Find out why Apple, Facebook, Google scored a 'green' A

Back in 2011, Greenpeace didn't miss a beat when pulling up Apple, Facebook and Google for their lack of understanding of responsibility towards the environment. When grading companies, it evaluates the impact the company data centres have on environment and how they have been using coal to fuel their energy instead of renewable resources.

 

Rewind to 2016, and a lot seems to be changing. Apple has been pledging to go 100 percent renewable while Facebook has been prioritising CO2-free energy. Apple is now termed as the most environmentally friendly technology company in the world for the third time, owing to the high user of renewable energy.

"Both Apple and Google continue to lead the sector in matching their growth with an equivalent or larger supply of renewable energy, and both companies continue to use their influence to push governments as well as their utility and IT sector vendors to increase access to renewable energy for their operations," the report adds.

 

Apple scores grade A in energy transparency, renewable energy commitment, energy efficiency and renewable procurement. In terms of data centres, Greenpeace report states that Facebook and Apple have been leading the sector in operational transparency, providing regular and easy-to-access reporting of their data center energy footprint, including facility level detail on both consumption and changes to electricity supply. 

 

However, cloud computing is the future and companies implementing seem to be one of the reasons to worry. "Cloud computing companies have lagged behind platform specific leaders like Apple and Facebook in their energy transparency, frequently citing competitiveness concerns in revealing details on the scale of their operations," the report added.

 

Apart from Apple, Facebook, Google and switch managed to score an A. It should be noted to evaluate performance, Greenpeace uses information provided directly as well as publicly available information from each company, including corporate communications, public submissions to stakeholders, reporting bodies, media coverage, or published reports to analyse performance.