The tech industry is dominated by a few very large companies who can lead by example in choosing to quit coal. Thanks to you, Facebook already has. So we are pushing Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple — three of the largest owners of data centres in the world — to make the switch to clean energy. Read more...
5 February 2012 - Cool IT leaderboard
Pitching global IT companies against each other to find who comes out top in the fight to stop climate change, the 5th edition of the Leaderboard compares the firms on their IT Climate Solutions, IT Energy Impact and Political Advocacy.
The Leaderboard recognizes Cisco, Ericsson, and Fujitsu for detailing how their innovations are leading toward significant emission reductions. Softbank stands out as leading efforts to move Japan away from dirty energy (especially significant in the wake of Fukushima), and Google, Dell, and Cisco earn praise for sourcing more than 20 percent of global infrastructure energy use from renewable sources.
Greenpeace's own [E]nergy Revolution blueprint outlines a sustainable pathway for a transition to having 95 percent of global energy needs met by renewable energy by 2050. Read more...
After close to two years of agitation and negotiation we help convince Facebook to commit to running on clean, renewable energy. More than 800,000 people from all over the world participated in this influential effort, which sends a clear message to energy producers: invest now in renewable energy, and move away from coal power.
Greenpeace and Facebook unite to promote renewable energy, encouraging major utilities to develop renewable energy sources (See the agreement here), and committing to help Facebook users save energy and engage their communities in clean energy decisions. Read more...
After continuous requests from Greenpeace, Google finally releases information specifying how much energy it takes to provide searches, email, YouTube videos -- in short, the entirety of Google services. Google previously maintained that this information was a "trade secret", but it becomes one of the first big internet companies to be transparent about its energy use. Google reveals that it uses 2,259,998 MWh of electricity and its operations produce 1,457,982 metric tones of CO2e. The largest proportion of electricity use comes from Google's datacenters, which produce (together with Google offices) 1,226,350 metric tones of CO2e.
To the company's credit, Google had used renewable power for 25 percent of its operations in 2010 and vows to increase this to 35 percent in 2012 through direct investment in renewable energy. Read more...
Greenpeace India publishes "Dirty Talking", which urges the telcom industry to shift from diesel to renewable power sources. It highlights the damaging effects of diesel generators on India's economy and environment and calls for the country's most visible telecom provider to shift its network towers to clean, renewable energy and not dirty diesel.
At this point, the telecom industry in India relies heavily on diesel generators to compensate for the inadequacies of India's power grids, which adds six-million tones of CO2 per year to the atmosphere. Read more...
Greenpeace releases How Dirty Is Your Data?, a telling report that hones in on North Carolina's emerging role as a dirty data epicenter, being home to datacenters for Facebook, Google, and Apple. Thanks to a reliance on coal power, the area, in western North Carolina, is quickly dubbed the Dirty Data Triangle. Read more...
Greenpeace's groundbreaking report, How Dirty Is Your Data?, provides initial illumination of the energy consequences caused by the world's giant data storage facilities. Research reveals that these data centers consume 1.5 to 2 percent of global energy demand (3 percent in the U.S.) – and the rate is growing at a rate of 12 percent a year. The report urges all leading Internet companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple to be more transparent about the amount and sources of energy they use and make the switch to clean energy to power their data centers. Read more...
Greenpeace -- thanks to more than 80,000 inspired Facebook members, makes it into Guinness Book of World Records. The Facebook 'Unfriend Coal' Campaign makes history for earning the most Facebook comments within a 24-hour period. Read more...
Google launches a lobbying campaign specifically aimed at clean energy, a concern consistently at the top of its awareness efforts. Correspondingly, Google earns consistently high scores for political advocacy on the Greenpeace Cool IT Leaderboard ranking of climate leadership.
While the president's State of the Union address articulates a goal of having have 80 percent of electricity in the U.S. come from renewable sources by 2035, Google's efforts suggest growing public skepticism about what's achievable in this political climate. Read more...
At the climate negotiations Cancun, Greenpeace releases the fourth version of the COOL IT Leaderboard, which awards top marks to Cisco, Ericsson and Fujitsu. Cisco holds onto the highest rank for its commitment to building climate solutions, such as remote collaboration, connected workplace, connected buildings and telecommute offerings, and demonstration of sound methodology in calculating their potential to cut carbon emissions across other sectors of the economy. Read more...
Google and Sony make a noteworthy commitment to climate advocacy. The two Cool IT Leaderboard companies sign a declaration calling on the European Union to set a 30% greenhouse gas reduction target. Read More...
Facebook users across the globe join up to tell Facebook to get off of coal -Greenpeace group urging Facebook not to use dirty energy to power our profiles grow quickly to more than half a million, a significant demonstration of public comprehension that becomes critical in light of Facebook's announcement that it plans to build its second data center in North Carolina. North Carolina is supplied by Duke Energy that uses coal for more than 60 percent of its power. Read more...
At an event hosted at Google's headquarters, Google's Green Energy Czar, Bill Weihl, emphasizes how critical the preservation of California's climate bill — AB32 — is to innovation and the state's economy. Proposition 23, a ballot initiative backed by oil companies, threatens to kill the existing climate legislation if it passes in November.
In opposition, Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro, back a ballot initiative to crush AB32. This pair has four facilities on the list of the top 15 worst polluters in California, according to a study by the Ella Baker Center also released Tuesday. Read more...
At the Green:Net conference in San Francisco, Greenpeace launches Version 3 of our Cool IT Leaderboard to an audience of tech companies and reporters. It highlights the growing clean energy revolution, and explains how IT can help us monitor our electricity usage push us toward using more renewables. The conference also details how IT is building the smart grid and smart electricity metering. Read more
This Greenpeace report introduces the idea that cloud computing devices, which offer users access to the "cloud" of online services like social networks and video streaming, can contribute to a much larger carbon footprint of the IT sector than previously estimated.
The report builds on previous industry research showing that at current growth rates data centers and telecommunication networks will consume about 1,963 billion kilowatts hours of electricity in 2020 -- more than triple their current consumption and more than the current electricity consumption of France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined. The report also shows how IT can avert climate chaos by becoming a transformative force advocating for solutions that increase the use of renewable energy. Read more...
In step with Facebook's plan to build a massive, primarily coal-powered data center in Oregon, Greenpeace members express a clear demand, spread on the social network, that it must be powered by clean, renewable energy sources.
In addition to keeping coal from powering Facebook profile pages, big electricity consumers are urged to use their influence to demand policies that dramatically increase the supply of renewable electricity being put on the grid. Read more...
The Smart 2020 report, commissioned by the IT industry, outlines how IT solutions have the potential to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by a remarkable 15 percent by 2020.
Clear public support for strong emissions reductions constitutes key scoring criteria on the Cool IT leaderboard, along with a company's measurable, economy wide climate solutions and reducing their own emissions. IBM, HP and Fujitsu earn the top 3 places in this early round of assessments but no company scores above 50/100. Read more...
Launch of the Cool IT Challenge calling on the CEOs of the IT industry to provide real solutions for the imminent threat of global warming while also tackling the current economic crisis by turning climate change into a business opportunity.
Greenpeace laid down its challenge to the CEOs of Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony, Sun Microsystems and Toshiba. Read more...