How Clean
is Your Cloud?

greenpeace.org

Catalysing an energy revolution

April 2012

dreamstime.com

For more information contact:
enquiries@greenpeace.org
Written by:Gary Cook, Greenpeace International
Creative Direction & Design by:
Arc Communications
Greenpeace International would like toextend its gratitude to
EvoSwitch Datacenter in Haarlem,
the Netherlands, and to thephotographer Frank van Biemen,
for the use of their photographs in thisreport. EvoSwitch Datacenter uses
green energy to power the system.
This energy-efficient datacenter hosts
providers, public institutions andprivate corporations.

JN 417
Published in April 2012 by
Greenpeace International
Ottho Heldringstraat 51066 AZ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 7182000
greenpeace.org

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How Clean is Your Cloud?

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Sectionxxxx© ALEX STONEMAN / Greenpeace

GreenpeaceInternational

Pull quote comes here
Contents
Executive Summary

pull quote comes here

Company Scorecard

xx5

7

1: Cloud Power
9
2: Mobile Power
13
3: Green IT = Energy Efficiency + 		Renewable Energy
15
4: Cleaning Our Cloud19
5: Location Matters
23
Germany

27

Hong Kong

27

Ireland28

Netherlands

28

Sweden29

United States

29

Illinois (Chicago area)

29

North Carolina and Virginia

30

Washington and Oregon (Pacific Northwest)

31

Appendix 1: Methodology
34
Appendix 2: Company scores explained 36
		.

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GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Executive
Summary

Executive
Summary

Computers, Smart Phones, Tablets

Data Centre

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google,
and Yahoo – these global brands and ahost of other IT companies are rapidly andfundamentally transforming the way in which
we work, communicate, watch movies or TV,
listen to music, and share pictures through “thecloud.” The growth and scale of investment in
the cloud is truly mind-blowing, with estimatesof a 50-fold increase in the amount of digital
information by 2020 and nearly half a trillion in
investment in the coming year, all to create andfeed our desire for ubiquitous access to infinite
information from our computers, phones andother mobile devices, instantly.
The engine that drives the cloud is the data center. Data
centers are the factories of the 21st century informationage, containing thousands of computers that store
and manage our rapidly growing collection of data for
consumption at a moment’s notice. These cloud data
centers, many of which can be seen from space, consume
a tremendous amount of electricity; some consume theequivalent of nearly 180,000 homes. Unfortunately, despite
the tremendous innovation they contain and the cleanenergy potential they possess, most IT companies are
rapidly expanding without considering how their choice ofenergy could impact society.

Power Supplier

Given the energy-intensive nature of maintaining the cloud,access to significant amounts of electricity is a key factor
in decisions about where to build these data centers.
Since electricity plays a critical role in the cost structure ofcompanies that use the cloud, there have been dramatic
strides made in improving the energy efficiency designof the facilities and the thousands of computers that go
inside. However, despite significant improvements inefficiency, the exponential growth in cloud computing far
outstrips these energy savings. Companies must look notonly at how efficiently they are consuming electricity, butalso the sources of electricity that they are choosing.
This year’s report provides an updated and expanded
look at the energy choices some of the largest andfastest growing IT companies are making as the race tobuild the cloud creates a new era of technology. Theseenergy choices are completely invisible to consumers as
we continue to rely more and more on our online world,
but in places where the cloud touches the ground, theseinvestments are having a very significant and rapidly
growing impact in the offline world.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 5

Instead of linking their IT innovation to equally innovative
clean sources of electricity, many IT companies are simply
choosing to attach their modern information factories
to some of the dirtiest sources of electricity, supplied bysome of the dirtiest utilities on the planet. These utilities,
unlike the IT companies, are not known for their innovation.
Because of the tendency within the IT sector to clusterin the same geographic locations, these investments are
driving significant new demand for both coal and nuclear
power in many regions of the world – and in rapidly
growing economies like India, they are driving demandfor diesel from large onsite generators. If IT companies
continue to rely on dirty sources of energy to power the
cloud, the cloud itself will begin to have a measurable
negative impact on our environment and communities.

Key findings of this year’s report:
1. Three of the largest IT companies building theirbusiness around the cloud – Amazon, Apple andMicrosoft – are all rapidly expanding without adequate
regard to source of electricity, and rely heavily on dirty
energy to power their clouds.
2. Yahoo and Google both continue to lead the sector inprioritizing access to renewable energy in their cloud
expansion, and both have become more active insupporting policies to drive greater renewable energy
investment.

3. Facebook, one of the largest online destinations withover 800 million users around the world, has now
committed to power its platform with renewable energy.
Facebook took the first major step in that direction with
However, we do see a growing realization and commitment
the construction of its latest data center in Sweden,
from within several leading IT companies to realignwhich can be fully powered by renewable energy.
their rapid growth with access to renewable sources ofelectricity at scale to power their online platforms. For
4. A growing concentration of data center investments inthese companies, we see these commitments significantly
key locations is having a significant impact on energy
shaping decisions on where they build their data centers.
demand and how the electricity grid is managed; if
Companies such as Google are also making significant
such concentrated expansion is allowed to continue,
clean energy investments and signing long-term contracts
this will make it increasingly difficult to shift thesefor renewable energy to power their existing facilities. Even
investments and the surrounding community away
more significantly, many IT companies are recognizing thatfrom dirty sources of electricity.
their influence and market power give them the opportunity
5. Akamai, responsible for carrying a tremendous amountand responsibility to demand clean energy investments
of internet traffic, is the first IT company to begin
and policy conditions to drive utilities and government
reporting its carbon intensity under the new Carbon
officials to make better choices. IT companies can drive
Utilization Effectiveness (CUE) standard. There has been
the electricity supply on the grid we all use to evera notable absence of reporting under CUE by otherincreasing amounts of renewable energy while phasing out
companies.
the dirtiest and most dangerous sources.
6. There have been increasing attempts by someWith this year’s update, we have expanded our analysis tocompanies to portray the cloud as inherently “green,”
examine a total of 14 global IT companies who are leading
despite a continued lack of transparency and very
the sector’s move to the cloud, and also taken a closer
poor metrics for measuring performance or actual
look at the key places around the globe where significant
environmental impact.
concentrations of data centers are being built. We explore
the challenges and opportunities for IT companies to play a 7. There are increasing positive signs of collaboration andopen source sharing of best practices in both hardware
constructive role in driving renewable energy deployment.
and software design among IT leaders to help
accelerate improvement and deployment of energy
efficient IT design
8. There have been increasing signs that more IT
companies are beginning to take a proactive approachin ensuring their energy demand can be met withavailable renewable sources of electricity, and will
increasingly play a role in shaping our energy future.

6

How Clean is Your Cloud?

Company Scorecard

GreenpeaceInternational

Company

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Clean
Energy
Index

Coal

NA

NA

13.5%

33.9%

15.3%

Company Scorecard

Nuclear

EnergyTransparency

Infrastructure
SitingEnergyRenewables
Efficiency & Advocacy& GHG
Mitigation

A

C

B

D

29.9%

F

F

D

F

55.1%

27.8%

D

F

D

D

56.3%

20.1%

6.4%

C

C

C

D

36.4%

39.4%

13.2%

D

B

B

C

39.4%

28.7%

15.3%

B

C

B

A

19.4%

49.7%

14.1%

C

D

B

C

12.1%

49.5%

11.5%

C

D

C

D

13.9%

39.3%

26%

C

D

C

C

7.1%

48.7%

17.2%

D

D

C

D

23.6%

31.6%

22.3%

C

C

C

C

4%

33.9%

31%

B

C

C

C

21.3%

35.6%

12.8%

F

D

F

D

56.4%

20.3%

14.6%

C

B

B

B

(a) Clean Energy Index and Coal Intensity are calculated based on estimates of power demand for evaluated facilities [http://www.greenpeace.org/cloudcomputingfacilities](b) Akamai’s global network of server is highly distributed and not possible to individually evaluate as we have done for other brands. However, Akamai is the only company thatis reporting a fleet wide and regional Carbon Utilization Effectiveness (CUE), as noted in the data center facility table.
(c) Both AWS and Apple were provided facility power demand estimates to review, both responded they were not correct, but neither provided alternative estimates. Using
conservative calculations, Greenpeace has used best information available to derive power demand, and has decided to publish and invite AWS and Apple to be transparent
and provide more accurate data for their facility power demands.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 7

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GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Section 01
Cloud Power

?
?

?

01

Cloud PowerHow big is the cloud?
How much energy is required to power the
ever-expanding online world? What percentageof global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is
attributable to the IT sector? Answers to thesequestions are very difficult to obtain with any
degree of precision, partially due to the sector’s
explosive growth, a wide range of devices
and energy sources, and rapidly changing
technology and business models.

Global IT Estimates of Carbon and Energy
The estimates of the IT sector’s carbon footprint performed
to date have varied widely in their methodology and scope.
One of the most recognized estimates of the IT sector’sfootprint was conducted as part of the 2008 SMART 2020
study, which established that the sector is responsiblefor 2% of global GHG emissions. The report outlines
three broad areas of GHG associated with our online andelectronic world.

However, the lack of transparency from major IT brands
remains one of the biggest reasons for this imprecision.
This shared secrecy appears to be fed both by concerns
about disclosing competitive advantages or disadvantages
in operations among major cloud brands, and also a desire
to suppress the story of how the IT sector, otherwise
perceived as “clean” by the public and its employees, isoften heavily reliant upon coal and other dirty sources ofenergy to fuel its growth.

Estimated GHG Emissions of ICT Sector:
MtCO2e = Million Tonnes Carbon Dioxide Equivalent

116

Emissions 2007 (MtCO2e)
Data centres			
Telecoms and devices		Computers and devices		

307

407

iClimate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI)(2008).
SMART 2020: enabling the low carbon economy in the information age

How Clean is Your Cloud? 9

DIRTY DATAGreenpeace released its own report, Make IT Green:
Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change
in March 2010, highlighting the scale of the sector’s
estimated energy consumption, and providing new
analysis on the projected growth in energy consumption of
the internet and cloud computing for the coming decade,particularly as driven by data centers.
Keyfindingsreleased
and outstanding
questionsfrom theMake IT
Greenpeaceits own report,
Make IT Green:
Cloud
Green
reportComputingandinclude:
its Contribution to Climate Change9 in March of
2010, highlighting the scale of IT’s estimated energy consumption,

1. The electricity consumption of data centers may be as
and providing new analysis on the projected growth in energy
much as of70%
higherand
thanpreviously
predicted.
consumption
the internet
cloudcomputingfor the coming
particularly as
driven by data
centres.
2.decade,
The combined
electricity
demandof the internet/
Keycloudfindings
and outstanding
questionsfrom the Make IT network)
Green
(data
centers andtelecommunications
reportinclude:globally
in 2007 was approximately 623bn kWh. If thecloud
wereconsumption
a country, itofwould
have maythe fifth
electricity
data centres
be aslargest
much as• The
70%higher thanpreviously
predicted.
electricity
demandin theworld.

3.• Based on current projections, the demand forcentres and telecommunications network) globally is 623bn kWhelectricity
will5thmore
thantriple to 1,973bn kWh, an(andwould rank
amongcountries).
amountgreaterthanthecombined
total
demandsofdemand forelectricity
will more• Based on current projections, theFrance,Germany,
CanadaandBrazil.
than triple to 1,973bn kWh, an amount greater than the
The combined electricity demand of the internet/cloud (data03

A recent study1 on energy demand from data centersreleased since Greenpeace’s How Dirty is Your Data?
report was published indicated that, due to theeconomic downturn and continued energy efficiency
and performance improvements, global energy demand
from data centers from 2005-2010 increased by 56%
instead of the 100% worse case scenario that has been
estimated previously. This study was quickly seized
upon by many in the sector and offered as evidence thatthe data center energy footprint had “moderated2” or“declined,” and was generally taken as a sign that thesector’s energy footprint was getting under control. Whilethe improvements in energy efficiency are certainly to berecognized, this was the wrong take-home message. The
study essentially tracked the middle-of-the-road estimate
from the previous study, which had anticipated some
important improvements in performance. A 58% increasein energy consumption in a period where global electricity
consumption is otherwise essentially flat due to the global
recession is still a staggering rate of growth.

combined total demands of France, Germany, Canada andBrazil.

2007 electricity consumption. Billion kwH
US

3923

China

3438

Russia

1023

Japan

925

Cloud computing

623

India

568

Germany

547

Canada536

France447

Brazil

404

UK

345

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

9 http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/make-it-green-cloudcomputing/Greenpeace’s
Make IT Green Report, 2010.

