It feels like another lifetime when Apple was scoring dead last on Greenpeace’s report on environmentally friendly data centers and the greenest Apple got was putting out an iMac G3 in “lime” or “sage” colors.
Like a one-time rebel who now sits up front in class, today’s Apple is one of the most sustainable and eco-friendly tech companies around — and Greenpeace’s latest clean energy index has the stats to prove it!
According to Greenpeace, Apple scores a total of 83 percent in its Clean Energy Index. That’s way above the 8 percent scored by Oracle, the 11 percent scored by Samsung, and the 17 percent scored by Amazon. In fact, it makes Apple the cleanest tech giant around: its two closest competitors are Google (56 percent) and Facebook (67 percent).
On Greenpeace’s report card, Apple picked up A grades for Energy Transparency, Renewable Energy Commitment & Siting Policy, Energy Efficiency & Mitigation, and Renewable Procurement. It slipped slightly to a B grade for Advocacy, but that’s still enough to tie it with Google and Facebook in that category.
The “Clicking Clean” report notes that:
“Apple retains its leadership spot for the third year in a row among platform operators. Both Apple and Google continue to lead the sector in matching their growth with an equivalent or larger supply of renewable energy, and both companies continue to use their influence to push governments as well as their utility and IT sector vendors to increase access to renewable energy for their operations.”
Under Tim Cook’s leadership, Apple has made no secret of its environmental concerns. In 2013, the company announced that its data centers were all running on renewable energy. This ambition was rapidly expanded to cover hundreds of Apple Stores.
Since then, Apple has taken these aspirations all over the world. The company inked a bio-gas research agreement with Denmark’s University of Aarhus, while a five-year project in China manages 1 million acres of forests. Apple was named the most environmentally friendly tech company by Greenpeace on two previous occasions.
You can check out the whole of Greenpeace’s latest report here.
