Tech Companies Lead in Move to Renewable Energy

If the Internet was a country, its electricity use would rank sixth highest in the world. That huge power demand, and the potential to drive a renewable energy solution to its sourcing is the basis for Greenpeace’s report on tech companies that are moving toward one hundred percent renewable energy to power the Internet. For the report, Clicking Clean: How Internet Companies are Creating the Green internet, Greenpeace has evaluated 19 tech companies, including a review of over 300 data centers that make up their electricity supply chains. Five companies—Apple, Facebook, and Google, along with B2B companies Rackspace and Salesforce—have committed to a goal of powering their operations with one hundred percent renewable energy.

Apple has reached the one hundred percent goal in its power for its iCloud. It also operates the largest privately owned solar installation in the U.S at its North Carolina data center.  Google has invested in wind energy; so has Facebook. Microsoft was noted for its carbon neutrality effort, for which it increased its renewables by 70 percent from 2011 to 2012. And SAP’s recent announcement that it would power all its data centers and facilities worldwide with one hundred percent sustainable electricity by the end of this year came too late to be included in the report, but the company’s targets are in line with those of the other leaders on Greenpeace’s Clean Energy list. For companies built on innovation, a focus on renewable energy seems like a natural move.