Meta is introducing thermal stress tooling in Meta-owned data centers to reduce employee exposure to increasing heat conditions.
Meta is introducing thermal stress tooling in Meta-owned data centers to reduce employee exposure to increasing heat conditions.
Company Name: Meta
Project Name: Heat BOT Thermal Stress Program
Industry: Technology
Project Location: All Meta-owned data centers across the United States
In the last five years, Meta’s data centers have experienced extremely high temperatures due to the rapidly changing climate. To address this rising risk, Meta has deployed thermal stress tooling to support employee heat exposure risk reduction.
The main goals of this initiative are to increase awareness of higher heat working conditions within the data center in real-time; provide real-time notifications of current working conditions within data halls, outdoor areas, and supporting industrial spaces via work chat to all workers; and trigger employee risk reduction efforts when higher heat is detected, particularly when the heat index exceeds 90 degrees F.
The implementation of this project represents the “Science-Based and Proactive” corporate climate resilience principle as it makes employees aware of the changing temperatures in real time so they can take appropriate action. Additionally, the project represents the “Transparent and Accountable” principle. By recording and tracking the temperature data, Meta gains the abilities to monitor the current effects from extreme temperatures and to use company-specific data to inform evaluations of future anticipated effects from this risk, both of which help inform decision-making on potential risk management measures.
Project Team: Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS), Facility Engineering, Global Security Services and Technology, Facility and Site Operations
Real-time and predictive heat index dashboards were deployed across Meta’s U.S. data center sites. Real-time thermal stress dashboards were developed to capture real-time heat index and employee exposure risk within the industrial spaces of the data centers. The forecasted heat index dashboards provide an hourly seven-day look ahead that assists site teams in work planning. The model estimates the heat index by incorporating outside ambient conditions.
In conjunction with the dashboards, Meta developed a Heat BOT—an automated software application that uses dynamic data points to provide live notifications to employees via internal messaging. The Heat BOT notifies workers upon entry into data halls of the current temperatures and continues to notify them of condition changes while they remain badged into that space.
Prior to the development of the thermal stress dashboards and Heat BOT, workers were unaware of the operational conditions in the data centers. The Heat BOT provides workers with relevant information for them to take action per Meta’s internal standards. For example, depending on the temperature, employees may need to implement a work-rest regimen, apply cooling personal protective equipment (PPE), or stop work.
A Timeline of the Initiative
The Heat BOT has enabled teams to effectively manage work during higher heat conditions, enhancing the ability to meet capacity needs while keeping people safe. Additionally, based on the data and feedback from the sites, the thermal stress tooling Heat BOT will be leveraged in all current buildings and will be incorporated in all new buildings.