Apple counters Greenpeace 'provocation' with green tech claim

After being accused by environmental group Greenpeace of using "dirty technology" for its cloud services, Apple Inc. is showing how much of a green apple it is.

 

The tech company said the server farm it is building in North Carolina will be the world’s greenest, while another in Oregon will run on “100-percent renewable energy.”

 

"Our data center in North Carolina will draw about 20 megawatts at full capacity, and we are on track to supply more than 60 percent of that power on-site from renewable sources including a solar farm and fuel cell installation, which will each be the largest of their kind in the country," Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokesperson told NPR in a statement, according to a report on E-week.com.

 

He added they believe this "industry-leading project" will make Maiden the greenest data center ever built.

 

"(A)nd it will be joined next year by our new facility in Oregon running on 100 percent renewable energy," he said.

 

Earlier this month, Greenpeace lumped Apple together with Amazon and Microsoft in a report where it claimed the three tech companies relied heavily on “dirty utilities” like coal to power their cloud-running data centers.

 

The Greenpeace report had described the data centers as “the factories of the 21st century information age,” with some consuming the energy equivalent of 180,000 homes.

 

“Three of the largest IT companies building their business around the cloud—Amazon, Apple and Microsoft—are all rapidly expanding without adequate regard to source of electricity, and rely heavily on dirty energy to power their clouds,” it said.

 

Greenpeace had a company scorecard that gave Apple a "D" for Energy Transparency, an "F" in Infrastructure Siting and "Ds" in Energy Efficiency and Renewables & Advocacy.

 

“(Apple) has invested at least $1bn in an ‘iDataCenter’ in North Carolina, one of the world’s largest data centers, and just announced another facility to be built in Prineville, Oregon. Unfortunately, both of these investments are powered by utilities that rely mostly on coal power,” Greenpeace said.

 

“Given the lack of transparency, siting policy or a clear commitment to power the iCloud with renewable energy, Apple is finding itself behind other companies such as Facebook and Google who are angling to control a bigger piece of the cloud... Instead of playing catch up, Apple has the ingenuity, on-hand cash and innovative spirit to Think Different and make substantial improvements in the type of energy that powers its cloud,” Greenpeace added.

 

Greenpeace also said that while Amazon Web Service and Apple were given facility power demand estimates to review, both responded they were not correct, "but neither provided alternative estimates.”

 

“Using conservative calculations, Greenpeace has used the best information available to derive power demand and has decided to publish and invite AWS and Apple to be transparent and provide more accurate data for their facility demands,” it added.

 

On the other hand, E-week cited an April 20 report from Wired.com that Apple has started building a 10,000-square-foot facility in Oregon.

 

It said Apple also worked out a long-term agreement for a 160-acre plot outside the town of Prineville, Oregon, where it plans to build “a much larger facility, similar to what Facebook has already built,” Jason Carr, the town’s economic development manager, told Wired.

 

Needling Apple

 

Greenpeace launched a campaign in 2004 to not just reduce electronic waste but to get manufacturers to remove the worst toxic substances from their products.

 

In 2006, it went after Apple directly, launching a “Green My Apple” site that mimicked Apple's, but with a banner that read: “We love our Macs. We just wish they came in green.”

 

Greenpeace’s Tom Dowdall wrote in an Oct. 6, 2011 blog post that while the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was not a Greenpeace fan, he promised in 2007 to phase out the most hazardous substances from Apple products.

 

“In 2008 Apple lead the industry with the first computers virtually free of toxic PVC and BFRs. He clearly understood the value to Apple of being the first. Today, all Apple products are free of these hazardous substances and where Apple lead, HP, Acer and others have followed. That alone made Steve Jobs ultimately a valuable ally in the fight for a toxics free future,” Dowdall said.

 

Dowdall also said many more leaders like Jobs are needed at the top of global companies, those “who have the vision, drive and personality to deliver real solutions to the environmental challenges of today.” — TJD, GMA News