Greenpeace has admitted today that Apple’s clean energy policies have “significantly improved,” thought the activist organization still takes issue with what they say is Apple’s reliance on coal power for iCloud services.
The organization made a post on its official blog to highlight the release of a new Greenpeace International analysis, which found that Apple “lacks a plan that outlines a realistic path to eliminate its reliance on coal.” The report is entitled, “A Clean Energy Road Map for Apple.”
Greenpeace decided to re-examine Apple because of what the group called “ambitious and public commitments to clean energy.”
The “Road Map,” now gives Apple a score of 22.6 percent on its “Clean Energy Index,” up from April’s 15.3 percent. Apple’s grades went from ‘F’ to ‘D’ in “Infrastructure Sitting,” and ‘D’ to ‘C’ in “Energy Efficiency & GHG Mitigation,” and “Renewables & Advocacy.” Apple’s grade of ‘D’ remained unchanged in “Energy Transparency.”
Greenpeace offers a list of steps that the organization says would “indicate if (Apple) is truly on the path to meet its ambitious goals.”:
- Choose a renewable-powered local utility for its Oregon data center, not buy renewable energy credits from coal-powered Pacific Power.
- Use renewable electricity from onsite generation to directly power its North Carolina facility, and use grid power solely for backup, rather than selling its renewable electricity to Duke Energy.
- Secure a sustainable source of biogas to directly power its fuel cells for North Carolina.
- Retire renewable energy credits from electricity generated onsite in North Carolina
- Invest directly in new renewable energy generation in North Carolina rather than buying renewable credits to “green” Duke Energy;s dirty electricity.
- Demand Duke Energy eliminate its mountaintop coal removal operations from Apple’s electricity supply chain, and demand that Duke invest in new renewable energy generation capacity, not retrofitting and extending the lifetime of dirty coal plants.
- Adopt a data center siting policy that prioritizes access to renewable energy for any future iCloud data centers.
The updated report issued by Greenpeace on Thursday was Apple-specific, and no other technology companies were mentioned or graded. The organization said it plans to re-evaluate Microsoft and Amazon later this year.