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Greenpeace International 11GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Section 01
Cloud Power

Recent key indicators of the scale of investments currently
underway and associated growth in energy needed to
power the cloud clearly show a sector that is rapidly
accelerating even as the global economy is only beginning
to recover:
1. Industry leaders estimate nearly $450bn US dollars
is being spent annually on new data center space,despite the persistent global economic downturn.3
2. Estimates of data center electricity demand come in at
31GW globally, with an increase of 19% in 2012 alone,despite the fact that global electricity demand has
remained essentially flat for the past three years.4
3. It is estimated that global mobile data traffic grew
133% in 2011, with 597 petabytes of data sent by
mobiles every month.5
The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned in fall
20116 that unless a decisive shift is made to clean energy
investment and away from high-carbon sources of energy
like coal, in the next five years (by 2017), the Earth will
be locked into a disastrous cycle of unavoidable global
warming. Electronic devices and the rapidly growing cloudthat supports our demand for greater online access areclearly a significant force in driving global energy demand.
While many brands are taking steps to manage andreduce pollution by increasing efficiency in their data center
operations, only a few companies have demonstrated asignificant commitment to meeting their growing electricity
needs from renewable sources. This disconnect highlights
the tremendous urgency in ensuring that these long-lasting
investments in building the infrastructure to deliver the
cloud are directed toward renewable sources of energy,
and do not lock us in to our addiction to coal and otherdirty sources of energy.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 11

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GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Section 02
Mobile Power

Mobile Power02

The global telecoms sector is growing rapidly.
In 2011, it is estimated that 6 billion peopleor 86.7% of the entire global population havemobile telephone subscriptions.7 By the end of
2012, the number of mobile connected devices
is expected to exceed the global population.
Rapid growth in use of smart phones andbroadband mobile connections mean mobile
data traffic in 2011 was eight times the size ofthe entire internet in 2000.8

Out of the existing 400,000 mobile towers, over 70% exist
in rural and semi-urban areas where either grid-connected
electricity is not available or the electricity supply is irregular.
As a result, mobile towers and, increasingly, grid-connected
towers in these areas rely on diesel generators to power
their network operations. The consumption of diesel
by the telecoms sector currently stands at a staggering
3bn liters annually, second only to the railways in India.
This consumption is responsible for 10m tons of carbon
emissions annually, and is growing.10A

In developed markets, the exponential growth of mobile
data traffic is driving the need for expanded network
capacity and energy hungry data center expansion bytelecoms operators and content providers alike.

Globally all telecoms operators need to prioritize measures
to ensure exponential growth does not result in explosive
emission growth, through a combination of implementing
transformative energy efficiency measures in networks andsourcing renewable energy to power the networks of the
21st century.

In developing markets, especially China and India, thetwo largest mobile markets in the world, growth is drivinga rapid expansion of the mobile telecoms network
infrastructure.

Greening the mobile networks

While the mobile network is enabling India and othercountries to leapfrog the traditional network, the telecoms
sector and leading companies like Bharti Airtel, who are
India provides an example of both the rapid growthleading mobile network expansion in the developing world,of mobile networks and the environmental impacts
must choose solar power to begin the transition to a cleanof powering this growth with dirty energy despite theenergy powered network. This would place the mobile
existence of renewable energy options.
network operators in a key role in driving the development ofIndia had 903.73 million mobile connections as of January
a renewable powered economy based on distributed clean
2012 and is soon predicted to be the largest mobile market
energy generation, instead of repeating the centralized dirty
in the world due to rapid growth rates, overtaking China,energy production model of the developed world.
the world’s largest mobile phone market (987.58 million
mobile subscribers).9
Much of the growth in the Indian telecom sector is from
India’s rural and semi-urban areas. By 2012, India is likely tohave 200 million rural telecom connections at a penetration
rate of 25%.10 The booming domestic telecom market
has been attracting huge investments, which are likely toaccelerate with the entry of new players and launch of newservices. The sector has attracted 8% of the cumulative
foreign direct investment (FDI) over the last two years.

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Section 03
Green IT =Energy Efficiency +Renewable Energy

Green IT =Energy Efficiency +Renewable Energy

03

What is Green IT?

Cloudy green claims

The rapid growth of cloud computing as a viable businessmodel is made possible in part by significant improvements
in how data centers are designed and operated, and IT
companies have achieved significant breakthroughs in
reducing power consumption. But dramatic improvements
to the energy efficiency and cost of delivering cloud-based
computing services are actually significantly increasing
overall consumption of cloud-based IT products and theenvironmental impact arising from increased data center
power demand11. Given the scale of predicted growth, thesource of electricity must be factored into a meaningfuldefinition of “green IT”. Energy efficiency alone will, at best,
slow the growth of the sector’s footprint.

A number of recent studies12 have sought to portraythe cloud as “green” or “lower carbon,” particularly incomparison to a non-cloud delivery of IT services. While
it is certainly true that engineers have steadily delivered
significant improvements to data center design, software
coding, and efficiency of the servers; such verdant claims
have typically suffered from a combination of three
critical shortcomings: a lack of transparency and actual
substantiating data; flawed methodology and poor metrics
in calculating assumed performance, particularly theconsideration of the source of electricity being used; and a
misguided understanding that energy efficiency alone is anappropriate measure of environmental impact.

At the core of these current shortcomings is the steadfast
desire of most companies to avoid putting any data on
In order to achieve the reductions necessary to keep
the table that would give their competitors any insight into
the sector’s emissions in check and maintain safe levels
the scale of their infrastructure, their actual performance,of global greenhouse gases, renewable energy needs
or their cost structure. This has often resulted in someto become the priority for IT companies as they rapidly
companies trying to meet a desire to be more forthcoming
expand their data center infrastructure. A few companies,
by inappropriately using metrics such as Power Usage
such as Yahoo and Google, have taken meaningful steps
Effectiveness (PUE) in place of meaningful metrics thatto steer their infrastructure investments toward cleaner
would speak to the actual performance of their data
energy, but the sector as a whole remains focused on rapid center(s) in terms of computing resource or the natural
growth, with greater efficiency as a pathway to enable this resource being consumed in generating electricity.
continued growth. The replacement of dirty sources of
There are signs underway of a growing shift towards
electricity with clean renewable sources is still the crucialtransparency among several major cloud companies. Google,
missing link in the sector’s sustainability efforts.
Akamai, Salesforce, Yahoo and Rackspace are all beginning
to reveal more meaningful consumption and carbon
performance data associated with their cloud, but these arethus far exceptions. Most cloud companies are interested atbest in revealing the PUE associated with their newest data
centers, but are not willing to share any data that speaks to
the true extent of their total footprint.

Energy efficiency ≠ green

How Clean is Your Cloud? 15

© Frank van Biemen / EvoSwitch / Greenpeace

PUE: A misused measure
PUE was designed to provide an efficiency benchmark
for data center operators to measure the relative
consumption of electricity within the data center between
the computers’ power demand and that of the entire data
center, which would include lighting, chillers and other
air handling equipment needed to keep the computers
performing as designed.
PUE = Total Facility Power/IT Equipment Power.
Until recently, a PUE of 2 or more was average, indicating
a data center where nearly 50% of the demand is being
directed to equipment other than the computers inside. By
comparison, a “perfect” PUE score would be 1, indicating
all electricity is being consumed by the computers, andutility-scale cloud companies such as those evaluated inthis report are increasingly reporting PUEs between 1.1
and 1.6. PUE has now achieved broad adoption within the
sector, and has had value in helping data center operators
benchmark the design and performance of their facilities,
providing a relatively straightforward metric to measureenergy use and broad efficiency of the facility. Companies
are also happy to report this figure because it reveals
nothing in terms of their actual energy consumption.
Unfortunately, PUE is now increasingly being misused
by some companies to assert how “green” a particular
data center is. The “expected” PUE is now increasingly
included in company announcements of a new data
center, offered as the numerical evidence of how green the
new facility will be, often in the same way MPG (miles per
gallon) is reported for automobiles, and this is increasingly
misreported in the media as equivalent to MPG.
However, while PUE can be a useful diagnostic tool for adata center operator, it is a poor metric for determining
how green a data center is, as it does not account for how
companies are managing computer resources inside thedata center, and in some circumstances, it penalizes better
performance. For example, if a cloud manager identified
servers in their data center that were not being used, andelected to shut them off and create virtual servers, as
shown in the table below, this could result in decrease in
the power consumption rate (good) but an increase in thefacility’s PUE (bad).

16

How Clean is Your Cloud?

IT Power
DemandTotal Data
Center Power
DemandPUE

Base Case

15MW

20MW

1.33

Idle Servers Down
(5 MW)

10MW

15MW

1.5

Another severe limitation of PUE as an indicator ofenvironmental performance is that the figure is totally
unrelated to the carbon content of the electricity being
consumed. For example, if a data center is largely poweredby renewable energy but has a poor PUE, it will still
contribute significantly less pollution than a data center
largely powered by coal but with a much lower PUE.
Adding carbon to the equation
In response to a growing desire to have a standardized
method to report carbon intensity of data center
operations, the Green Grid recently adopted CUE (Carbon
Usage Effectiveness), which provides a carbon per kilowatt
hour intensity measurement. CUE has been a standard
for well over a year, and yet only one of the companies
evaluated here, Akamai, is publicly reporting its CUE.
Others are beginning to track and pledge to report CUEin the coming year. While some companies currently
have aggregate data on CO2/kwh consumed, none
were willing to share these figures due to concerns overcompetitiveness.
Given the significant limitations of PUE, an increasing
number of companies are calling for the sector to develop
better metrics to drive data center performance acrossthe sector, with the focus on server utilization, or watts percompute function performed. Companies are also callingfor an adoption of metrics to measure carbon intensity.
What we need to see in transparency, metrics andenergy efficiency
IT companies must show meaningful leadership andadvance the debate among peers and government
regulators through greater transparency of their energy
footprint. Only then will we have meaningful standards forwhat green IT could mean. Transparency and the adoption of
more meaningful metrics will become increasingly importantas cloud computing expands, and will allow cloud customers
to understand the true environmental performance andcarbon footprint of their IT vendors and suppliers.

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Section 03
Green IT =Energy Efficiency +Renewable Energy

image xxx

©GREENPEACE / XXX

GreenpeaceInternational

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GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Section 04
Cleaning Our Cloud

Cleaning Our Cloud
For all of the tremendous innovation containedin the development of the cloud and the devices
that use it, most IT companies are currently
choosing to buy their electricity off the rack,at the lowest possible price, with the focus
on its quantity, not its quality. This approach
can be understood in part by how the industry
has largely defined the problem: energy
consumption.
The approach to date has been a strictly technical solution
at the data center and network level: improve energy
efficiency and reduce waste associated with cooling andother non-computing energy demands. What this approach
fails to account for, however, is the kind of energy used tofeed data centers’ explosive energy consumption and theenvironmental impact of the electricity supply chain.
As one of the fastest growing sectors, both economicallyand in their energy consumption, global IT and cloudcomputing companies have a tremendous opportunity
and unique responsibility to take greater control of theirelectricity supply chain, and to manage their energy
ecosystem both outside and inside the data center. By
making better energy choices and demanding more fromutility vendors, cloud companies have the opportunity to
be a catalyst in driving utilities and governments toward
the development of cleaner electricity generation that will
ensure a truly green cloud for their long term sustainability –and a greener grid for us all.
At both a company and a sector level, a meaningfulstrategy to clean our cloud must include both:•

Direct investing and purchasing of renewable energy•

Demanding from governments and electric utilities
to change the policy environment that will enable theacceleration of the investment and deployment of
renewable electricity.

04

We are now seeing several companies, most notably
Google, Yahoo and most recently Facebook, that are
beginning to take direct responsibility for their electricity
supply chain, and are putting in place a strategy that will
ensure future growth is based on renewable energy.

Pathway to a Cleaner Cloud
Tapping Renewable Grid Power
Renewable electricity procurement options for a data
center operator are hugely dependent upon the locationof the data center and its proximity to renewable energy
generation capacity. This is justification for a strong
infrastructure siting policy. Strategic infrastructure siting
allows IT companies to buy clean energy directly from thelocal grid.
Key examples:•Greenqloud/Verne Global, Iceland: In Iceland,nearly 100% of the electricity is 100% renewablefrom geothermal and hydropower energy sources.
Greenqloud13, a cloud computing service that markets
itself as a green compatible alternative to Amazon
Web Services, has established operations in a newdata center built by Verne Global on a former NATOAir Force base in Iceland. With fast connection time
to both Europe and the U.S. East Coast, Iceland’ssignificant renewable energy resources are attracting
interest from many IT brands, with Verne being the firstto come online.

