Greenpeace Criticizes Apple For Relying Heavily on Dirty Energy

Greenpeace has released a new report called 'How Clean is Your Cloud' which criticizes Apple and others for relying heavily on dirty energy.

To deliver iCloud services, Apple has dramatically expanded its data center infrastructure. It 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. 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.

Transparency: D
Apple has been incredibly selective about the energy- related details of its iCloud in North Carolina, offering those nuggets of detail and data that it feels are most favorable, such as the size or scale of onsite renewable energy investment, but refusing to disclose the size of the energy demand of the facility itself, or the environmental footprint associated with the iCloud.


Infrastructure Siting: F
Apple's two most recent data center announcements to power the iCloud (Maiden, NC and Prineville, OR) highlight the urgent need for a rapidly expanding cloud company to establish a siting policy with access to renewable energy as a key criteria. The absence of such a policy or strong corporate goal to guide Apple has resulted in iCloud data centers being built in regions served by dirty utilities that are heavily (50-60%) reliant on coal.

Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: D
Apple has provided high-level evidence of a number of innovative energy efficient design features in its Maiden, NC iCloud data center. Apple has also revealed other non-energy related design features that have earned it a LEED Platinum designation. However, Apple's lack of transparency on the performance of the facility and detail of the energy savings design features make it difficult to evaluate its performance. This lack of transparency and detail of data also make it difficult for other IT brands to learn from and improve upon Apple's best efficiency practices.

Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: D
Apple's decision to invest in on-site renewable energy generation for its Maiden, NC iCloud data center is a good first step, and should provide as much as 10% of the total energy demand with clean energy. If Apple is really interested in having the "high percentage" of renewable energy it claims to want for the iCloud, it will have to look beyond the initial steps for on-site generation and use its tremendous cash reserves to invest in or purchase renewable energy and also to put pressure on Duke Energy to provide cleaner energy.

Check out the chart below to see Greenpeace's data center scorecard or hit the link for the full report.


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