Greenpeace: Apple Clean Energy Output Improving, Not There Yet

Apple could set new precedents in coal-free cloud computing, Greenpeace said, but the company is still "mostly talk and not enough walk."

A recent Greenpeace International report revealed that Cupertino "still lacks a plan that outlines a realistic path to eliminate its reliance on coal to power its iCloud," the environmental organization said in a press release.

While Apple's clean energy policies have significantly improved, Greenpeace said, Apple still earned poor grades for its energy choices compared to sector leaders.

In April, Greenpeace ranked companies including Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple based on renewable energy policies ? Apple earned three D's and an F.

This time, however, Apple walked away with two D's and two C's, raising its grades in all categories except energy transparency, in which its D stayed steady.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The updated scorecard showed that Apple did improve its clean energy index, scoring 22.6 percent, up from its 15.3 percent in April. It also lessened its usage of coal and nuclear products, dropping from 55.1 percent to 33.5 and 27.8 percent to 11.6, respectively.

Those scores could continue to drop if Apple reveals viable plans for powering its growing data centers without the use of coal, according to Greenpeace. The latest analysis said Apple is working to make its existing data centers coal-free, but is still far from complete.

"Apple got a lot of kudos and positive attention for its clean energy commitments in May, but it now must explain to its customers how it plans to fully eliminate its dirty energy sources," Greenpeace International Senior IT Analyst Gary Cook said in a statement, adding that Apple should extend its policy to new data centers as its iCloud expands.

During construction of Apple's North Carolina data center, the company will install solar panels and fuel cells, providing 60 percent of the electricity for the center, and leaning on regional renewable energy providers for the remaining 40 percent. But Greenpeace pointed out that that electricity will be coming from the only electric utility in the area, Duke Energy, which relies heavily on coal.

Cupertino should instead use its buying power to demand that Duke provide it with clean energy, "not mountaintop removal coal," Greenpeace said.

The environmental group reported that since it launched its Clean Our Cloud campaign in mid-April, more than 250,000 Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft customers have written to the companies asking for a more tidy cloud.

Facebook has also tangled with Greenpeace in the past, but recently earned praise for committing to renewable energy, especially with its new Swedish data center.

Dropping EPEAT Certification
Earlier this month, Apple officially withdrew 39 products from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) certification, which awards products with gold, silver, or bronze classification based on a variety of environmental criteria.

"Apple takes a comprehensive approach to measuring our environmental impact and all of our products meet the strictest energy efficiency standards backed by the US government, Energy Star 5.2," Apple told The Loop.

The company also leads the industry by posting on its website the greenhouse gas emissions of each product, which reign superior in important environmental areas not measured by EPEAT, Apple said.

The departure from EPEAT could be due to Apple's future hardware design blueprints, according to EPEAT CEO Robert Frisbee, who told the Wall Street Journal that Apple's design direction was no longer consistent with EPEAT requirements. Retina display Macbook Pros are the main culprit, since the difficult, if not impossible, to disassemble product is ineligible for EPEAT certification, since the glued-together case and battery become un-recyclable.

In the wake of Apple dropping EPEAT, there were reports that the city of San Francisco was dropping all Apple products. In a statement, however, the city said this week that there was no ban or boycott in place, and none was being considered.

"We are reaching out to understand why Apple decided to withdraw its participation from the EPEAT ecolabel program for computers and hope they will reconsider," a San Francisco Department of Energy spokesman said in a statement.

For more from Stephanie, follow her on Twitter @smlotPCMag.

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Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407089,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05079TX1K0000995

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