Apple gets failing grade from Greenpeace due to dirty new data center

By on Apr 22, 2011 at 11:00 AM
General April 22, 2011

Greenpeace recently released a report titled How dirty is your data: A look at the energy choices that power cloud computing, which graded Amazon, Akamai, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo across three “green” categories: transparency, infrastructure siting, and mitigating strategy. While Greenpeace offered some praise to the Cupertino-based company for improving transparency and its efforts to move towards cleaner energy, it failed Apple in the “infrastructure siting,” category for choosing to build its new $1 billion iDataCenter — which requires enough energy to power 80,000 U.S. homes –  in North Carolina.

“Apple’s decision to locate its iDataCenter in North Carolina, which has an electrical grid among the dirtiest in the country (61% coal, 31% nuclear) indicates a lack of a corporate commitment to clean energy supply for its cloud operations. The fact that the alternative location for Apple’s iDataCenter was Virginia, where electricity also comes from very dirty sources, is an indication that, in addition to tax incentives, access to inexpensive energy, regardless of its source, is a key driver in Apple’s site selection.”

Hit the jump for more, as well as the official report card.

Facebook also received fail marks for infrastructure siting, and Twitter failed every single category. IBM was the top of the class, and Greenpace said it “should be recognized for its ongoing and comprehensive plan to reduce remissions, in addition to driving significant gains in IT efficiency.”

[Via 9to5 Mac]

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  • Nagger

    LUL at all the iFags who are angry that someone said negative things about Apple

  • http://twitter.com/BrSwa Brandon

    Am I missing something or does it appear that Facebook, IBM, Twitter (especially) all failed too?

  • Anonymous

    Looking at the scorecard there Apple is the “worst” among a lot of companies with bad ratings. While it is true it seems to me that this kind of a headline is more to get attention than anything. Heck, if Google was the worst and Apple second I’d bet the headline would have been “Apple Second Worst”.

  • http://rmbo47.myopenid.com/ rmbo47

    Somebody should do the world a favor and introduce those smell, tree-hugging bastards to a bar of soap.

  • http://rmbo47.myopenid.com/ rmbo47

    What do you have when all of Greenpeace is stuck in quicksand?
    Sand thats not quick enough.

  • Swcowger1

    Fuck Greenpeace. Bunch of dickheads

  • Swcowger1

    By the way Jobs can lick my sack

  • Jesster King

    Finally, someone is taking apples smug self down a notch.

  • http://www.absolutefiction.com Jed Tylman

    Wow.
    Looking at that report and those comments:
    No wonder the planet is in such bad shape.
    No one cares.

    If people could live long enough to hear what their grandchildren thought of their “legacy”, maybe we’d have a cleaner planet. Hopefully today’s kids may be able to fix this, since it will be their lives on the line by the time they get to be in charge.

    • guest

      Not liking Greenpeace ≠ not caring about the planet. Greenpeace has a political agenda and makes decisions about what is “good” or “bad” and expects everyone to subscribe to that identical viewpoint or otherwise hate the Earth.

      If our kids/grandchildren/whatever want to save the world, they’d do well not to join Greenpeace and get a PhD instead.

  • Anonymous

    Does anyone still take Greenpeace seriously? They’ve always attacked Apple and other companies to generate attention and this one doesn’t change that. Heck, they’ve attacked Apple because they’re not promising to be greener than other companies when they have been delivering real results.

  • Anonymous

    Well, if all companies start prioritizing “green” over profits, then they will shut down in no time. Obviously companies will choose cheap energy!! Duh!

  • Anonymous

    I wasn’t sure if I could dislike apple more… but them being on Greenpeace’s $hitlist makes me actually have a little more respect for Apple. I wonder if there are ANY successful companies who create good jobs and products that improve people’s lives who Greenpeace thinks are good. Also their ratio of coal to nuclear confuses me. Are activist hippies for or against nuclear this week?

    • Anonymous

      Google.

  • Anonymous

    And if they didn’t choose the cheapest manufacturing methods possible and still managed to put a viable product on the shelves, I’m sure liberals in congress would feel the need to investigate the harm this does to the consumer.

    Hippies don’t like anything to win. Because to them, anything winning/profiting MUST mean something else is exploited/oppressed. They just can’t wrap their minds around creating something good in this world through hard work and ingenuity. They never could, so they just assume anyone who does is doing it immorally. What a horrible mindset to have to live with every day, constantly looking for things to complain about and tearing down real achievements.

    • Anonymous

      Weird. Cause aside from Google there’s no more liberal company than Apple!

  • Anonymous

    Google never gets an F in any of their plants or data centers. Just As baby!

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