•

Yahoo, US: Yahoo’s decision to locate in Lockport,
New York, was connected to its ability to secure a
substantial (15MW) allotment of hydroelectric powerfrom New York Power Authority.

•

Facebook, Sweden: Facebook built its third major
owned and operated data center in Lulea, Sweden,
a location chosen for the large amount of existinghydroelectric capacity at high availability. The data
center can be fully powered with renewable energy.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 19

Power purchase agreements for renewable energy•

An increasing number of cloud companies have begun totake charge of their electricity supply chain by signing longterm contracts to buy renewable electricity from a specificsource through a utility or renewable energy developer•
via a power purchase agreement (PPA) to help drive
renewable electricity onto the grid.
•

Google entered into two significant separate 20-year
PPAs with a wind energy developer for over 100MWin Iowa and Oklahoma, states where Google hassignificant data center operations. This is one of thebest examples of an IT company directly purchasing
renewable energy from a provider that has enoughcapacity to power its massive data centers. Thisapproach has significant advantage over renewableenergy credits (RECs) as a strategy, as it can actually
drive deployment of renewable electricity in the same
part of the grid where data centers are creating
demand. Google has pledged to retire the RECs
earned by the agreement.

Apple has announced a 20MW solar array, and has also
put a 5MW fuel cell device on site in Maiden, NC. While
much has been made of this announcement, it will cover
only 10% of their total generation for the data center.
McGraw-Hill Publishing placed a 14MW solar arrayon its New Jersey Campus to help reduce the longterm electricity costs of its data center, which was theprevious largest privately held solar installation in the
U.S. However, it appears that McGraw Hill intends tosell the RECs associated with electricity generated bytheir solar array, effectively negating its environmental
benefit (see sidebar).14

Investment in renewable energy or offsetting local
energy demand

While renewable energy and energy efficient technologies
continue to develop and grow, there are still significant
gaps in the private sector financing needed to deploy
them at scale across many markets. IT companies such
as Google have demonstrated significant interest in
making direct clean energy investments15, such as $168m• Google has also created a subsidiary, Google Energy,
investment in a concentrated solar power facility16. This
which allows it to directly buy and sell federally
has a much higher impact than RECs; such investment
regulated wholesale electricity. This move offers Google
can provide much-needed capital for the development andgreater flexibility, allowing the company to bypass the
deployment of renewable energy instead of “renting” thelocal utility and purchase directly from independent
clean attributes of renewable energy generated by others.
power producers for its huge power needs. Then, it
By putting real money into getting more green energy on
can sell any excess back to the grid.
the grid, Google’s investment could also allow them to
Onsite renewable energy
consider locating a future data center near this facility ornear other clean energy investments it has made.
A growing number of IT companies have installed
renewable energy on site to generate power for their own
operations. For many facilities however, it may be difficult
technically or economically to power a significant portionof a large data center with on-site renewable energy. Thisof course depends on the scale of the facility and theavailable renewable resources. However, companies are
increasingly exploring onsite investments that can help
provide better protection against electricity price volatility
and, with onsite solar, can help shave electricity demandat the most expensive time of the day. Examples of onsite
generation:•

i/o Data Centers is installing a large solar array on
top of its massive 580,000 sq ft facility in Phoenix,
with 5,000 panels that will generate a total 4.5MW atpeak capacity. Though just a fraction of the facility’s
total 100MW expected capacity, the solar panels will
be married with thermal storage technology that will
reduce the energy drain of cooling during the heat ofthe day.

20

How Clean is Your Cloud?

Funding negawatts: local energy efficiency offsets
As a complimentary strategy to direct installationof renewable energy at new or existing data sites,
IT companies could also explore opportunities toprovide capital to help reduce electricity demand in thesurrounding community. This approach could spur deep
cuts in the existing baseload and peak electricity demandto help offset demand of new data centers on the local gridfrom driving demand for dirty energy. Companies could
consider investing in local government or state-sanctioned
programs (such as a revolving loan program that drives
down the cost and speed of housing and building retrofits).
Participation in a clean energy negawatt investment
plan has not been demonstrated by any IT company
to date, but could prove to be highly transformative tothe community that hosts the data center or other IT
infrastructure.

GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Clean energy advocacy
In order to ensure that the supply of clean energy cankeep pace with IT’s demand, companies need to makea corporate commitment to engage in energy policy
decisions in regions where they establish operations.
They can do this by helping to bring more renewableenergy online through purchase power, investment andadvocacy—yet few companies have demonstrated thebold leadership necessary to ensure that IT’s rampant
growth will be sustained by clean energy sources.
As large commercial consumers of electricity, IT
companies have standing with utilities and policy-makers
to influence an acceleration of the investment anddeployment of the clean electricity supplies, enabling thesefactories to operate on 100% renewable energy. They can
engage in decisions around:•

Adoption of clean energy investment incentives
specific to the IT sector for energy efficiency andrenewable energy deployment.

•

Development of cost-effective, regionally compatible
sources of renewable power generation for data
centers (such as solar, wind, tidal and wave power).

•

Additional investments in the development anddeployment of grid infrastructure and energy storage
technology to enable much higher utilization of variableenergy sources, such as wind and solar.

Note: Please see Greenpeace’s CoolIT Leaderboard
for further evaluation of clean energy policy advocacy
leadership by the IT sector.17

Section 04
Cleaning Our Cloud

Limitations of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs):
RECs represent only the property rights to thenon-power qualities (environmental) associatedwith renewable electricity (RE) generation, NOT theelectricity itself. RECs can be sold separately fromthe electricity (“unbundled” or “naked” RECs) or with
the RE electricity (“bundled” RECs). RECs allow a
consumer who does not have access to RE electricity
from its utility or provider the ability to buy the claim
to RE electricity from electricity generated elsewhere.
RECs also provide the RE developer or utility anotherproduct they can sell in addition to the electricity,which can be used to partially offset the higher
marginal cost associated with RE, and potentially
incentivize additional RE investment.
The indirect approach of RECs raises concerns about
whether this premium actually leads to investment inadditional renewable energy, or simply increases the
profit margin for energy traders. It does not guaranteethat the increased electricity use for which the REC
is purchased cancels out demand for dirty coal-fired
electricity locally, as most RECs are sold independentof the underlying electricity (e.g. wind-based RECs
from Iowa that are used to make “renewable” claims
for a facility in Virginia do not supplant the burning ofadditional coal in Virginia).
Given this disconnect from demand, RECs alone donot suffice as a carbon mitigation strategy. Companies
that buy them should only do so when they do nothave more meaningful options for securing renewableenergy in the locations available to them. They should
otherwise look to make more direct investments inrenewable energy or push utility and government
policy makers to put more renewable energy on thegrid allowing customers to have the right to directly
contract for it.

“I’m betting that [traditional] energy
prices are going to go up.
In time…this is going to be a wisebusiness decision as well as a wise
environmental decision.”- Joe Kava, Senior Director of Data Centers, Google

How Clean is Your Cloud? 21

03
22

How Clean is Your Cloud?

© Frank van Biemen / EvoSwitch / Greenpeace

GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Section 05
Location Matters

Location Matters
Many factors go into choosing a location for
new cloud computing infrastructure. Data
center siting requires the adequate availabilityof reliable and affordable electricity, as wellas telecommunications infrastructure. Tax
incentives, climate, and proximity to endusers may entice a company to choose aparticular location. Availability of renewableenergy to power the data center, while possibly
considered, is currently low on most cloudcompanies’ lists. As these data centers
continue to multiply and increase their electricity
consumption, access to renewable sources ofelectricity must be prioritized across the sector.
Increasingly, the temperature range of a location is being
weighted as a key factor in siting decisions due to theenergy implications. A major evolutionary trend in data
center design underway is the utilization of “free cooling,”or the use of outside air instead of energy-intensive
chillers to keep the computers from overheating. This
shift is already happening among most major utility-scale
operators; as they have identified the major cost savings
that can result from efficient building designs and modular
containers they rely less on the resource-intensive coolingequipment that has historically composed at least half of adata center’s energy footprint.

05

But for the global data center operator that has a range ofoptions to choose from, location is the single biggest factor
in whether clean or dirty energy will be used to power thedata center and therefore the location is the greatest factor
in the associated environmental impact. Currently, thepursuit of the combination of proximity to major internet
interconnections and large amounts of inexpensive
electricity has increasingly resulted in rapidly growing
regional data center hubs in key markets around the worldthat are either largely powered by existing hydroelectric
capacity, or heavily dependent on coal and nuclear power.
The current and projected supply of clean electricity varies
significantly between nations and regions, and renewableenergy growth is largely determined by the energy andinvestment policies in those places and how the utilities
and electricity markets are structured. Given the scale andlong-lived nature of data centers, in order to ensure thatthe supply of clean energy can keep pace with IT’s rapidly
growing demand, companies need to make a corporate
commitment to engage in energy policy decisions inregions where they establish operations.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 23

Data centers go global
Here’s a look at some key countries’
data center investments, their current
grid mixes and expected renewableenergy supplies by 2020.
Key
Predicted data center increase in electricity demand
Key cloud players in the region
Key utilities and the grid mix
Renewable energy goals
Other information

IrelandIncrease unknown
Grid mix
Coal/peat
Renewable
Natural gas

22%
12%
64%

Major utilities ESB Power
Generation, Airtricity, Synergen (70%ESB), Edenderry Power, Endesa-Irelandand Huntstown (Viridian)
RE goalsby 2020

40.0%

Other

-

Netherlands

Germany

Increase

100% (2005-2010)

Increase

Grid mix
Coal
Renewable
Gas
Nuclear
Others

19.5%
9.7%
60.4%
3.5%
6.9%

Major utilities Eneco, Dong,
Electrabel/GDF Suez, Delta, E.ON
RE goalsby 2020
Other
24

30.0%
approxused 1.3TWh in 2010

How Clean is Your Cloud?

12% (from 2012)

Grid mix
Coal & lignite
Renewable
Natural gas
Nuclear

44%
20%
14%
18%

Major utilities RWE, E.ON,
Vattenfall, EnBWRE goalsby 2020
by 2050
Other

35+%
80%
used 10.1TWh in 2011

GreenpeaceInternational

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Cloud?

Section 05
Location Matters

SwedenIncrease

35% (2011-2012)

Grid mix
FossilRenewable
Nuclear

20.0%
59.9%
20.1%

Major utilities
Vattenfall, Fortum and E.ON are thethree biggest utilities that control about
75% of Swedish production capacity.
RE goals:by 2020

25TWh

Other

-

Hong Kong
Increase
Grid mix
Coal & lignite
Renewable
Natural gas
Nuclear

18% (2010-2011)
54%
<1%
14%
23%

Major utilities Hong Kong Electrics,
China Light & PowerRE goalsby 2020
Other

1-2%
-

How Clean is Your Cloud? 25

© Frank van Biemen / EvoSwitch / Greenpeace

Resisting the lure of King Coal
Though a number of global IT brands claim to include
sustainability criteria in their data center site selection
process, for most it still appears to be far down the listof factors that lead to the ultimate decision on where toinvest. As highlighted in the companies evaluated here,
highly profitable companies who have otherwise accepted
the science of climate change and associated dangers ofcoal-fired electricity to the global and local environment are
still making huge data center investments based on the
short-term lure of low-cost dirty energy, and increasing thedemand for coal and the pollution that comes with it.

Growing a cleaner cloud with arenewable energy siting policy
To avoid locking their cloud platform into an
environmentally harmful and potentially volatile electricity
supply chain, companies need a cloud infrastructure
siting policy that institutionalizes a meaningful preference
for clean energy. A siting policy will help companies
avoid investments that drive demand for dirty energy andincrease greenhouse gas emissions. Failure to address
the issue of the source of power is a failure of leadership,and may create greater long-term costs for companies as
high-carbon energy becomes increasingly expensive orpolitically unacceptable.

Elements of a strong siting policy for data center operators
would include:
1. Preferential treatment for access to renewable energy,
and discrimination against coal and other high carbon
sources of electricity.
2. Indicative supporting mechanisms, such as a carbon
shadow price, electricity performance standard forPower Purchase Agreements (PPAs) or utility grid mix(current and prospective over expected life of facility).
3. Energy procurement standard for co-location (rented
facilities).

