grow headcount without increasing our energy use at the same rate through efficiency measures. Our 2015 adjusted energy use growth rate (not including energy used for the construction project) is in line with our headcount growth, so we’re doing ok in this area. We’ll continue to work on efficiency measures, and expect that 2016 will show some significant changes to these trends, especially in the data center space. Stay tuned!

Our other key intensity metrics, kWh use/$1000 GMS is up 19% over 2014. This is in part due to the way we are supporting the growth of our business with better-than-ever data analytics. Better data analysis tools are great for our users and our product, but it does use a lot of energy at our data centers. Never fear! We are looking at ways to continue to deliver world class analysis while improving our energy efficiency at our data centers. You can read more about those efforts here.

* Etsy commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP ("PwC") to provide third-party assurance of this data (for the period from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015) in our 2015 Progress Report. For full details, see PwC's Report of Independent Accountants.

†Headcount number used was based on the number of employees using facilities for which we had energy data in 2014 and 2015.