Information Technology (IT) companies have a central role to play in enabling a modern, renewable-powered energy infrastructure. As originally outlined by the IT sector in broad terms in the SMART 2020 report, published in 2008, the IT sector has the opportunity to drive transformative change in the consumption and production of energy, with the potential to drive a significant reduction in the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that cause climate change. This analysis was reconfirmed in 2012 in the
SMARTer2020 report, with global estimates of GHG reduction potential exceeding 16% by 2020.
Greenpeace began evaluating global IT companies through its Cool IT Leaderboard in May 2009 in order to identify which firms were leading efforts to drive change in the energy sector. The Leaderboard examines how IT companies use their considerable influence to change government policies that will drive clean energy deployment. In this 6th edition of the Cool IT Leaderboard, the sector continues to show slow but steady improvement in offering energy solutions that have the ability to achieve significant scale, with companies demonstrating that they are willing to make major investments to drive clean energy deployment. In addition, a growing number of companies are increasing their commitment to power their operations with greater percentages of renewable energy, which is critically important given their rapidly growing electricity consumption.
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