Page - March 26, 2012
From work collaboration to music and movie digitization, there’s no argument that cloud-computing has revolutionized how we interact and how we are entertained. To meet our exponentially expanding appetite for cloud-based IT, global tech leaders including Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon are understandably expanding cloud capacity at a breakneck pace.
But this speed is coming at a steep environmental expense: Computing is in the cloud, the cloud is driven by data centers, and today, these data centers are overwhelmingly powered by dirty coal-fired plants. Today’s IT leaders can change that coal-powered course. This year’s Greenpeace report, How Dirty is Your Data? [download full PDF], scrutinizes the energy choices of 14 global IT leaders and illuminates ways they can instead invest in clean, renewable data-center energy options. That means Green IT -- and a data cloud that keeps the air clear.
See our in depth analysis on:
The world’s largest online retailer launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) a few years ago, and has recently made massive investments in data center infrastructure. But the company is disturbingly quiet about the environmental impact of its data centres.
With a globally ubiquitous brand and seemingly endless innovation streak, Apple is inarguably one of the planet’s most commanding IT companies. Unfortunately, dirty coal is overwhelmingly meeting Apple’s data center energy demands.
Thanks to a strong brand among consumers and businesses, Microsoft cloud offerings are booming, and its cloud infrastructure investments have soared accordingly. However, Microsoft has plans to power a new data center with dirty energy.