Facebook: Unfriending coal
Facebook’s initial two data center investments in Oregon
and North Carolina, while using a highly energy efficientdesign and technology, were both located in areas where
over 60% of the electricity came from coal. These policies
generated a significant outcry from its users and criticism
from several quarters, including Greenpeace.
Facebook has since put in place a significant commitment
to renewable energy and long-term sustainability for
its platform; a key component of this new commitment
has been the adoption of a data center siting policy thatprioritizes the access to renewable energy for its future
growth. Facebook’s third data center was placed in Lulea,
Sweden, where it can be almost entirely powered byrenewable electricity year around. This is an important
guiding precedent not only for Facebook, but for the future
growth of the cloud sector overall.
Other major cloud companies such as Yahoo and
Google, while they have not adopted as clear a renewableenergy siting policy as Facebook, have made meaningfulcommitments to power their platforms with renewableenergy. They are increasingly making data center
investments guided by a goal of achieving access to a
cost-effective and reliable clean electricity supply chain for
their data centers, with pathways to increase it over time.

“The absolutely perfect site does not exist
but in Nirvana you would have numerous
bioenergy and hydroelectric power feeds
for example, and you would not destroy
100 acres of forest to put in a solar plant.”- Jack Pouchet, Emerson Network Power26

How Clean is Your Cloud?

GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Section 05
Location Matters

How Clean is Your Cloud? 27

Germany

Hong Kong

Electricity use of data centers in Germany in 2008
was estimated to be 10.1 terrawatt hour, which isslightly less than 2% of the total electricity demandin Germany.18 Frankfurt, home to the second largest
internet exchange in Europe, has become one of thelargest data center hubs, particularly for the colocation
market (leasing data centers). IBM has opened a new
Cloud Computing Competence Centre in Ehningen(Stuttgart), which is also the location of IBM’s largest
data center in Europe.19 Germany is predicted to seeat least a 12% increase in electricity demand fromdata centers in 2012.20

Serving as an important foothold into the rest of China,
Hong Kong is seeing rapid investment from a wide
range of global cloud companies, with an 18% growthrate in data center floor space from 2010-2011.24
Google has recently announced plans to invest$300m USD in a 300,000 sq ft data center, to becompleted in 2013.25

IT brands:

54% coal, 23% nuclear, 23% natural gas

AT&T, BT, Dell, IBM, NTT Com, T-Systems (Deutche
Telekom)

Major utilities27:

Grid mix21:

Hong Kong Electrics, China Light & Power

44% coal and lignite, 20% renewable energy, 18%
nuclear, 14% natural gas, 5% others

Status:Major utilities:
The German energy market is dominated by four large
companies (RWE, E.ON, Vattenfall and EnBW), which
held 84% of capacities in 2009 and produced about
86% of Germany’s electricity. All of them have newinvestments in coal.22 RWE and Vattenfall are Europe’s
largest and second-largest emitters of carbon, mainly
due to their German lignite business.
Status:Germany has a strong renewable energy industry
and the government has strong supportive measures
for renewable energy development.23 IT companies
should indicate a preference for renewable energy intheir siting policy, and look to buy from smaller energy
providers that do not invest in coal or nuclear, such as
Lichtblick, Greenpeace Energy and Naturstrom.

28

How Clean is Your Cloud?

IT brands:
China Mobile, China Telecom, Fujitsu, Google,
Microsoft, NTT, Rackspace
Grid mix26:

Hong Kong has an overwhelmingly dirty energy mix,
with over half the energy being produced from coal,followed by gas and nuclear energy imported from
China. Electricity generation accounts for 67% of
local greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.28 Currently
renewable energy makes up less than 1% of theenergy mix. In sharp contrast to the ambitious plansfor importing more nuclear power, the Hong Kong
government has shown a serious lack of commitment
in developing the renewable energy sector. The
government currently proposes to expand renewableenergy to only 1-2% of the total energy mix by 2020
with 300MW of wind proposed by 2016.29
In recent years the peak load of Hong Kong has
become static. The expansion of data centers might
be the only reason for new capacity. Therefore, theIT sector can have a strong positive influence bysetting a renewable energy-friendly siting policy, andthe sector can show leadership and responsibility bybuying wind power.

GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Section 05
Location Matters

IrelandNetherlands

Ireland, particularly Dublin, has been rapidly emerging
as a major cloud computing hub in Europe. Microsoft,
Google, and Amazon all have major facilities in Ireland,
each of them with expansions planned or underway.

The Netherlands, Amsterdam in particular, has
emerged as one of the largest EU internet hubs next toFrankfurt and London. Data centers are estimated toconsume 1.3TWh of electricity in 2010, which reflects
a doubling of electricity consumption in the past
five years. Consumption is expected to triple before
2020. Microsoft has a significant facility operated by
GlobalSwitch and Google also has a sizable facility in
Eemshaven.

IT brands:
AWS, Facebook, Google, Microsoft
Grid mix30:
22% coal/peat, 64% gas, 12% renewable energy

IT brands:

Major utilities:

British Telecom, Google, Microsoft

Ireland is a deregulated market. ESB Power Generation,an arm of Electricity Supply Board of Ireland (ESB), is
Ireland’s largest power generator. Other utilities include
Airtricity, Synergen (70% ESB), Edenderry Power,
Endesa-Ireland and Huntstown (Viridian).

Grid mix33:

Status:Given the scale of cloud investment Dublin, IT
Companies need to become much more active inshaping the electricity supply chain, both by directly
investing into renewable energy supply as well asworking to advocate for stronger policies to drive more
renewable energy onto the grid. Ireland has a strong
wind industry31, and the government has strong tax
relief measures
to encourage equity investments in wind, hydro,
solar and biomass energy projects approved by the
Department of Public Enterprise.

19.5% coal, 60.4% gas, 9.7% renewable energy,
3.5% nuclear, 6.9% others
Major utilities:
The Netherlands is a liberalized market with eight
producing utilities, each with widely differing electricity
generation portfolios. The greenest is Eneco with 79%
renewable energy (RE), but most others have only asmall share of renewable production: Dong 20% RE;
Electrabel/GDF Suez 22.3% RE; Delta: 12% RE; E.ON
9% RE.34
Status:Data center companies should switch to utilities that
not only offer green electricity products but that alsoprioritize investments in new renewable production
capacity. Nearly all utilities in the Netherlands offer
a green electricity product, while most companies(except for Eneco and DONG Energy) mainly invest in
new coal or nuclear capacity.
Green electricity production in the Netherlands
comprised 9% of total electricity production overthe last two years, and is not expected to growsignificantly over the next couple of years due to policy
obstacles and investments in new coal.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 29

© Dreamstime

SwedenSweden has been active in promoting itself as adestination for international investment in data
centers.35 According to a DatacenterDynamics, in
2010, Sweden had approximately 30,000 server
racks covering 100,000 sq m. DatacenterDynamics
calculates the investment value of the Swedish data
center market to be in the range €250m to €300m perannum.36 The Nordic region as a whole is projected tosee a 35% increase in data center electricity demandin 2012, which is hopefully a reflection of increased
awareness and prioritization within the sector tochoose sustainable sources of energy.
IT brands:
Facebook, Spotify
Grid mix37:
59.9% renewable energy, 20.1% nuclear, 20% fossil
fuel (coal, gas, oil)
Major utilities:
Vattenfall, Fortum and E.ON are the three biggest
utilities that control about 75% of Swedish production
capacity.
Status:Sweden promotes itself as “a good choice forlarge-scale, green data center operations.” One of
the top reasons stated is its green energy mix. The
dirty energy concern in the Nordic region is nuclear
expansion in Sweden and Finland. All three major
utilities in Sweden are heavily invested in nuclear
expansion plans. Data center companies shouldpurchase from utilities that prioritize investments in
new renewable production capacity. The Swedish
government has proposed a vision to be carbon
neutral by 2050. Greenpeace believes this must
be based on renewable energy supply, not nuclear
energy, and has presented a roadmap for this. The IT
sector can be a strong positive influence in moving
Sweden to accept binding energy efficiency targets
and to set clear binding renewable targets for 100%
renewable electricity and energy.

30

How Clean is Your Cloud?

United States:
Illinois (Chicago area)
Chicago has become one of the hottest data center
markets in the U.S. due to its status as a majorinternet connection hub and low energy prices. Someof the largest data centers in the world are based
there, including Microsoft’s 700,000 sq ft facility. The
Midwestern region of the U.S. is expected to see a
13% increase of data center energy demand in 2012,
and Chicago will likely be higher.
IT brands: AT&T, Microsoft, Rackspace, Salesforce,
Major utilities and energy mix:
ComEd, the main utility in the Chicago area, sourced
its electricity in 2011 mainly from coal at 44%; andincluding nuclear at 40%, natural gas at 12%, andrenewable energy at 3%.38
Illinois does has a renewable energy standard – astate law saying 25% of electricity from utilities has tocome from renewable sources by 2025. Illinois wassecond only to California in new wind power installed
last year, and ranks fourth in the country for installedwind capacity.39 However, the wind industry in Illinois
is in trouble, because of the imminent expiration of
the wind energy Production Tax Credit, a federal
government tax credit that has been a key driver inincentivizing renewable energy investments.
Status:If IT companies keep building data centers in Chicago
in a business-as-usual scenario, the additional
electricity they require would come from continued
burning of coal, nuclear power plants running at ahigher capacity, an increased use of natural gas, andperhaps from some very modest growth in wind power.
But if companies like Microsoft instead demandcleaner electricity to power their Chicago data centers,
they could catalyze major growth in the wind market.
Instead of a small percentage increase in wind power,
IT companies should opt for 100% wind by entering
into power purchase agreements (PPAs) with windenergy providers within Illinois or adjoining states.

GreenpeaceInternational

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Cloud?

Section 05
Location Matters

How Clean is Your Cloud? 31

United States:
North Carolina & Virginia
The U.S. East Coast states of North Carolina andVirginia have emerged as two of the fastest growing
locations for cloud computing. Unfortunately, bothstates have some of the dirtiest electrical grids in the
United States, relying heavily on nuclear energy andcoal from mountain top removal. This concentrationof demand that runs around the clock is forcing
utilities and grid operators to change the way they
are managing the grid, and significantly increasing
demand from dirty energy sources. The Eastern U.S.
is projected to see a significant increase of 22% inelectricity demand from data centers in 2012.40
North Carolina
IT brands: Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM, Wipro
Major utilities and energy mix: 61% coal, 31%
nuclear, 3.4% natural gas, 2.5% renewable energy41
North Carolina is a regulated market, and Duke
Energy is the primary utility for the western partof North Carolina where most of the biggest data
centers are being built. Duke has put significant
effort into recruiting data centers from Google,
Apple and Facebook to the region, to utilize excess
power demand from their coal and nuclear fleet of
power plants. Data center operators are some of
the most coveted customers for utilities, and utilities
typically play a big role in their recruitment, offering
discounted electricity rates for larger customers.
The price of electricity for select industrial customersof Duke Energy has been reported at 4 to 5 cents akilowatt hour, much lower than rates in most partsof the U.S.
Duke Energy is currently seeking to merge with
Progress Energy, which services the rest of North
Carolina. Duke is one of the only utilities in the U.S.
investing in new coal power plants. If Duke merges
with Progress, Duke will continue to operate its
fleet of dirty coal plants for as long as possible.
Duke is also seeking permission from the state toallow for the construction of a new nuclear facility,
while it continues to invest very little in renewableenergy: less than 5% by 2030, according to current
investment plans.

32

How Clean is Your Cloud?

Virginia
The Northern Virginia region near Washington
DC has been able to garner a huge slice of thecolocation market in the U.S. (rented data center
space), along with the location of the U.S. Eastportion of Amazon Web Services, EC2 Cloud
Hosting, which was recently estimated to bewhere more than 71% of its global EC2 servers arelocated. Microsoft has also recently announcedplans to further expand the $499m facility it has
been building in Boydton, Virginia.
Dominion Power is the primary utility for the partsof Virginia where most of the cloud data centers
are being built, and has enjoyed explosive growthin electricity demand from data centers in the past
three years. In a recent report to investors, Dominion
reported that data centers’ electricity demand has
grown over 250MW in the past two years, and is now
projected to increase another 1,200MW over the next
five years.42
IT brands: Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft,
Salesforce
Major utilities and energy mix: : 45% coal, 35%
nuclear, 14% natural gas,4% renewable energy(2008)43
Status:Given the importance of the data center market thatcloud companies represent to these two utilities,
cloud companies have the unique ability and standing
to shape how electricity is contracted and ultimately
generated in regions where they operate. Howevermin light of the limited renewable energy choices
being offered by both Duke Energy and Dominion, apathway to a renewable electricity supply for cloudcompanies operating in these states must include
a concerted effort to use their market influence todemand a shift in the investment plans of theseutilities away from coal, and invest in putting more
renewable energy in the electricity supply chain thatis powering their cloud. A critical piece of a long-term
solution is for IT companies to generate options forgetting their energy, either through direct investment
or by advocating for better rules to allow for morecompetition.

GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

United States:
Pacific Northwest Washington &OregonParts of the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon
and Washington have earned the nickname of the“Silicon Forest” due to the high concentration of techcompanies in the region. The large amount of hydropower in the region has also earned a significant shareof data center investments to power the cloud.
By comparison, Pacific Power, the electric utility
that operates in the eastern half of Oregon, imports
a significant amount of its energy from coal plants
outside the state. Approximately 60% of the electricity
Pacific Power sold in Oregon in 2010 was from coal.
Facebook located its first data center in Prineville,
Oregon, which is PacifiCorp territory, and now Apple
has apparently decided to invest its second iClouddata center in Prineville as well.
IT brands: Amazon Web Services, Apple, Facebook,
Microsoft, Yahoo
Major utilities and energy mix: There are threemajor utilities selling electricity in areas of major cloudinvestment in the Pacific Northwest:

Section 05
Location Matters

What IT companies can do:
The lure of large amounts of inexpensive extra hydroenergy capacity in the Pacific Northwest, left behindby the downsizing of the aluminum industry and otherheavy industries, has brought many cloud companies
to the region. However, this supply of hydro power is
not infinite, and as cloud companies look to further
expand in this region, much more careful attention
must be paid to the overall electricity ecosystem,
and where the supply of electricity to meet additional
demand will come from.
Without further investment in renewable energy toensure the demand from cloud infrastructure is being
matched with adequate additional renewable energy
capacity, cloud companies could outstrip local supply,
resulting in the further importing of coal power from
PacifiCorp and others outside the region, instead ofmaking the rest of the surrounding grid greener. IT
companies in PacifiCorp territory, like IT companies
near Duke Energy in North Carolina, are faced with
an electricity vendor that remains firmly committed
to coal. But, by tapping their market power, financial
and brand resources, IT companies in the PacificNorthwest are well positioned to demand better
renewable energy options.

Bonneville Power Administration (BPA);44 81%
renewables and hydro, 9.2% nuclear, 9.9% other
One of the lowest emitting providers of electricity in
the U.S., BPA is responsible for managing the hydropower resource in the region and the associatedelectricity grid, selling at a wholesale level to utilities
in the region.
Grant County Public Utility District (Washington):
The local municipal utility for Quincy, Washington,
which hosts major data centers from Microsoft,
Yahoo, Dell and a number of other major IT brands.
Pacific Power (Oregon): 61% coal, 15% natural gas,
15% renewables and hydro, 8% other45
Eastern Oregon, including Prineville where Facebook
and Apple data centers are being sited, largely liesin PacifiCorp territory. Pacific Power owns a numberof large coal-burning facilities outside of Oregon, but
imports this capacity into the state.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 33

Appendix 1
Methodology

03

Clean energy index methodology (Column 2)

The above inputs are from the following sources:• Submissions by companies directly to Greenpeace
Greenpeace has established the Clean Energy Index as a
response to the lack of useful metrics and publicly available • As defined by company when announcing investments
data to evaluate and compare the energy related footprints
of major cloud providers and their respective data centers. • As reported by the media (in stories on the investments
or construction of facilities, etc)
This lack of data is not due to the fact that data does not• For electricity demand, derived by taking the announced
exist. However, the industry is unwilling to provide evensize of investment and deriving total number of MW
the most basic information about both the amount andusing industry average cost per IT load ($15m USD per
source of its growing electricity consumption. Despite aMW) multiplied by publicly available PUE for facility or, if
proliferation of metrics created by the industry (such as
not available, 1.5 for new facilities
PUE) that attempt to measure how green a data centeris as measured by energy efficiency, none of the current• If not announced by the company, renewable electricity
metrics shed any light on the basic question: how muchpercentage, is taken from one of the following sources,
dirty energy is being used, and which companies are
as available, in declining order of preference:choosing clean energy to power the cloud?
• The most recent published generation mix of the local utility
The Clean Energy Index attempts to provide a basic• In the U.S., the 2007 eGrid State level generation mix
answer to this question, based on what can be gleaned
as reported by U.S. EPA, or if not applicable, reported
from the limited information available, and focusing on
subregional egrid generation mix
recent investments of select brands and the current clean• Outside the U.S., the European Commission andenergy supply associated with each investment.
International Energy Agency 2008/09 Statistics
Starting with an initial set of some of the largest cloudproviders, Greenpeace has attempted to identify two main Important Note: This analysis does not attempt torepresent itself as a comprehensive snapshot of how much
inputs from a representative sample of their most recent
clean energy is being consumed on a company-wide level.
(five years or less) infrastructure investments.
Only the companies can properly provide that.
Those inputs are:
Greenpeace would welcome the opportunity to(1) Estimated size of electricity demand of each facility (inincorporate more detailed data to inform our analysis,
megawatts);
as that would likely provide a more complete and refined(2) Amount of renewable electricity being used to power it picture of cloud providers. As companies provide better(by percentage).
data, Greenpeace will incorporate this into our evaluationand encourage other companies to follow.
This information is then used to approximate, initially ona facility level, the number of megawatts of clean energy
being used. Having calculated a facility-level Clean Energy
Intensity for a representative sample of data centers, acompany average of clean energy utilized is derived.
In compiling the information included in this report,
Greenpeace contacted all companies featured here
and asked for information regarding their data center
facilities, and for information on their infrastructure siting
and mitigation efforts. Estimates of data center power
demand were made available to companies for commentin advance of publication, and where issues were raised,
those are highlighted in footnotes on the scorecard.

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Coal and nuclear intensity (Column 3)
A company’s coal intensity is a simple calculation of theapproximate total percentage of coal generated electricity
powering the company’s data centers. A company’s
nuclear intensity is similar: a simple calculation of theapproximate total percentage of nuclear generated
electricity powering the company’s data center. This iscalculated initially on a facility level, based on the estimatedmaximum power demand of the facility and the percentage
of coal and nuclear-generated electricity supplied by thecontracting utility or the local grid.

GreenpeaceInternational

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Cloud?

The company-level intensity of both coal and nuclear isrendered by adding the total MW of estimated maximum
power from coal generation across the sample data center
fleet, divided by the total estimated MW maximum power
demand of the same sample data centers.

Energy transparency methodology (Column 4)
Companies are evaluated on the scope and level of detailmade publicly available on energy consumption of IT
infrastructure that allow stakeholders and customers toevaluate the energy related environmental performanceand impact at corporate, product, and facility level.
Public information includes information from a company’s
website, annual reports, submissions to regulatory
agencies or information clearinghouses such as the
Carbon Disclosure Project.
• For corporate and facility-level reporting, key elements
of information include: location and size of facilities; sizeof electricity demand; generation mix and associatedcarbon content (including and power purchaseagreements specific to the facility), and carbon intensityof data delivery and storage. Reporting should include
both owned and rented facilities.
• For customer level reporting, companies should provide
regular energy and carbon footprint information (preoffset) associated with the customers’ consumption,
reported in a manner consistent with establishedreporting protocols.
Infrastructure siting methodology (Column 5)
Companies are assessed on the strength of infrastructure
siting criteria and investment decisions that enable
the development of the company’s IT infrastructure to
maximize the use of clean sources of energy, and avoid anincrease in demand for coal or nuclear power to meet thegrowing demand for electricity from their operations. Highscoring companies demonstrate:• A clean energy siting policy to prioritize IT infrastructure
investments or procurements that rely primarily
upon renewable energy as a source of electricity anddiscriminate against coal and nuclear power to meet
infrastructure electricity demand.

Appendix 1
Methodology• Consistent patterns of major infrastructure investment
decisions that increase or shift electricity demand to
renewable sources of electricity.
• Commitment to eliminate coal and nuclear energy frompowering company infrastructure.

Energy efficiency and GHG mitigation strategy
methodology (Column 6)
Companies are evaluated on the strength of theirstrategies and measurable progress to mitigate
the demand for dirty energy generated by their IT
infrastructure. The effectiveness and strength of acompany’s mitigation strategy is measured along thefollowing guidelines:• Companies with absolute emission reduction goals will
be rated higher than those companies who adopt anintensity-based target.
• Companies participate in open source sharing of energy
efficient design and equipment specification to enablefurther learning and improvement within the sector.
Renewable energy investment and politicaladvocacy methodology (Column 7)
Companies are evaluated on the strength of theirmeasurable progress and commitment to renewableenergy investments, and actions taken to advocate
for ambitious policies at all levels of government thatencourage wide-scale renewable energy generation anduse. High scoring companies also demonstrate:• Efforts to meet electricity demand with the direct
installation of renewable energy, and to reduce
emissions through higher efficiency, will receive thehighest marks.
• Investments in clean energy supply and local energy
efficiency mechanisms will be rated higher than thepurchase of offsets and renewable energy credits toreach established environmental goals.
• Proof of long-term commitment to renewable energy
electricity through local renewable energy developers.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 35

Appendix 2
Company scores
explained

Akamai launched in 1999 and reported revenues ofclose to $1.2bn in 2011. Though not exactly a household
name, Akamai is one of the major players in online content
delivery, and is based in Massachusetts, having beencreated by academics at MIT. Akamai delivers between
15% and 30% of internet traffic through a distributed
network of over 100,000 servers in 75 countries on behalfof many of the bigger brand names in this report.
Transparency: A
The company began disclosing its greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions in 2009, and Akamai continues to receive highpoints for its level of disclosure of GHG emissions. Akamai
is the first company evaluated here and perhaps beyond
that is publicly reporting under the new CUE standard,
which is a much more useful metric for assessing theenvironmental performance than PUE. Akamai’s reportingof its carbon intensity also merits recognition in two key
areas: (1) Akamai reports its cloud-related emissions
using a metric that allows some comparability with othercloud content providers - CO2/Mega bits per second;and (2) Akamai is in the early stages of making available
to its customers a monthly carbon footprint associatedwith content delivery through the Akamai network servers.
By providing customers with this information, Akamai
is enabling better awareness of energy and carbon
management associated with data consumption, which
will hopefully trigger additional reporting and competition
for environmental performance.

Infrastructure Siting: C
Akamai has one of the larger server fleets powering
the cloud, but its business model demands that theseservers are distributed across major internet hubs.
Though its siting options are different than Apple,
Google or Facebook, who have much greater flexibility
in site location, Akamai has significant market influence.
Akamai has just completed a survey of its large numberof global colocation facilities to gather energy andwater performance data, which will hopefully inform its
contract renegotiation and site selection in the future as
it further pursues carbon reduction goals.
Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: B
While Akamai continues to expand rapidly with anearly 20% increase in the number of servers, Akamai
continues to report significant reductions in the energy
intensity (67%) of its network operations through useof more energy efficient servers and better software to
manage its global network. Akamai collects data fromits vendors to measure the Carbon Usage Effectiveness(CUE) for its data centers, and is the first to publicly
report on this new metric. Akamai has contacted its
colocation providers for better data and metrics on theenergy footprint of its operations and, where possible,
is converting its contract from a flat-rate power contract
to a metered contract, to provide a financial incentive toimplement off-peak efficiency measures.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: D
Akamai has purchased a limited amount of Renewable
Energy Credits (RECs), but due to its distributed
businesss model has not made significant investments
in direct or grid purchases of renewable energy. In
addition to becoming more demanding of its colocation
providers for more renewable energy options, Akamai
should also be more proactive in the political advocacy
necessary to shift towards cleaner energy opportunities
for the industry.

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GreenpeaceInternational

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Cloud?

Appendix 2
Company scores
explained

Amazon.com, the largest online U.S. retailer, launched
Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2006. AWS has madesignificant investments in data center infrastructure overthe past year. Amazon is the structural cornerstone ofmany well-known online start-ups and major internet
brands, including Netflix, Dropbox and Zappos. The
company also runs several large online services including
the Kindle, Amazon’s Appstore for Android, Amazon
Instant Video, and Amazon Cloud Player, a personal online
MP3 storage space. AWS allows businesses of different
sizes to store data in the cloud without having to build
data centers and servers individually. AWS again finds
itself with poor marks in delivering a renewable energy
powered cloud. In a sector that is generally known for its
lack of transparency on environmental performance orenergy consumption, AWS is among the most opaque inthe size or scale of impact from its cloud infrastructure,
particularly for a publicly traded company. While Amazon.
com does highlight the efforts of its online shopping
fulfillment centers to reduce their environmental impact, no
information is provided on the impact or performance of
AWS infrastructures.46

Infrastructure Siting: F

Transparency: F

Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: F

AWS has seen tremendous growth over the past year,
but fails to disclose information on its environmental
footprint at either a company-wide or facility level. AWS
does not participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project. As
more IT companies release the details of their operation’senvironmental impacts, it is clear AWS is falling behind theindustry.

