Greenpeace

We’ve just released the latest version of our Cool IT Leaderboard, and Cisco has leapt to the top of our list of global tech companies leading the way toward a cleaner, greener high-tech future.

Other companies seem, shall we say, unable to decide if climate solutions that reduce energy wastage and carbon emissions are a significant business opportunity (to say nothing of the morally right thing to do) or a mere marketing strategy.
 
Cisco doubled its score from the previous version of our leaderboard by demonstrating the effectiveness of its solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, Ericsson made a strong debut in the second place spot.

You can download the Cool IT Leaderboard version 3 as a PDF, if you like.
 
The IT sector has the potential to quickly design and implement technologies that achieve greater energy efficiency and cuts in carbon emissions. But as the IT sector grows, its growth must be powered by clean energy sources rather than dirty 19th century technologies like coal. Which is to say, the industry must ensure that its own growing carbon footprint doesn’t negate the impact of the solutions it’s offering.

To that end, please join me and nearly a quarter million other activists worldwide in telling Facebook to use 100% renewable energy, not dirty coal.
 
Our report, "Make IT Green: Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change," shows that the rise of cloud computing represents a major challenge to the otherwise positive climate contributions of the IT sector. The report finds that the “cloud” – comprised of cloud computing services such as social networks, video streaming, email, and photo storage, as well as the telecommunications networks that give us access any time and anywhere to data stored in centralized data centers rather than on our computers’ hard drives — is poised to gobble up three times as much energy in 2020 as it currently does today.

The data centers running the cloud draw electricity from the grid to run the servers that bring us Facebook, Gmail, Flickr, and YouTube to our laptops, iPhones, or tablet computers. With these amazing technological achievements, IT companies are remaking our society. They are to the 21st century as fossil fuel companies were to the past — they have the power to shape the economy and, in turn, the future of our climate. So while Microsoft, Google, IBM, and other Leaderboard companies must use their considerable political influence to lead the transformation to a clean energy economy backed by smart grids and smart technology, they also need to be mindful of their own share of climate pollution.

Behindthegreen.org has an excellent and poignant post up today on the connection between IT and coal. The blogger, Brooks Boliek, comes from a coal mining family, and he's clearly been affected by the recent mining incident in West Virginia in which 29 miners died after being trapped underground. The efficiencies that IT can create could be enough to keep more coal in the ground, Boliek writes.

"What does this have to do with information and communications technologies? ICT can make it possible for fewer people have to go underground. ICT's long suit is efficiency. It can make us use less electricity, and less electricity means we need less of the black stuff that makes it.

There's a conundrum there. It's the same conundrum that faces the miners everyday they ride the man lift. Mining is dangerous, dirty and difficult, but it is also rewarding. Miners make a lot of money and that money fuels the economic activity in small towns in out-of-the way places where there isn't a lot of money to be had. Reducing our need for the black stuff, whether it's coal or oil, could very well have an impact in those small towns and out-of-the way places.

It's a tough problem, but in the end ICT also provides jobs. It has the potential to provide more than those in the coal industry. As much as I personally admire and respect those people who do that dirty, dangerous and difficult job, changing the nation from a country too dependent on the black stuff to a nation dependent on the green stuff is really the only way to go. Making our homes, cars and industries more efficient and less dependent on the black stuff isn't just good for the environment, it's as economic necessity for the country as a whole."

 More at behindthegreen.org.

 

The announcement of Apple's iPad has been much anticipated by a world with an ever-increasing appetite for mobile computing devices as a way to connect, interact, learn and work. As rumors circulated - first about its existence and then about its capabilities - the iPad received more media attention than any other gadget in recent memory.

Whether you actually want an iPad or not, there is no doubt that it is a harbinger of things to come. The iPad relies upon cloud-based computing to stream video, download music and books, and fetch email. Already, millions access the 'cloud' to make use of online social networks, watch streaming video, check email and create documents, and store thousands of digital photos online on popular web-hosted sites like Flickr and Picasa.

The cloud is growing at a time when climate change and reducing emissions from energy use is of paramount concern. With the growth of the cloud, however, comes an increasing demand for energy. For all of this content to be delivered to us in real time, virtual mountains of video, pictures and other data must be stored somewhere and be available for almost instantaneous access. That 'somewhere' is data centers - massive storage facilities that consume incredible amounts of energy.

Greenpeace's new report, Make IT Green:Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change" shows that cloud-based computing has potentially a much larger carbon footprint than previously estimated. The report finds that at current growth rates, data centers and telecommunication networks, the two key components of the cloud, will consume about 1,963 billion kws hrs of electricity in 2020, more than triple their current consumption and over half the current electricity consumption of the US--or more than France, Germany, Canada and Brazil -- combined.

