OWC is a leader in using renewable clean energy for operations, recently announcing that it will soon produce enough on-site wind and solar power to cover its energy needs at four facilities in three states — Illinois, Texas, and Nevada. When it comes to large companies in the technology sector, Apple has committed to clean energy as well. As part of Greenpeace’s 2015 Click Clean Report, the environmental organization created the Clean Energy Index based on renewable energy commitment and siting policy, energy efficiency and mitigation, renewable energy deployment and advocacy, and transparency in reporting energy sourcing. Apple gained a perfect 100% index rating in this year’s report, using no natural gas, coal or nuclear energy to run any of its sprawling data center operations.
By comparison, Yahoo! was the second-highest-rated tech company with a 73% index rating, Facebook was at 49%, and Google was fourth at 46%. Greenpeace publicly flogged Oracle for being “stuck in the dirty energy past” (17% rating), and even Amazon Web Services was only able to garner a 23% rating. It’s great to see a huge, multinational consumer electronics company like Apple taking a responsive leading role in using clean energy to power its cloud operations.
