Greenpeace Criticizes Apple Over Coal-Powered Data Centers

Today activist group Greenpeace published a new report with the title How Clean Is Your Сloud? targeting large Internet companies including Microsoft, Apple and Amazon over their heavy use of power derived from coal for massive data centers.

According to the study, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are the biggest offenders among 14 Internet companies that are covered in the study. Apple is also the only one of these companies that derives over half of its power (55%) for data centers from coal. Greenpeace acknowledges Apple’s efforts to construct a 5-megawatt fuel cell facility and 20-megawatt solar farm at its data center in North Carolina, but claims that these facilities will provide only 10 percent of the site’s power needs.

Apple maintains environmental section on its website, including information on its data center in North Carolina. But while Greenpeace acknowledges Apple’s steps, it continues to give the company poor marks for insufficient transparency about power demands of its data centers.

At the same time Google and Yahoo receive good marks for prioritizing use of renewable energy in projects and promoting investment in renewable energy.