Company: GDHLF
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001410578-25-000935
Chunk: 173

Company: GDS Holdings Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 173
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4 ESG report later this year, which will describe our 2024 ESG performance and initiatives. Below is a summary of 2024 ESG highlights:

Environmental. In 2024, around 40% of our operation related electricity consumption was from renewable energy sources. The renewable energy we used includes renewable energy purchased directly from grid and renewable energy certificates. Our self-developed data centers that began operations after 2020 and have an IT power utilization rate of 30% or higher, have achieved an average PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of around 1.24. Through various carbon emission reduction measures, carbon emissions in 2024 were reduced by over one million metric tons. As of December 31, 2024, 42 of our self-developed data centers have been recognized and awarded sustainability-related certifications by leading domestic and global organizations.

Social. In 2024, 27.75% of our mid to senior level management staff, 31.58% senior level management staff and 18% of our board of directors were women. Average training hours per employee per year was 32.4. The annual employee turnover rate was 13.2%.

Governance. In 2024, 100% of our employees received compliance and anticorruption training. 100% of our employees received cybersecurity training.

Table of Contents

Employees

We aim to provide our employees with a fair and transparent career development platform, with training opportunities available to all employees. We adopt “growth mindset” and use 3E (Experience, Exposure and Education) as our main development methodology to provide a wide range of orientations for new hires, on-job training, internal and external knowledge sharing, formal professional training, job related certification and others. We had approximately 2,185, 2,345 and 2,276 employees as of December 31, 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively. The following table sets forth the number of our employees by function as of December 31, 2024:

                                              Number of                  
                                              Employees      % of Total  
  Colocation services                             1,719            75.5  
  Managed services                                  128             5.6  
  Sales and marketing                               111             4.9  
  Management, finance and administration            318            14.0  
  Total                                           2,276           100.0  

To maintain the highest level of service, employee training and certification is essential to ensure that