Here is an interesting story that demonstrates how IT companies can make an impact by deciding where to site their data centers. In January 2010, Facebook commissioned a new data center in Oregon and committed to a power service provider agreement with PacificCorp, a utility that gets the majority of its energy from coal-fired power stations, the United States' largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Effectively becoming an industrial-scale consumer of electricity, Facebook now faces the same choices and challenges that other large 'cloud-computing' companies have in building their data centres. With a premium being placed on access to the cheapest electricity available on the grid. In many countries, this means dirty coal.

"I have always believed that IT is the engine of an efficient economy; it also can drive a greener one." – Michael Dell, Forbes

Last month, Facebook announced that it was building its first data center, in Prineville, Oregon, in the northwest of the US. Unfortunately for the climate, we soon found out that instead of renewable energy, Facebook chose to operate its data center with energy from Pacific Power, a utility that is fueled primarily by coal. Last Friday, Greenpeace responded by challenging the company to become a climate champion and dump coal.

How the internet is powered is an issue not just for Facebook but for the entire IT industry. The industry holds many of the keys to reaching our climate goals by innovating internet based solutions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy efficiency. Technologies that enable smart grids, zero emissions buildings, and more efficient transport systems are central to efforts to combat climate change.

However, the IT industry's global environmental footprint is still growing — in fact, it's set to double by 2020. In 2008, The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) issued SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. The study showed the incredible efficiencies IT can create, but it also highlighted the massive footprint of the IT industry and predicted that because of the rapid economic expansion in places like India and China, among other causes, demand for IT services will quadruple by 2020.

How Facebook Should Lead
After we highlighted its growing footprint, Facebook issued a public response. It touted the significant energy efficiency of its data centers, but it also said that Pacific Power and its parent company PacifiCorp "has an energy mix that is weighted slightly more toward coal than the national average" of roughly 50%. This is not the full story. Facebook went to a state with only one existing in-state coal plant (that's shutting down within the decade) and instead decided to throw its lot with a utility that imports dirty coal from out of state.

Moreover, burning coal contributes the largest share of CO2 emissions globally, as well as contributing to increased asthma, acid rain, and mortality from other pollutants. Facebook's decision to choose a company primarily powered by coal over other cleaner sources of energy is a missed opportunity to strike a blow against this dirty fuel and drive a clean energy economy. We expect more from a company that was recently named the most innovative by Fast Company magazine.

In fact, other data center operators are realizing that efficiency is only part of the equation in dealing with company footprint. Yahoo similarly chose a cooler climate in Buffalo, NY for a data center in order to reduce the need for energy intensive cooling systems, but it chose its location based on access to lower carbon hydropower. Google has established Google Energy, which was recently granted its application to become a wholesale electricity buyer and seller. Google will hopefully use this standing to drive more renewable energy powered data centers.

Greenpeace is calling on Facebook, as we have with other IT companies, to:

• Commit to growing without using dirty coal power;
• Use its purchasing power to choose clean sources of electricity;
• Advocate for strong climate and energy policy changes at the local, national and international level to ensure that as its industry's appetite for energy increases, so does the supply of renewable energy;
• Share this information publicly on its website so its 350 million users know the company is a climate leader.

How You Can Get Involved
The IT industry's ability to lead and innovate are the reasons Greenpeace built on its work in the sector and began its Cool IT Campaign in 2009. The campaign uses direct company engagement and public pressure to push the ICT industry to put forward solutions to achieve economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reductions and to become stronger advocates for policies that combat climate change and increase the use of renewable energy.

We want Facebook users to tell the company that you love using Facebook, but you want them to dump coal. You can get involved by joining one of the numerous Facebook groups that have sprung up to raise awareness about Facebook's choice of coal power for its Prineville data center. You can also use your networks and creativity to spread the word on other online social networks about the campaign. The internet is one of the greatest inventions& ever for creating social change. Let's use it.

The announcement of Apple's new iPad, made today by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at an event right here in San Francisco, included a report on the tablet device's environmental stats: Happily, the iPad will be free of PVCs, BFRs, arsenic and mercury. It's very exciting to see that Apple is continuing its industry-leading policy of eliminating toxic chemicals from its products, once again proving that these dangerous substances don't belong in our electronics.

But while Jobs also made the claim that Apple is the industry leader in mobile technologies, he didn’t mention that mobile devices are growing increasingly dependent on cloud computing power, or the fact that the energy powering the cloud can have a big impact on the green cred of mobile devices like the iPad.

In case you’re not familiar with the term, “cloud computing” refers to devices that have little or no processing power and storage of their own, but instead connect to the internet and run web-based applications and access media stored on web servers (as opposed to applications and media stored on your computer's hard drive). Google Docs and Gmail, photos on Flickr, videos on YouTube – these are all part of “the cloud.”