Despite its significant size and resources, AWS does
not appear to have made any purchases or investments
in renewable electricity for its facilities. AWS is currently
falling out of step with other major cloud companies
who are putting in place a long-term business strategy
that accounts for impacts the company will face due toclimate change.

AWS is tight-lipped when it comes to the details of theenergy sourcing for its data centers. The company has
expanded rapidly over the past year, purchasing existing
facilities and land in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Oregon, US;
and Dublin, Ireland. From what can be discerned, AWS
appears to be heavily reliant on data center operations
based in the U.S. A recent analysis indicates that thevast majority – over two thirds – of the servers powering
the AWS E2 Elastic Computing cloud computing
platform are based in data centers in Northern Virginia,
an area where the grid is particularly coal-heavy.
Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: D
AWS has published a limited amount of informationon the energy efficiency of its data centers, though far
less than Google, Facebook and others in the sector,
even though it likely has significant learnings from its
ability to effectively scale to meet rapidly increasing
demand. However, AWS does not appear to have any
environmental goals and it does not publish metrics toevaluate data center performance or impact.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 37

One of the most world’s highest valued companies, witha market cap of over $500bn USD and $100bn in cash
reserves at the time of this writing, Apple has proven to
be incredibly successful through innovative hardware andsoftware in its smart phones and tablets through its popular
iPhone and iPad brands. Building on the recent string ofphenomenal “i” product success (iTunes, iPhone and iPad),
Apple is now investing heavily in the “iCloud” as a means
to tie all of these products together, affording the user
seemless sharing of music, movies and other e-content. To
deliver iCloud services, Apple has dramatically expanded
its data center infrastructure. It has invested at least $1bn
in an “iDataCenter” in North Carolina, one of the world’s
largest data centers, and just announced another facility to
be built in Prineville, Oregon. Unfortunately, both of theseinvestments are powered by utilities that rely mostly oncoal power. Given the lack of transparency, siting policy ora clear commitment to power the iCloud with renewableenergy, Apple is finding itself behind other companies
such as Facebook and Google who are angling to control
a bigger piece of the cloud. Instead of playing catch up,
Apple has the ingenuity, on-hand cash and innovative spirit
to Think Different and make substantial improvements inthe type of energy that powers its cloud.

Infrastructure Siting: F

Transparency: DApple’s decision to invest in on-site renewable energy
generation for its Maiden, NC iCloud data center is a goodfirst step, and should provide as much as 10% of thetotal energy demand with clean energy. If Apple is reallyinterested in having the “high percentage” of renewableenergy it claims to want for the iCloud, it will have to lookbeyond the initial steps for on-site generation and use
its tremendous cash reserves to invest in or purchaserenewable energy and also to put pressure on Duke Energy
to provide cleaner energy.

Apple has been incredibly selective about the energyrelated details of its iCloud in North Carolina, offering thosenuggets of detail and data that it feels are most favorable,
such as the size or scale of onsite renewable energy
investment, but refusing to disclose the size of the energy
demand of the facility itself, or the environmental footprint
associated with the iCloud.

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Apple’s two most recent data center announcements topower the iCloud (Maiden, NC and Prineville, OR) highlightthe urgent need for a rapidly expanding cloud company toestablish a siting policy with access to renewable energy
as a key criteria. The absence of such a policy or strong
corporate goal to guide Apple has resulted in iCloud data
centers being built in regions served by dirty utilities thatare heavily (50-60%) reliant on coal.
Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: DApple has provided high-level evidence of a number ofinnovative energy efficient design features in its Maiden,
NC iCloud data center. Apple has also revealed othernon-energy related design features that have earned it
a LEED Platinum designation. However, Apple’s lack oftransparency on the performance of the facility and detailof the energy savings design features make it difficult toevaluate its performance. This lack of transparency anddetail of data also make it difficult for other IT brands
to learn from and improve upon Apple’s best efficiency
practices.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: DGreenpeaceInternational

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Cloud?

Known as a leading computer maker in both theconsumer and enterprise markets, Dell has aggressively
moved into the data center space in the past few years,
through acquisitions such as Perot Systems and capital
investments. In a number of areas, Dell is building thefoundation to be an environmental leader in the data
center arena; it can build upon its thorough company-wide
disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by delving
into the specific emissions and carbon performance of its
growing data center fleet. Similarly, the company can use
its ambitious absolute target for GHG reductions (40%of 2007 levels by 2015) as impetus to drive more direct
investment in and utility access for renewable energy for its
expanding business.
Transparency: C
Dell extensively discloses its overall company carbon
footprint, and is one of a handful of companies filing initialdeclarations on its supply chain (Scope 3) footprint. Given
its substantial GHG reduction goals, Dell has showcaseda number of ways it is reducing energy consumption
and deploying renewable energy solutions within its
infrastructure. Given the growth of its data center footprint,
Dell should include the emissions factors and renewableenergy percentage of its data center fleet, and disclose thecarbon intensity of its IT services, using metrics like CUE
that its staff have contributed to building through entities
like the Green Grid.

Appendix 2
Company scores
explained

Recent investments, such as Quincy, Washington,
showcase a preference for renewable energy. Dell’s exact
plans for siting its growing infrastructure is unclear; itshould announce a preference for renewable energy tobetter clarify its policy to various utilities and countries vying
for its business.
Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: CGiven Dell’s overall growth plans for its data center
footprint, it will have to manage this growth within its
ambitious short-term, company-wide GHG reduction
goals. Dell has carried its company-wide focus onefficiency into the data center operations space, andhas highlighted48 a number of ways it is investing in bestpractices for efficient data centers, and also innovating indata center design, such as in its modular49 systems. The
company can take a lead from Facebook and further open
source its efficient design specifications. It could also push
the boundaries of how it reports its efficiency metrics bypublishing computing-based energy performance.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: D

Dell details50 that 21% of its electricity (and 17.4% of overall
energy use) is purchased using renewable energy, as
defined by the U.S. EPA’s Green Power Partnership. Thisappears not to count the grid mix of utility supplied energy,
which in certain areas of Dell’s infrastructure, such as
Austin, Texas and Quincy, includes renewable energy as a
portion of the electricity mix. While not valueless, spending
Infrastructure Siting: C
money on renewable energy certificates (RECs) should
Dell’s data center business is growing: in the past year,
be augmented by additional strategies for increasing
the company announced a billion-dollar spend over two
renewable energy, such as sizable direct renewable
years in 10 countries on data center infrastructure. Just
investment, and spending valuable political capital tothis month, executives were forecasting47 up to 20 data
advocate for renewable supply from utilities and regulators.
centers in Asia over the next few years. Having a formalized Dell has been relatively silent on these fronts.
siting policy that prioritizes access to renewable energy for
its infrastructure investment is of paramount importancegiven these expansion plans. Dell’s current absolute GHG
emission reduction goals (40% below 2007 levels by 2015)
for the company dictate that it can’t meet these goals by
powering its data center expansion through coal.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 39

Facebook, the social networking site that now has 845
million users worldwide, has recently taken significant
steps in putting itself on a path to being both a leader inenergy efficiency, and powering its platform with renewableenergy. In the past year, the company announced a
new siting policy that prioritizes clean energy for its
infrastructure and it has built a new data center in Swedenthat will be almost exclusively powered by renewableenergy.
Transparency: DOpen Compute Project, launched by Facebook, provides
an opportunity to be an open-source model not only in thetransparent use of equipment and design of data centers,
but also in the disclosure of data centers’ emissions andenergy sources. Facebook has yet to provide any data on
its energy consumption or related GHG emissions at either
a corporate or facility level. This is likely to change after thecompany goes public. The company, through the Open
Compute Project, does disclose best practices in energy
efficiency measures, which are mainly captured in that
separate category.
Infrastructure Siting: B
Facebook was one of the first companies to publicly
announce51 a preference for renewable energy supply
when siting its data center infrastructure. The company
stated that renewable supply was a key factor in its recent
investment in Lulea, Sweden, a data center powered
almost exclusively by renewable energy. This is a criticalstep forward for the environment as the company
continues to build out infrastructure. It also signals topower producers vying for its business that they should be
investing in renewable energy to enhance the likelihood of
procuring Facebook’s business.

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Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: B
Through Facebook’s Open Compute Project, thecompany published a number of designs and equipment
specifications to truly enable learning in areas of data
center energy efficiency. The company has showcased
how the design of its data centers minimizes energy
demand as well as water consumption, which is especiallycritical for its high desert infrastructure.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: C
Facebook’s announcement52 that it will increase theamount of renewable energy powering its data centerswill likely raise this score as the company continues
implementation, which will include lobbying local utility
and regulators for additional access to clean energy. At
the moment, Facebooks’s investment in Lulea, Sweden
provides the bulk of the company’s overall renewableenergy use, and the company has not yet set specifictargets for future generation.

GreenpeaceInternational

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Cloud?

Google is a multinational public cloud computing, internet
search and advertising corporation; and one of the world’s
most recognized brands. Google has been the most open
in the industry about the importance of increasing not only
energy efficiency within the sector, but also the need tomove our energy sources to renewable energy. Google
has made significant efforts to increase the company’stransparency. This is a great step forward that will enable
better awareness of energy and carbon management
associated with data consumption
Transparency: B
In late 2011, Google increased the transparency of its
environmental footprint significantly. The company finallypublished its energy usage53 and GHG footprint for the firsttime. Google has also provided white papers on its energy
procurement plans, and basic information to end users
on the energy/carbon footprint associated with its various
services.54 Nonetheless, there is room for improvement.
Google needs to be transparent with its emissions
breakdown and reporting of facility level energy demandmix. The company should set clear goals to reduce
absolute carbon emissions.

Appendix 2
Company scores
explained

Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: B
Google has a comprehensive energy reduction plan55 thathas resulted in its data centers using half the energy of theindustry standard. Google publicizes these best practices56
on its design choices in order to help improve efficiency
within the sector. Nevertheless, there are some concerns
over Google’s plans to build three data centers in Asia57
where efficiency can be a challenge due to the climate
conditions in the region.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: A
Google’s commitment to using renewable energy58 as muchas possible has set the bar for the industry. Google has
recently increased its goal of renewable energy purchasingfrom 25% to 35%59 of total energy use and added a$94m investment60 in a portfolio of four solar photovoltaic
projects in California. These actions, among a slew of otherinvestments, are playing a useful role in the total expansionof renewable energy. Google has highlighted the benefitsof clean energy innovation in a recent study61 and throughits involvement in the lobbying debate62 to advance clean
energy policies in the United States.

Infrastructure Siting: C
Google continues to claim to choose renewable energy“where it makes sense” and applies a shadow price forcarbon when calculating the power costs of potential data
center sites. However, its most recent investments in Asia
(Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong) put into question thecompany’s prioritization for clean energy sources in thesiting of its data centers.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 41

Known to many as the world’s leading manufacturer of
personal computers and printers, Hewlett-Packard (HP) is adiversified IT company that also has significant business inproviding cloud services, software and IT solutions among its
other hardware product divisions. While HP has consolidated
the amount of data centers it owns over the past five years,
its data center business has grown due to acquisitions ofcompanies like Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in 2008 andthe overall industry growth in cloud services.

