WD Raises the Bar for Sustainable Infrastructure as AI Storage Demand Accelerates

Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC, hereinafter "WD"), a provider of storage infrastructure supporting the AI-driven data economy, today announced its 2025 Sustainability Report. As AI systems expand, the volume of data generated and retained also increases, making storage infrastructure indispensable. However, the growing energy consumption presents a challenge. To address this, WD is committed to providing storage solutions that prioritize efficiency in large-scale operations and integrating sustainability into the core of AI data infrastructure development and operation.

The rapid growth of AI demands new standards for responsible infrastructure. WD supports customers in expanding their AI infrastructure with high economic efficiency while minimizing environmental impact, by improving storage density and energy efficiency per terabyte. As a strategic storage infrastructure partner for some of the world's largest cloud providers, WD is redefining the environmental footprint of data centers through innovations in high-density HDDs that emphasize energy efficiency and long-term durability. WD's efforts extend beyond products, actively promoting decarbonization across the entire AI value chain through GHG (greenhouse gas) emission reduction, optimization of energy and water use, waste reduction, and recovery of critical resources. WD provides the necessary scale and reliability for hyperscalers, cloud providers, and enterprise customers building the future of AI.

**Driving Decarbonization, Circularity, and Responsible Business Practices:**

In fiscal year 2025, WD achieved measurable progress in both its own operations and the efficiency of its storage solutions, helping customers manage the environmental impact of large-scale AI infrastructure. Key achievements include:

As of fiscal year 2025, five of the company's sites operate on 100% carbon-free energy, and the renewable energy ratio at global sites reached 66%, steadily advancing towards the goal of achieving carbon-free energy by fiscal year 2030.

Since fiscal year 2020, WD has reduced the emissions intensity associated with customer product use by 31% per petabyte, supporting both customer and company emission reduction targets.

WD set new targets for recycled content use: 43% for enterprise HDD products and 72% for packaging by fiscal year 2030. In fiscal year 2025 alone, the company achieved 36-38% recycled content in products and 74% in packaging, exceeding the packaging target ahead of schedule.

The company expanded its Scope 3 decarbonization efforts, setting a new target to reduce emissions from direct materials by 20% by fiscal year 2030 compared to fiscal year 2024. Simultaneously, it is strengthening collaboration with suppliers and building capabilities to drive progress in emission reduction across the entire supply chain.

WD received a leadership level "A-" rating from CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) in the climate category and was also selected for Newsweek's "America's Greenest Companies 2026." This demonstrates its practice of best practices in environmental sustainability performance and transparency.

In a first-of-its-kind U.S. initiative, WD partnered with Microsoft, Critical Materials Recycling, and PedalPoint to lead the "Advanced Recovery and Rare Earth Material Capture Program," which recovers rare earth materials from used hard drives that would traditionally be lost to electronic waste or landfills. In the pilot phase, the program achieved a 90% rare earth recovery rate. This program received the Environment + Energy Leader Award in the Environmental Impact category on April 22, 7 AM Pacific Time (April 23, 0 AM Japan Time).

WD published its 2025 Climate Risk Report, committing to transparent disclosure of climate-related risks and opportunities, and presenting the results of its climate scenario analysis and response policies within the company's enterprise risk management (ERM) framework.

WD was named one of Ethisphere's "World's Most Ethical Companies" for the eighth consecutive year.

Jackie Jun, WD's new Chief Sustainability Officer.