Greenpeace used to give Apple F's and D's on its data center design. But the environmentally minded not-for-profit has now revised its opinion of the massive computing facilities that run online services like iTunes and iCloud. Greenpeace now gives Apple D's and C's.
In a report released on Thursday, Greenpeace says it's pleased that Apple has promised to move its data centers to renewable power sources, such as solar, wind power, and hydro-electric dams. But it still wants to know how Apple intends to do this.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in the past, it has said that its computing facilities will be powered entirely by renewable sources by early next year. The rub is that its $1bn data center in Maiden, North Carolina is currently plugged into the Duke Energy power grid, whose power sources are not exactly 100 percent clean.
Yes, Apple is already building a 100-acre solar array and a biogas energy plant on in Maiden, but it does not appear that these can power the entire facility.
"[The move to renewable sources] all sounds great, and we're super pumped about that," says Greenpeace spokesman David Pomerantz. "But when you get into the analysis and actually look at it, there are some big holes in what they're doing and how they're going to get there that they haven't revealed yet. Without that, there are some pretty big issues that they're going to have to resolve, and we're wondering how they're going to do that."
As companies like Apple and Google and Amazon have expanded the infrastructure underpinning the proverbial cloud, Greenpeace has kept a close watch on how the world's data centers are powered and how these facilities generally affect the environment. Earlier this year, Google topped the Greenpeace "Cool IT Leaderboard," which ranks the performance of the big IT players in this area.
But in addition to publishing such lists, Greenpeace will occasionally go on the offensive. In April, it dropped protest banners on the corporate offices of Amazon and Microsoft, and then, in a separate stunt, it sicced its professional activists on Apple's flagship retail store in San Francisco and the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Soon after, Apple said it would move its facilities to 100 percent renewable energy. But Greenpeace is annoyed that the company hasn't said exactly how it will move away from things like coal power. Its latest report gives Apple a "C" in certain areas and a "D" in others, and it got a "D" for its secretive approach to its plans. Pomerantz says that Greenpeace would love to give Apple something higher, but it just doesn't have enough information.
Some have speculated that Apple will stake a claim to 100 percent renewable energy by purchasing credits to offset its use of "dirty power."
Apple says that by year’s end, about 60 percent of the energy powering Apple's Maiden data center will come from the solar farm and biogas plant, but it has not said where the other 40 percent will come from. Apple also says that its data center in Newark, California will be 100 percent renewable by February 2013 and that a third data center, in Prineville, Oregon, will use wind, hydro, and geothermal energy when it's finished.
Apple also houses facilities in Austin, Texas, and Sacramento, California, and the company says that both are plugged into the renewable energy grid.
But Greenpeace wants more. "At some point, they're going to have to take the philosophical leap that Google and Facebook have taken," Pomeratz says. "If you want a data center powered energy, you need to engage the utility and ask them for cleaner fuel."
Update: This story has been updated to show that Greenpeace gave Apple a "C" grade in certain areas and a "D" in others. There was no overall score, as this story previous indicated.
