Meta’s Long-Term Deals Cover Lower-Carbon Materials and Electric Freight

Meta unveiled long-term purchase commitments Nov. 12 for cement, steel, electric freight and recycled plastics, aiming to support lower-carbon suppliers serving data center supply chains.

Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs) are central to the agreements. Suppliers produce lower-carbon materials or provide services for local markets, while Meta pays for the associated environmental attributes. Some agreements also provide Meta with priority or optional access to materials for its projects as production comes online. The arrangements are designed to give suppliers more certainty about demand and revenue as they expand lower-carbon production.

Fortera announced its multi-year agreement with Meta on Oct. 29; Meta later included it in the Nov. 12 package. The deal is linked to about 200,000 tons of low-carbon cement associated with a planned plant in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. Meta has the option to use the cement in its own projects. “A multi-year commitment is what gets a cement plant financed,” said Devon Lake, Meta’s head of net-zero strategy.

A separate agreement with Sublime Systems supports at least 180,000 tons of lower-carbon cement and gives Meta priority access to use it in its construction pipeline. The package also includes a deal with Sweden-based Stegra for near-zero-emission primary steel made through a process that eliminates coal from iron reduction. An agreement with MacroCycle Technologies is intended to help finance its first commercial plant in the southeastern United States, which targets 5,000 tons of recycled PET a year.

The commitments extend Meta’s earlier work with CarbonBuilt and CarbiCrete on concrete, as well as freight partnerships with NFI in Virginia and Nevoya in Texas. Meta counts emissions from suppliers and their suppliers in its value-chain footprint. The package disclosed no total contract value or quantified emissions reductions.

Meta’s agreement with Nevoya supports 25 Class 8 battery-electric trucks on I-10 between San Bernardino, California, and Phoenix, Arizona. The fleet is expected to enter service in 2027 and log about 4 million freight miles annually. Meta’s EAC purchase supports the freight service, not the physical movement of its own goods. Renewable energy certificates will match 100% of the electricity used to charge the trucks.