Greenpeace Report Investigates “Dirty Cloud”

A report by environmental charity Greenpeace has investigated the green credentials of tech companies, singling out Amazon as having the “dirtiest cloud” services.

The charity says that Amazon Web Services – the retail giant’s cloud platform - uses only 15% renewable energy, although Amazon claims this is inaccurate.

“By continuing to buy dirty energy, [the company] not only can’t seem to keep up with Apple, but is dragging much of the Internet down with it,” claimed Gary Cook, senior IT analyst at the charitable organisation.

Meanwhile, Facebook, Google and Apple were applauded for “significant improvements” by moving towards energy transparency and closer to 100% renewable energy.

“Apple, Facebook and Google are powering our online lives with clean energy and building a greener offline world for everyone in the process,” said Cook.

Moving Towards A “Greener Internet”

The report, Clicking Clean: How Companies Are Creating The Green Internet, explores the types of energies being use by web-related companies and how these firms can minimise environmental damage.

According to the activist group, more needs to be done on an international level to make the Internet “greener.”

The web requires an increasing demand for electricity supply, ultimately having environmental implications, particularly in countries like China that are experiencing exponential net growth.

Greenpeace expects this to grow by 60% or more by 2020, as it claims the population is becoming more and more reliant on the Internet.

Its research evaluated 19 leading Internet companies and of these, only five have committed to the goal of using 100% renewable energy.

Apple was the first to actually reach this goal, despite the criticism it previously faced from Greenpeace in 2012 for only using 35% green power sources.

© 24N.biz