A new report (PDF) from environmental group Greenpeace says Apple is “the most innovative and most aggressive” company in Silicon Valley for finding ways to feed its power-hungry datacenters with renewable energy.
The iPhone maker scored an ‘A’ for energy transparency, commitment to renewable energy, and deployment thanks in large part to the fuel cell installation and solar farm at its datacenter in Maiden, N.C. Apple recorded a ‘B’ in the sole remaining category, energy efficiency and mitigation.
Greenpeace also praised Apple for bringing pressure on local utility companies to offer renewable options for buying energy. Any electricity Apple requires that is not generated by itself for its datacenters is purchased from utilities that use renewable sources. These include geothermal plants and wind energy farms.
The company has improved its standing with Greenpeace considerably since the green organization’s last datacenter report in 2012, when the group said Apple relied too much on fossil fuels for its power needs.
Greenpeace still sees room for improvement, saying Apple should share more details of its energy efficient designs with the tech industry as a whole, which would allow the industry to learn from and improve upon the Cupertino firm’s methods.
