Apple leads the tech industry when it comes to shifting to using renewable energy, according to a new report from the environmental group Greenpeace.
Despite its rapid growth over the past 12 months, Apple has managed to continue powering its data centers with 100 percent renewable energy in the U.S., the report says. It is the second year in a row that Apple has reached this goal.
“Apple has been really aggressive in achieving their renewable energy commitment,” said Dave Pomerantz, Greenpeace’s USA senior climate and energy campaigner. “They have continued to do that even as they are growing.”
The iPhone manufacturer announced this week that it will expand on its renewable energy commitment to include Chinese manufacturing suppliers, a key step to reaching its goal of relying on 100 percent renewable energy, as CNET notes. Greenpeace says about 60 percent of Apple’s global carbon footprint arises from its supply chain.
In addition, the company also announced it would work with the World Wildlife Fund to protect forests used for creating the packaging for Apple items.
Others also taking a lead are Yahoo, with 73 percent use of renewable energy, Facebook with 49 percent and Google with 46 percent.
In contrast, the report calls out Microsoft, at 39 percent, and Amazon Web Services, at 23 percent, for criticism.
While Amazon has made a public commitment to use renewable energy, it has relied on a variety of non renewable sources as it, too, continues to grow rapidly. Gary Cook, Greenpeace USA’s senior IT analyst, said in a statement:
Amazon needs to provide more information about its data center footprint and how it will move toward 100 percent renewable energy, as Apple, Google, and Facebook have done – its rapid expansion in coal dependent Virginia should be a concern to its customers like Netflix and Pinterest who are fully dependent on Amazon for their online operations. Increased transparency will allow AWS customers to know where they and AWS stand on their journey to 100% renewable energy.
No surprise — much of the global demand for online energy use is being driven by streaming video and services such as YouTube, Netflix and Hulu.
Above: An Apple store in central Beijing, China. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)
