Greenpeace has revealed the results of a study that throws light on the impact of the online world on the environment. The study evaluates the good and bad energy choices made by leading Information Technology (IT) companies like Facebook (News - Alert), Google, Apple, Yahoo, and others.
The report entitled “
How Dirty is Your Data?” indicates that the amount of electricity required to power “the cloud” is very high. The IT industry although aware of advances made in energy efficient data center design are mostly not implementing renewable power sources when setting up infrastructure, noted analysts.
In a release, Gary Cook, Greenpeace IT Policy Analyst, said, “We expect these companies to play a pivotal role in ensuring we move to clean, safe renewable energy system and avoid future disasters like Fukishima.”
“But the IT industry’s failure to disclose basic information on its rapidly growing energy footprint has hidden a continued reliance on 19th century dirty coal power to power its 21st century infrastructure. We think consumers want to know that when they upload a video or change their Facebook status that they are not contributing to toxic coal ash, global warming or future Fukishima’s,” Cook added.
In its study Greenpeace evaluated 10 cloud companies on various parameters like transparency, infrastructure decisions, and mitigation strategies. The companies included were Facebook, Apple (News 
- Alert), Twitter and Amazon, all of them lacking in some critical factor or the other, said Greenpeace sources.
Data centers, it was revealed contribute to immense volumes of virtual information consuming 1.5-2 percent of all global electricity consumption. Also these companies refuse to release information on their energy use and their impact on global warming emissions. The study found that some companies have coal intensity greater than the US grid average. Facebook a social media company depends on coal-powered electricity at 53.2 percent. Yahoo! and Google (News - Alert) however realize the importance of a renewable energy supply.
Yahoo! has a preferable attitude for sources of renewable energy while Google is directly purchasing clean power. They serve as examples to be employed and improved upon by other cloud companies. Akamai one among the ten brands graded which is a global content distribution network, earned top points for its transparency; Yahoo! had the strongest infrastructure policy in selecting locations and IBM (News - Alert) and Google displayed intense efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, disclosed Greenpeace officials.
The full report, along with a map of data centers of the evaluated companies and other information is available at www.greenpeace.org/coolit
Google announced the purchase of 100MW of wind power via Google Energy. This underscores the importance of IT companies powering their revolutionary services with clean renewable energy, said officials.Ericsson (News - Alert) was honored by Greenpeace for its contributions in carbon footprint reducing initiatives, reported TMCnet.
Shamila Janakiraman is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Shamila’s articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Tammy Wolf
