Facebook commits to clean energy future

Greenpeace and Facebook announced that they will
collaborate on the promotion of renewable energy, encourage major utilities to
develop renewable energy generation, and develop programs that will enable
Facebook users to save energy and engage their communities in clean energy
decisions. 

 

As part of the agreement, the social media giant will
continue pursuing on-going research into energy efficiency and the open sharing
of that technology through the Open Compute Project which Greenpeace will work
to support.  

 

Facebook is also planning to engage itself in dialogue
with utility providers about the sources of energy that power their data
centers.

 

Greenpeace launched its global Unfriend Coal Campaign,
enlisting 700,000 online activists to call on Facebook to run its datacenters
with clean energy instead of coal.

 

Greenpeace and Facebook will now work together to
encourage major energy producers to move away from coal and instead invest
in renewable energy. This move sets an example for the industry to follow,”
said Tzeporah Berman, co-director of Greenpeace‘s
International Climate and Energy Program.

 

“As an important step, our datacenter siting policy
now states a preference for access to clean and renewable energy.  Another
important step will be to work with Greenpeace to put the power of our platform
to use for the environment,” said Marcy Scott Lynn of Facebook‘s sustainability
program.

 

Greenpeace and Facebook have also agreed to develop and
promote experiences on Facebook that help people and organizations connect
with ways to save energy and engage their communities in clean energy
issues.

 

  Facebook’s
commitment to renewable energy raises the bar for other IT and cloud computing
companies such as Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and Twitter,” said Abhishek Pratap,
senior campaigner, Greenpeace India.

 

Earlier this year,
Greenpeace activists asked Bharti Airtel to answer
specific questions pertaining to reduction in its carbon emissions and shifting
to renewable sources of energy to power its network operations.

 

By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]