Apple is leading the way on clean energy among companies delivering Internet services, according to a new Greenpeace report. The report praises the company’s efforts to use only renewable energy to power its facilities, noting all three of Apple’s data center expansions announced in the past year will be powered by renewable energy sources.
Apple was the only one of the 13 tech firms listed to score 100 percent on Greenpeace’s Clean Energy Index and earn “A” rankings across the board for energy transparency, efficiency, policy and advocacy, placing the company head and shoulders above others in the industry. Apple was also praised for pushing affiliated companies to adopt cleaner energy standards, since much of Apple’s environmental impact comes from third-party suppliers.
“Apple’s commitment to a 100 percent renewable cloud appears to be driving change not only among Apple’s utility sector partners, but also among other major data center operators that play a supporting role in the delivery of Apple’s online products,” the report notes. Other innovative ideas, like using a Denmark data center’s excess heat to warm other buildings, are taken as proof of Apple going above and beyond what others in the industry are doing to creatively limit waste.
