Iron Mountain – Muhammad Nauman Khurshid – 2019

Goals 

Iron Mountain, a global leader in storage and information management services, enlisted EDF Climate Corps fellow Nauman Khurshid to work on a fire suppression system project. Earlier this year Iron Mountain committed to a Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) to reduce absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 20% by 2025. Iron Mountain plans to transition from using 300,000 pounds of Halon, a fire suppressant agent to Novec, a waterless and more sustainable alternative. Halon has been identified as a risk to Iron Mountain’s SBTi due to its high global warming potential and the age of the fire suppression systems.

Solutions

To develop a multiyear transition plan for the 100 plus Halon fire suppression systems across North America, Khurshid proposed a 6-year conversion plan with estimated costs, site prioritization, and risk assessment. After developing the conversion plan, he completed a financial analysis of three different implementation scenarios. First recharging Halon back in case of discharge, reactively converting to Novec when a discharge happens and a 6-year scheduled conversion plan. Khurshid’s project explored the feasibility of destroying Halon for carbon credits through the California Air Resource Board in order to meet their SBTi.

Potential Impact

As a result, if 300,000 pounds of Halon is destroyed, it avoids 1 million tons of carbon emissions which would slowly leak into the atmosphere if nothing is done. The financial analysis proved that reactively converting is the most expensive option, costing roughly $43 million over 15-years, compared to the 6-year scheduled conversion cost of $19.7 million, net present value of $4.8 million and an internal rate of return of 19%.The 6-year conversion option would help Iron Mountain meet its goal of reducing GHG emissions 20% by 2025.