While the rise of cloud computing means we get lots of cool new toys – more powerful smart phones and other high-tech gadgets like the iPad – data storage and cloud computing power are the single largest driver of new electricity demand worldwide. We launched our Cool IT Challenge precisely because tech companies have a huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions, not just in the sense that they're responsible for emitting lots of greenhouse gases but also because they have the potential to play a big part in solutions to climate change.

You can see how all the consumer electronics stack up against each other in terms of green cred on our latest Guide to Greener Electronics.

As a leader in mobile technology, Apple now joins the ranks of big data center users like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and IBM. These companies are building data centers around the globe at alarming rates, and where they choose to build these new data centers can have a huge impact on important decisions about energy policy. For example, we're seeing Google and Apple build data centers in places in the US where there are fights over coal power expansion, and their data centers are being used as justification by politicians and utilities to expand dirty energy power stations.

It's great that the iPad is green. Now Apple and other players in the cloud computing sector must be aggressive advocates for renewable energy to ensure that the cloud powering their products is itself fueled by clean, green energy, not the dirty fuels of the past.

We don't want our fancy new green iPads to be connected to a brown cloud.

Image credit: Gizmodo (via Flickr)

CES 2010. The lights, the sounds, the greenwash. Greenpeace analysts are once again here at the "World's Largest" consumer electronics show to help consumers and the throngs of industry media to see through the haze of both positive green news and industry misinformation.

While some electronics makers have moved to eliminate toxic chemicals in their products — Apple, for instance, which has phased out both PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) — others lag behind. Samsung, Dell, Lenovo, and LGE stand out as laggards, but HP had made news today by bringing to the market the first desktop PC to be free of both PVC and BFRs.

So, if both Apple and HP have shown the way, why is the rest of the industry behind? That’s a question we hope those at CES will ask of the companies as they tour around looking at all the hot new gadgets.


What are PVC and BFRs?
PVC contaminates humans and the environment throughout its lifecycle; during its production, use, and disposal it is the single most environmentally damaging of all plastics, and can form dioxin, a known carcinogen, when burned. Some BFRs are highly resistant to degradation in the environment and are able to bio-accumulate (build up in animals and humans).

With the growth of electronic waste, workers who deal with e-waste and the wider community are at significant health risks. Burning of e-waste to recover valuable resources, as routinely takes place in the backyards of China, India and much of the South, can form dioxins. Eliminating the substances will decrease exposure and increase the recyclability and reusability of electronic products.

Greenpeace at CES
Greenpeace will be all over CES for the next three days. At 10am Thursday in the Venetian Hotel, we’ll be having a press conference to debut version 14 of the Guide to Greener Electronics, a ranking of the top consumer electronics companies based on both their commitments and actions to phase out toxic chemicals and other important green criteria.

We’ll also be handing out awards at 3PM everyday for the “Best New Green Products” as well as the “Worst Greenwash.” On Saturday afternoon, we’ll give the big prizes for the best and worst for the whole week.

In 2010, we should see significant developments, with products free of PVC and BFRs in the PC and TV markets. Any company failing to achieve this goal is taking a big gamble with its green reputation.

Today we launched the “Cool IT Challenge”, a campaign to turn IT industry head honchos like Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Intel’s Paul Otellini, and Michael Dell into advocates for strong global warming policies and providers of effective global warming solutions. (The video at the bottom of this post does a good job of explaining the campaign.) There are two main reasons why this campaign is so cool:

1. A peak in global emissions by 2015 followed by a rapid decline to as close to zero emissions as possible by 2050 is crucial to protecting the climate, and the IT industry has claimed to have the potential to cut 15 percent of total emissions via tech solutions like a smart grid. Many tech leaders have already established initiatives to green their own companies, but if they then turn around and help society as a whole implement solutions to get more energy efficient while still using all the fancy new technologies we’ve come to rely on (and some new ones we haven’t even heard of yet, hopefully!), who knows how big of a contribution the IT inudustry could make to stopping global warming.
2. This campaign was just made for the web. Check out the website, it’s got lots of cool features to play with. For example, you can place bets on which IT industry leader will be leading the pack at the end of the summer when we re-evaluate them all. And more games are coming soon! Plus there’s plenty of ways to invite your friends to play with you (yeah multiplayer action!), dig into our assesment scores for each industry leader (currently in first: IBM’s Samuel Palmisano, with a paltry 29 out of 100 — come on IT big wigs, you can do better!), email these IT leaders and urge them to be climate leaders, and, if you’re a blogger, get your blog added to our featured links list by linking to our page with the most creative content!

We’ve ranked the IT leaders that are part of the challenge based on five criteria: Public Climate Speech; Political Advocacy; Climate Solutions; Own Emissions Targets; and Renewable Energy Use. Check out the site now, find out how the IT leaders are measuring up, and place your bets!