According to its own page, Facebook is celebrating its 7th birthday today. Seven years-old! Isn't that, like, half the age of Facebook's founder? Just teasing, Mark.

Facebook's stats page gives us an idea of just how far the company has come:

  • More than 500 million active users
  • People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
  • About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
  • People on Facebook install 20 million applications every day
  • More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook, including over 80 of comScore's U.S. Top 100 websites and over half of comScore's Global Top 100 websites
  • Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
  • More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month

But all those users, all that activity, and all that content rely on Facebook's growing data centers, which demand more and more electricity with every passing birthday.

It is our hope that this birthday will signal a new era of maturity for Facebook. A mature company, just like a mature adult, takes responsibility for its actions and its impacts.

Let's hope that Facebook has reached the age where caring for the planet by making clean energy choices becomes one of its key "grown-up" priorities.

Greenpeace wishes you a very Happy Birthday, Facebook!