There’s some truth in this statement, but at the end of theday, there are data centers that are owned and operatedby HP for its clients that will be counted on HP’s emissions
data tally. Given this footprint burden, the company willneed to implement stronger preferences for renewableenergy in order to achieve its targets for GHG mitigation
and renewable energy usage targets.
Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: B

HP has made several industry-wide contributions towards
the advancement of energy efficiency and best-practice
HP discloses its company-wide carbon footprint in a
GHG mitigation strategies for data centers. While thenumber of forums, and specs63 out detailed energy,
company helped create and drive the adoption of the PUE
electricity, and emissions data across its business. Overas an efficiency metric, the company now recognizes thethe past few years, HP was able to show significant
need to go beyond the limits of PUE to better measure
reductions in data center footprint due to its consolidation computational and energy usage efficiency. HP is actively
efforts. The company participates in the Carbon Disclosure developing some of the next-generation efficiency metrics.
Project voluntary reporting program.
Through a number of white papers, studies and innovations
HP does not, unfortunately, report specific energy orfrom its Labs division, HP has showcased best practices
emissions data for its data centers, which makes it
for optimizing energy efficiency in data centers, as well as
more difficult to understand the impact that data center
calculating some theoretical full-cost accounting for data
investments are having on HP’s overall environmental
center costs, including supply chain emissions for the data
performance metrics and the reduction goals the company center equipment. Finally the company has significant
has set. Given that HP both owns and manages data
potential efficiency and energy gains if the promise of its
center operations for itself and other clients, increasing the Project Moonshot64 prototype is adopted at scale.
level of data center footprint disclosure could provide HP’sclients the energy and carbon footprint associated with the Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: C
use of its services. Considering the number of companies
HP operates a larger, more diversified business thanthat need to measure and reduce carbon footprints, thissome other entrants assessed in this report. The smaller
makes good business sense for HP in addition to being
percentage of renewable energy the company purchases,
appropriate environmental leadership.
currently 8%, should be evaluated against the company’s
Transparency: C

significant electricity and energy expenditures. But it isexactly the size of these overall expenditures that makes
HP has touted the energy efficiency gains obtained throughit paramount that the company grow in a cleaner fashion
its server and data center consolidation over the last fiveand not simply buy RECs to mask investments that drive
plus years. Yet the company selected some of the dirtiest
more coal usage. HP has taken some promising firstparts of the U.S. electricity grid to site its new, paired data
steps, having signed direct power PPAs in San Diego for
centers (Houston and Atlanta). Think of the further GHG
electricity, and fully powering all of its UK offices and datasavings that would have occurred if HP had implemented acenter with 100% renewable energy. One of a handful
siting policy that had prioritized investment near sources ofof companies willing to get its hands dirty in the policy
renewable energy.
arena on climate and energy issues, HP should continue
Despite listing “feasibility of renewable energy” as one of
to increase its modest advocacy steps and use its large
many criteria it employs when looking to site a data center, buying power to lobby its utilities and government for more
the company states that it is often at the mercy of its clients access to renewable energy.
and its geographic needs for data center locations.
Infrastructure Siting: D

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GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

IBM, one of the oldest, largest and most well-known
technology companies, was one of the early adopters in
shifting investment from the consumer space to provide
data center, cloud and consulting services to the world’s
largest businesses. The company has significantly reduced
its own GHG footprint through a variety of innovative andenergy efficient means, but can improve specifically in thedisclosure of its data centers’ carbon footprints and thecompany’s plans to mitigate this GHG growth. IBM should
go beyond investing in renewable credits, and increase
the clean energy supplying its business through direct
investment and through advocating for more supply fromutilities and government.
Transparency: C
IBM participates in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
voluntary reporting program and provides significant,detailed information on the total GHG emissions of its
business. However, despite claiming to own or operateover 450 data centers around the world, IBM does notprovide any useful detail to its customers or stakeholders
on the energy consumption and impacts associated withthe operation of these facilities.

Appendix 2
Company scores
explained

Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: C
IBM has engaged in comprehensive emissions reductions
and energy efficiency work, with the company achieving
significant absolute GHG reductions over the past few
decades. This second goal-setting period, aiming to end
in 2012 (with the company achieving its goal ahead ofschedule) should be renewed. The company should also
be applauded for not achieving its GHG gains through thepurchasing of carbon offsets.
The company should go beyond PUE and also report othercomputational metrics that better give a more meaningful
picture of data center efficiency and environmental
performance, such as CUE.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: D

IBM reports that 11.2% of its electricity in 2010 was
covered through renewable electricity certificates. The
company does not disclose what percentage of theseRECs was bundled with renewable electricity it purchased,or was retired. Nor does it provide clarity on the role RECs
play in the company’s overall strategy for increasing
renewable energy generation. The company does notreport the grid mix of electricity it buys, nor does it report
Infrastructure Siting: D
the renewable content of that mix. While demonstrating to
IBM has a stated goal to increase its amount of company- governments the feasibility of energy efficiency and GHG
wide GHG reductions via energy efficiency and renewable reductions, IBM remains largely on the sidelines on policy
advocacy, and this extends to issues around increasingenergy. This should play a significant role in guiding
investment for IBM’s infrastructure, including its data center renewable energy supply
expansion. However, given that the company does notreport on facility level emissions data, it’s unclear how IBM
is meeting its increase in data center electricity demandwith a growing supply of renewable energy. IBM should
state a clear policy preference to site its new infrastructurenear renewable sources of energy, like Facebook andYahoo have done.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 43

Microsoft is experiencing rapid growth in its cloudinfrastructure as it seeks to shift to a cloud-based delivery
of software, and is making significant investments inboth new and existing data center locations to meet
expected demand. Microsoft has a strong brand profile
in both consumer and business spaces through its cloudofferings. Microsoft has also invested resources in creating
more efficient data centers and is beginning to share
more design details within the sector. With the company’s
growing infrastructure and GHG emissions, a moredetailed plan must include the prioritization of installed andpurchased renewable energy from the grid.

Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: C
Microsoft continues to work to identify and address key
opportunities for IT energy efficiency gains. The company
is also sharing its efficiency designs67 with others in the
sector, specifically the expansion of its Dublin, Ireland site68.
Microsoft’s energy efficiency efforts include attempting todecrease its PUE to 1.125 by 2012.
Renewable Energy Investment & Advocacy: C

The company has set a goal to increase renewable energy(RE) in its overall electricity sourcing. However, Microsoft’s
2012 goal is only a 1% increase from its current 24%
worldwide RE use to 25% goal, which hardly sets a bar forTransparency: Cleadership. Microsoft has contracts for 100% renewable
Microsoft expanded its cloud infrastructure rapidly inenergy for both its UK and Ireland data centers. While the2011 by opening and expanding a number of major datacompany states that its energy sourcing is a mix of direct
centers in both the U.S. and Ireland. The company has set installation and RECs, it fails to provide more specific details.
a relative goal of reducing its carbon emissions by 30% per Unlike Google, Microsoft is failing to use its buying power
unit of revenue from 2007 levels by 2012, citing a focus
and financial resources to secure significant amounts ofon data centers as one of three necessary components
renewable energy for its growing cloud business. And unlike
in achieving this goal. The company has also set a goal of
Google or Yahoo, despite having significant lobbying power,
reducing its data centers’ PUE to 1.125 by 201265. Though it remains unwilling to push either governments or utilities to
its focus on reducing the impacts of its data centers is
include more renewable energy in the grid.
commendable, more transparency and disclosure isneeded to show real leadership in the sector.
Infrastructure Siting: D
Microsoft does not appear to have a stated or consistent
data center siting policy that gives preference to renewableenergy sources. Though Microsoft shows progress insome areas (such as the expansion of the Quincy, WA and
Dublin, Ireland sites) the company is expanding66 its data
center infrastructure in Virginia, which is heavily reliant oncoal and nuclear.

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GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Appendix 2
Company scores
explained

Oracle is one of the world’s largest software companies,
providing enterprise-level hardware and software services
to the world’s largest companies. Oracle currently powers
its cloud services and solutions through three main data
centers in Texas, Colorado and Utah.

Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: C

Infrastructure Siting: D

its data center infrastructure with increasing amountsof renewable energy. The company did purchase 5% of
its power for its data centers using an undefined green
power-purchasing program. This goal was met in 2010; noannouncement has been made to renew or upgrade thisgoal. Oracle is not active in advocating for more renewableenergy access or renewable energy targets at the utility,
regulatory or legislative levels.

Oracle has set a modest goal of 10% reduction in energy
use for its owned and leased buildings in the United States,by 2016 from a 2010 baseline. This would include its threeowned data centers in the United States. The company
has also set a goal to increase the PUE of its data centers
Transparency: D
by 6% within the same time frame. The company has
Oracle reports the company’s GHG emissions to thebeen active in showcasing innovation in its data center
Carbon Disclosure Project at a corporate-wide level,
operations to drive savings and efficiency across theand has established some modest GHG reduction andsector. To score higher, Oracle must disclose its energy
efficiency goals for portions of its business including U.S.
performance on a facility level, push for more ambitious
owned and leased buildings and PUE of data centers.
goal setting, and report on computing based energy
Oracle does not disclose its energy mix at a facility level ordisclose the amount of renewable energy it uses. It does not performance metrics in addition to PUE.
provide any carbon intensity metrics and does not share the Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: Dcarbon footprint with consumers who use its products.
Oracle does not have a stated goal or vision to power
Oracle does not state a public preference for renewableenergy supply when it sites its data centers, nor does it
have a goal for renewable energy percentage of future
investments. As the company consolidated its data
infrastructure in the past five years, it now has data centersin Texas, Utah, and Colorado, and only the Austin, Texas
utility has significant plans to expand its renewable energy
offerings and set carbon reduction goals.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 45

Rackspace launched in 1998 as an IT hosting business,
including cloud hosting, email and apps, and managed
hosting. Rackspace’s profits rose roughly 69% in thethird quarter of 2011 to reach $20m. Rackspace’s corebusiness is IT hosting, unlike many companies who offer
cloud services as one service of many. The company
sits in the middle of those graded in this report. In orderto improve its scoring, Rackspace needs to be moretransparent about its environmental impacts and the steps
it is taking in mitigating those impacts in regards to its data
center and renewable energy investments.
Transparency: C
Rackspace reports basic information on the total power
demand of its cloud computing services, and a limited
amount of information on its GHG emissions at both
corporate and at facility levels. Rackspace does notparticipate in the Carbon Disclosure Project.

Infrastructure Siting: C
Rackspace has an established Global Energy Policy; thecompany includes energy mix from a potential facility site
in the decision making process. The policy also includes
the availability of purchasing or installing renewable energy.
However, it doesn’t appear that the company prioritizes
this information in decision-making, but merely assesses
the potential. Rackspace’s Slough data center located in
the UK is fueled 100% by renewable energy through thepurchasing of levy-exempt certificates.
Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: C
Rackspace is a member of the Green Grid and the Open
Compute Project. The company also provides some
information on its eight data centers, including eachfacility’s power consumption.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: C
Rackspace has contracted for 100% renewable energy
for its UK Slough data center and has purchased a 5%
renewable energy contract for one of its Dallas, Texas
facilities. The company also evaluates renewable energy
opportunities at its data center locations and holds
discussions with local utilities on an ongoing basis about its
options to expand its facilities renewable energy.

46

How Clean is Your Cloud?

GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Salesforce needs no circuitous connection to the cloud.
With the white fluffy emblem emblazoned on its corporate
logo, Salesforce is the world’s largest vendor of enterprisecloud computing, under the model of software as aservice. Salesforce’s data center portfolio is comprisedof 100% leased space and because it is dispersed anddecentralized, the company has both unique environmental
challenges and opportunities. Salesforce prominently
promotes the energy savings benefits of its software ascompared to hosting a similar capacity on premises or evenprivately managed cloud deployment. The company should
be more forthcoming in disclosing the emissions from its
data centers and cite a clear preference to build out its
infrastructure with renewable energy wherever possible.
Transparency: B
Salesforce reports its GHG emissions and energy
consumption to the Carbon Disclosure Project at thecorporate level. Nevertheless, the company is reluctant
to set a target to reduce emissions until its data collection
infrastructure improves. Salesforce claims to be in theearly stages of requiring its rented facilities to provide
energy and water performance data, which will hopefully
inform its site selection in the future. Salesforce discloses
its emissions factors per country as well as its estimatedemissions performance per unit (per click).

Appendix 2
Company scores
explained

Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: C
Salesforce is committed to considering the energy
efficiency of the vendors’ data centers. Its new data centerin Japan is air-cooled which will significantly reduce theoverall power demand for this facility and will have minimal
water demand in comparison to a traditionally-cooled data
center. Salesforce should set energy efficiency targets assoon as its much needed data collection infrastructure isin place.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: C
Salesforce reports a certain number of RECs, however
this can’t be placed into context, as the percentage ofelectricity demand that comes from renewable energy is
not disclosed. Salesforce should use its purchase power
and identify opportunities with its vendors to utilize clean
energy, and should build upon its advocacy engagement,
as demonstrated in supporting the Guadalajara
Declaration, to include policy efforts that will directly lead togreater amounts of renewable energy being put on the grid.

