Josh Ong for AppleInsider:
In the report, the organization dismissed Apple’s renewable energy efforts for its Maiden, N.C., server farm as providing just 10 percent of “their total generation.”
The Cupertino, Calif., company quickly responded in a statement, according to NPR.
“Our data center in North Carolina will draw about 20 megawatts at full capacity, and we are on track to supply more than 60 percent of that power on-site from renewable sources including a solar farm and fuel cell installation which will each be the largest of their kind in the country,” said spokeswoman Kristin Huguet. “We believe this industry-leading project will make Maiden the greenest data center ever built, and it will be joined next year by our new facility in Oregon running on 100 percent renewable energy.”
And then Greenpeace responded. I’d like to see Greenpeace actually do something about the companies that are making no or little effort at all.
aha! If greenpeace ever did that, they wouldn’t be mentioned in LoopInsight! 🙂
Any news release with ‘Apple’ in it guarantees more clicks!
Greepeace are such hypocrites I will never give them a penny.
Greenpeace are no hypocrites. They use Apple so that Apple sets standards for the industry. Honestly, who would give a damn about Dell or HP not respecting green (or whatever color) standards ? And Apple is smart to use that as a weapon against the competition. Everything Greenpeace complains about becomes selling points for Apple products.
I’d almost be tempted to say that there is a collusion between Apple and Greenpeace management…
Nonsense. Greenpeace uses Apple to get headlines and boost fundraising, while claiming to champion standards that they criticize few — if any — other companies for failing to meet. That’s hypocrisy.
“Who would give a damn” whether Dell or HP meet those standards? I do, because I live in world that has to clean up after their mess.
Greenpeace IS hypocritical. They claim to care about the environment, but their actions speak far louder than their words, and those actions say that they are interested in PR. For instance, rather than scoring companies based solely on what they’ve actually done (i.e. the changes made, which is what an activist group should be working to bring about), they give equal, sometime extra, credence to announced plans and shows of environmental interest.
A few years back, when they first arrived on the scene, they got on the case of a lot of companies about using CRTs (which contain lead), PVCs, BFRs, and a few other toxic chemicals, all of which are good things to eliminate, without a doubt. But without having been prompted by Greenpeace, Apple had already eliminated CRTs from their entire line, had phased out most of the BFRs, and had taken a number of other proactive steps that were beyond what Greenpeace was demanding (e.g. shrinking product packaging, using recyclable materials for the bulk of the matter in their devices, eliminating mercury and cadmium, holding their suppliers more accountable for emissions, etc.). But, as we would expect, Apple refused to provide granular details for some of their operations and refused to provide almost any details regarding future plans, though it should have been clear from their track record what direction they were heading.
Meanwhile, Dell, HP, and the other companies being ranked by Greenpeace still had all of those toxins in the majority of their products and had no history of being proactive in their efforts, but they announced timelines to eliminate or reduce their reliance on those toxins within 5-10 years. They also provided more detail regarding some of the programs they already had in place, such as their consumer product recycling programs.
The result? On the basis that Apple had refused to provide plans to eliminate the remaining toxins, Greenpeace ranked Apple fourth worst out the one or two dozen companies, then rewarded those other companies with good scores based solely on their promises to clean up their act, even though many of them slipped on their promised timelines in the years to come. It didn’t matter what a company did. All that mattered to Greenpeace was what a company said. They’re playing at activism.
That would make sense if any of Greenpeace’s claims were based on actual data and not guesses. Greenpeace regularly accepts at face value colourful PDFs from Dell and HP et al while decrying Apple for the simple act of not acknowledging Greenpeace and acquiescing to Greenpeace’s demands for public statements.
BFRs. Thanks. I was trying to think of that particular chemical and was drawing a blank.Yes. Actually getting things done was never as important to Greenpeace as Apple granting them access.
I’m not sure why Greenpeace has such a hair up their ass about Apple, but it seems to go beyond using Apple to generate headlines. Greenpeace seems terrifically pissed that Apple doesn’t ask “how high?” when Greenpeace wants Apple to jump.