For the second year in a row, environmental group Greenpeace has blasted cloud providers for failing to base their services on sustainable energy. And fairly or not, leading Internet firms are getting the business end of this figurative tasing.
But just how much this information can be trusted is open to question.
In the report -- aptly titled "How Clean is Your Cloud?" -- Greenpeace acknowledges the explosion of cloud services and their origination points in datacenters or "information factories" worldwide. Then it fires its chief accusation:
Instead of linking their IT innovation to equally innovative clean sources of energy, many IT companies are simply choosing to attach their modern information factories to some of the dirtiest sources of electricity, supplied by some of the dirtiest utilities on the planet.
Greenpeace did this last year as well. And as before, it is very specific in its criticisms. But while last year's villains were Apple, Google, and Facebook, this year the focus is on Amazon, Apple, and Twitter.
Amazon is dismissed as behind the times and tight-lipped when it comes to spending on renewable energy. And while giving a nod to Twitter's influence in "its impact on people's ability to communicate through several social justice uprisings across the globe," Greenpeace puts Twitter "at the bottom of the industry pack" for failing to disclose its energy footprint and remaining aloof to the need for sustainable energy planning.
Greenpeace hammers Apple for its iCloud datacenter locations in Maiden, N.C., and Prineville, Ore., where the group says utilities rely mostly on coal.
In contrast, Facebook, which also has datacenters in the North Carolina area cited by Greenpeace as powered by dirty coal, is praised for advancing the cause of renewable energy by opening its first European datacenter in an Arctic region of Sweden, while making inroads in transparently disclosing its energy footprint. And Google, criticized by Greenpeace last year for talking the energy talk without really walking the walk, has now revealed its footprint and improved its choice of datacenter locales.
Table 1: Bottom of the Class: Greenpeace Grades Cloud Providers
| |
Coal Use |
|
Transparency in Disclosing Energy Use |
|
Infrastructure Siting |
|
|
2011 |
2012 |
2011 |
2012 |
2011 |
2012 |
| Amazon |
28.50% |
33.90% |
F |
F |
D |
F |
| Apple |
54.50% |
55.10% |
C |
D |
F |
F |
| Facebook |
53.20% |
39.40% |
D |
D |
F |
B |
| Google |
34.70% |
28.70% |
F |
B |
C |
C |
| Twitter |
42.50% |
35.60% |
F |
F |
F |
D |
The report has stirred controversy. While Greenpeace activists hung a banner from a new Amazon building in Seattle and climbed an Apple headquarters in Ireland, Apple attacked the report's accuracy.
Indeed, Cupertino has gone on record with objections to Greenpeace's calculations regarding the kind of energy used in its Maiden, N.C., datacenter. Apple says it plans for 60 percent of that facility's energy to come from renewable energy sources, while Greenpeace points to just 10 percent coming from them now.
Elsewhere, at least one observer questions Greenpeace's methods and motivation. In a scathing blog yesterday, Forbes contributor Tim Worstall wrote: "This wouldn't be the first time that Greenpeace has simply plucked numbers out of the ether in order to advance a point."
Worstall accuses Greenpeace of being manipulative about comparing coal fuel to nuclear energy, and he indicates that Greenpeace has another agenda in its attack on Apple:
Could be just that attacking Apple gets you more attention than attacking anyone else at the moment. Could be that as Apple won't reveal commercially confidential information to the hippies they decided to be nasty. And there is always the possibility that Greenpeace just doesn’t know what it’s talking about...
Are those really fair accusations? (Hippies?) It's not clear. Both Greenpeace and the companies it points to as purveyors of dirty clouds are digging in, claiming to be on the side of the green angels.
As in many arguments, there is no doubt truth on both sides and value in the issues raised and questions asked, especially when the earth is in a precarious state and cloud datacenters are burgeoning.
What do you think? How important is a vendor's green profile to you as an IT professional? Let us know on the message board below. And don't forget to take our poll as well: Dirty Clouds.
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— Mary Jander 
, Managing Editor, Internet Evolution
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