Infrastructure Siting: C
Salesforce does not build or own its own data centers,
but rents space for its servers from colocation providers.
Its environmental policy69 states that the company uses
environmental criteria when choosing the location of its
leased facilities and is committed to considering the local
energy supply. However, its policy doesn’t state a clear
preference for investments attached to renewable energy,
and the latest transactions leases have been in Illinois70 and
Virginia, two U.S. states that heavily depend on coal andnuclear. To score higher, Salesforce needs to be more openwith its information per facility and demonstrate that its
energy policy is more than a declaration of intentions.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 47

Twitter has grown over the past year not only in thenumber of users and tweets per day but also in its impact
on people’s ability to communicate through several
social justice uprisings across the globe. While assistingin the efforts to challenge the transparency of others,
the company remains quiet on its own energy use andassociated environmental impacts.

Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: F

Transparency: F

Twitter consolidated most of its servers to a locationin Sacramento, California in 2011, which has a highpercentage of renewable energy. However, Twitter’s
decision to expand its operations by renting spacein Atlanta, which has a high percentage of coal-fired
electricity, means that Twitter would need to work harder
to mitigate the footprint of its new facility, and will need
to work with its colocation provider to demand cleaner
energy options .

Twitter stays at the bottom of the industry pack for lacking
transparency in disclosing the company’s energy footprint.
The company has failed to set goals on how to reduce its
obviously increasing emissions.
Infrastructure Siting: D
Twitter has begun expanding its cloud infrastructure byleasing an existing site in the Sacramento, CA area after
renting servers from NTT America. However, now thatthe company owns its own servers and is attempting
to own its own locations, Twitter still does not havean infrastructure policy that takes either its growing
environmental footprint or the need to mitigate climatechange-inducing emissions into account.

48

How Clean is Your Cloud?

Twitter has provided very little information on its leased
Sacramento data center site. The company is not sharing
design best practices or speaking on energy efficiency
investments.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: DGreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Yahoo is one of the biggest online destinations, maintaining
both owned and rented data center space across theglobe to support all its offered services. Because ofYahoo’s large brand profile and business portfolio, thecompany is in a position to help move the industry towards
a clean energy future. Yahoo has set new goals to reduce
its emissions.
Transparency: C
Yahoo reports limited information to the Carbon Disclosure
Project on its corporate environmental footprint. The
reported data does not provide a clear picture ofoperational impacts, and cites ‘competitive reasons’ for its
lack of transparency on its data centers. Yahoo does share
best practices71 on energy efficiency measures. However,the company needs to be more transparent on reporting offacility-level energy demand mix as a way to allow others tobetter understand its progress towards its 2014 reduction
goals for offices and data centers.

Appendix 2
Company scores
explained

Energy Efficiency and GHG Mitigation: B
Yahoo has been recognized for having built some of theworld’s most efficient facilities using a unique “chickencoop”73 design that runs almost entirely on free cooling.
Yahoo claims to share its innovation successes at data
centers to enable improvement within the sector. The
company professes that its data centers consume 40%
to 50%74 less energy, eliminate water for cooling andwastewater, and use outside air economizers. The newdata center in Switzerland will be the first implementation ofa new design in a retrofit of an existing building.
Renewable Energy Investment and Advocacy: B

56% of the company’s electricity demand for facilities
can be met with renewable energy thanks to data
centers in Washington and New York, built in 2007 and2009 respectively. Yahoo claims that its data center in
Washington State75, powered by clean hydropower,
sets the bar for all the facilities to come. Nevertheless,Infrastructure Siting: B
Yahoo’s trend with investments in Nebraska76 and more
recently in Asia77 do not disclose any significant renewable
Despite Yahoo’s commitment to reduce the carbon
energy investment. Yahoo has been active in the U.S. in
intensity of their data centers by 40% by 2014, its latest
supporting continuing tax incentives for renewable energy
data center siting decisions undermine Yahoo’s cleaner
energy path. Yahoo currently has several active data center deployment, and should continue and expand these efforts
to increase policy incentives for renewable energy for all of
construction projects72, including expansions at existing
its facilities.
data centers in Nebraska and Washington State andnew facilities in Singapore and Switzerland with the latest
cooling design technologies. However, the company has
not made public its renewable energy investment strategy
for these new facilities.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 49

Endnotes
1 Growth in data center electricity use 2005 to 2010, Jonathan Koomey(August 2011)
http://www.analyticspress.com/datacenters.html
2 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/08/01/reportdata-center-energy-use-is-moderating/

25 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/12/08/googleto-open-300-million-hong-kong-data-center/
26 http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/climate_change/files/Climate_
Change_Booklet_E.pdf
27 http://www.datacentre.gov.hk/en/powersupply.html

3 Intel CEO Paul Ontellini, Speaking at Dell World (October 2011)
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/virtual/231901454

28 http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201111/02/P201111020243.htm

4 http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/research/marketgrowth-2011-2012

29 As of the end of 2011, China’s installed capacity of wind was 45.05 GW
and solar was 2.14GW.
http://www.chinamining.org/News/2012-03-05/1330925978d54936.html

5 http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/
ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.html
6 http://www.iea.org/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=428
7 http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobilestats#subscribers
8 http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/
ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.html
9 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/07/india-telecoms-subscribersidUSL4E8E71L320120307
10 Confederation of Indian Industries and Ernst & Young – “India 2012 :Telecom Growth Continues”
10A http://trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/Recommendation/Documents/
Green_Telecom-12.04.2011.pdf
11 How Dirty is Your Data? (2011), p.15, Energy efficiency rebound effect Jevons Paradox
12 Cloud Computing and Sustainability (Microsoft with Accenture and
WSP), November 2010; Cloud Computing - The IT Solution for the 21stCentury (Carbon Disclosure Project and Verdantix, supported by AT&T), July2011
13 http://www.greenqloud.com/
14 http://investor.mcgraw-hill.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=96562&p=RssLandin
g&cat=news&id=1573196
15 Clean energy investments reported as totaling $915 million (USD) http://
www.google.com/green/energy/investments/
16 http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/investing-in-worlds-largestsolar-power.html
17 http://www.greenpeace.org/coolit/
18 http://www.bitkom.org/files/documents/Energieeinsparpotenziale_von_Rechenzentren_in_Deutschland.pdf
19 Broad Group, Oct 2011. German Data Centres: Market Report.
20 http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/research/marketgrowth-2011-2012
21 Germany gross electricity production mix in 2011.
http://www.bdew.de/internet.nsf/id/DA3DD0BD5352F45BC12579B300
34A0C9/$file/120229%20Bruttostromerzeugung%202010%20und%20
2011%20Vergleich.pdf
22 http://www.wirtschaftsdienst.eu/archiv/jahr/2011/4/2555/?PHPSESSID=7fc7eb7165ea9d306a8e6f84aaa3f5a1
23 http://www.bitkom.org/files/documents/090908_BITKOMInformationen_zum_UIP_des_BMU%281%29.pdf
24 Ming Pao News, 9 February 2012.

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How Clean is Your Cloud?

30 https://www.electricireland.ie/ei/residential/manage-your-account/fuelmix.jsp
31 http://www.iwea.com/index.cfm/page/windenergyfaqs?#q21
32 A form of tax relief, introduced under Section 62 of 1998 Finance Bill,is available for corporations making equity investments in renewableenergy projects. The tax relief scheme applies to wind, hydro, solar andbiomass energy projects approved by the Department of Public Enterprise.
A company can invest up to €38 million (€12.69 p/a over three years) ina number of renewable energy projects for which it can recoup tax relief
at whatever rate the company pays (currently 36% for corporations) fromits own profits. http://www.seai.ie/Renewables/Renewable_Energy_in_
Business_and_Industry/
33 SOMO (2012). Duurzaamheid in de Nederlandse Elektriciteitssector,
available online
http://somo.nl/publications-nl/Publication_3766-nl
34 Greenpeace Netherlands (2012). Duurzaamheid in de Nederlandse
Elektriciteitssector (Sustainability in the Dutch Electricity Sector).
http://www.greenpeace.nl/graadmeter2012/ (in Dutch)
35 http://www.investsweden.se/world/Industries/ICT/Data-centers/
36 DatacenterDynamics for Enterprise Ireland (2010). Initial Evaluation ofOpportunities in European Markets.
37 Nordic total electricity mix (including net import/export)
http://www.svenskenergi.se/upload/Vi%20arbetar%20med/
Handel&F%C3%B6rs%C3%A4ljning/Filer/Ursprungsm%C3%A4rkning/
V%C3%A4gl%20ursprungsm%C3%A4rkning%20%202011_0829_
inkl%20bilagor.pdf
38 http://www.icc.illinois.gov/downloads/public/en/co%20%20med.pdf
39 http://www.awea.org/learnabout/publications/upload/4Q-11-Illinois.pdf
40 http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/research/marketgrowth-2011-2012
41 US Environmental Protection Agency eGrid 2010 v 1.1 (published May2011). State Resource Mix.
http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/documents/egridzips/eGRID2010V1_1_
year07_SummaryTables.pdf
42 Dominion IR Reference Book (September 2011), 58.
http://investors.dom.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=110481&p=irol-irhome
43 Dominion New Directions in Energy
http://www.hrp.org/Site/docs/ResourceLibrary/Dominion%20Power%20
Presentation%20to%20VB%20Alt%20Energy%20Task%20Force_6_3_.
pdf
44 http://www.bpa.gov/corporate/about_BPA/Facts/FactDocs/BPA_
Facts_2010.pdf
45 http://www.pacificpower.net/content/dam/pacific_power/doc/About_
Us/Rates_Regulation/Oregon/OR_LabelInsert_LargeBiz.pdf

GreenpeaceInternational

How Clean is Your
Cloud?

Endnotes

46 http://huanliu.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/amazon-data-center-size/

74 http://www.ydatacentersblog.com/blog/new-york/environment/

47 http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225221/Dell_plans_
over_20_data_centers_in_Asia_as_customers_look_to_cloud

75 http://www.ydatacentersblog.com/blog/washington/

48 http://content.dell.com/us/en/fedgov/fed-federal-health-solutions-datacenter-efficiency

76 http://www.ydatacentersblog.com/blog/nebraska/
77 http://www.ydatacentersblog.com/blog/singapore/

49 http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/by-need-it-productivitydeploy-systems-faster-modular-data-center
50 http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/d/corp-comm/cr-earth-resourceconservation.aspx
51 http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/
publications/climate/2011/Cool%20IT/Facebook/Facebook_Statement.pdf
52 http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/
publications/climate/2011/Cool%20IT/Facebook/Facebook_Statement.pdf
53 http://www.google.com/green/bigpicture/
54 http://www.google.com/green/bigpicture/#/intro/infographics-1
55 http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/index.html
56 http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/best-practices.html
57 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/09/28/googleto-build-three-data-centers-in-asia/
58 http://www.google.com/green/energy/use/#purchasing
59 http://www.google.com/green/bigpicture/#beyondzero-grid
60 http://googlegreenblog.blogspot.com.es/2011/12/ending-year-withanother-clean-energy.html
61 http://www.google.org/energyinnovation/enough.html
62 http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/03/09/09greenwire-googlerecruits-lobbying-muscle-to-promote-gre-44273.html
63 http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/environment/data_and_goals/data_table.html
64 http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/iss/110111.aspx
65 http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/en-us/reporting/working-responsibly/environmental-sustainability/
66 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/09/23/microsoftsteps-up-cloud-expansion-plans/
67 http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2011/apr11/0419GreenDatacenters.mspx
68 http://blogs.technet.com/b/msdatacenters/archive/2012/03/05/
microsoft-s-dublin-data-center-grows-with-enhanced-efficiency-andsustainability.aspx
69 http://www2.sfdcstatic.com/assets/pdf/datasheets/DS_
salesforcedotcom_Environmental_Policy_Q2FY11.pdf
70 http://www.illinoisbiz.biz/NR/rdonlyres/EA15E8A9-E0BD-468A-A308BE58E93D0C03/0/CoalInIllinois2011.pdf
71 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/04/26/yahoocomputing-coop-the-shape-of-things-to-come/
72 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/03/11/yahooplans-500-million-data-center-expansion/
73 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/09/07/willchanges-at-yahoo-impact-hosting-operations/

All URLs reported in these Endnotes were accessedon 5 April 2012.

How Clean is Your Cloud? 51

Greenpeace is an independent global
campaigning organisation that acts
to change attitudes and behaviour,
to protect and conserve theenvironment and topromote peace.
For more information contact:
enquiries@greenpeace.org
JN 417

Published in April 2012 by
Greenpeace International
Ottho Heldringstraat 51066 AZ Amsterdam
The Netherlands

greenpeace.org
52 How Clean is Your Cloud?