Cisco Claims Top Spot In Greenpeace IT League

Networking giant Cisco has jumped to the top of Greenpeace’s Cool IT Challenge Leaderboard, doubling its previous score and bumping IBM off the top spot.

Greenpeace’s Leaderboard ranks companies based on their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, advocate green energy policies and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Cisco’s recent moves to drive smart grid technology and reduce energy consumption through office management solutions have helped it to rise up the ranks.

“To play a significant role in helping make sure global greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2015, IT companies need to deliver upon the promise that their technology can provide substantial climate savings today,” said Greenpeace campaigner Casey Harrell. “Leaders such as Cisco are actively investing in climate solutions, while others are merely signaling commitments, hoping that lofty words are as good as action.”

Actions speak louder than words

Cisco was followed by Ericsson in second place, on the strength of its real world case studies that measure how its technology is driving down emissions. According to Greenpeace, Ericsson has developed a strong methodology for measuring the net impact of its solutions, which helps to evaluate the broader impact of IT on the environment.

IBM dropped to third place, followed by HP and Fujitsu in fifth. Greenpeace praised Fujitsu for being the first company to set a credible goal for the overall amount of carbon savings it can provide to its customers.

Google was ranked in sixth place, due to its lack of transparency with regard to its own emission reduction targets. However, Greenpeace highlighted that Google remains the top scoring company on political advocacy, having put forward a clear vision for moving to a clean energy economy. The company received particular praise for its its PowerMeter tool, which provides real time energy consumption information, allowing consumers to take action to reduce their own energy use.

“Google and other IT companies can help shape policies to rapidly deploy IT solutions to help slow and reverse climate change, while increasing their revenue and growing in a more responsible way,” said Harrell. “The company bottom line coupled with the environmental bottom line, the need to curb a growing greenhouse gas emissions, should send the IT industry to the front lines in the battle for a clean energy economy.”

Greenpeace’s Leaderboard builds on its Guide to Greener Electronics, which highlights the effect of rapid economic expansion, in places like India and China, on the carbon footprint of the ICT industry. The Cool IT Challenge is updated regularly, with the fourth version slated for publication later this year.

Greenpeace opposes dirty tech

Greenpeace has been vocal in its opposition to dirty tech practices for some time, regularly producing reports detailing the contribution of IT to global warming. It’s most recent report, “Make IT Green: Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change”, shows that cloud-based computing has potentially a much larger carbon footprint than previously estimated.

Back in March, Greenpeace used the launch of Apple’s iPad as springboard to discuss the growth of cloud services and the energy-hungry data centres behind them. The environmental group claimed that, at current growth rates, data centres and telecommunication networks will more than triple their electricity consumption by 2020. “That is more than the current electricity consumption of France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined,” it stated.

However, that same month it was revealed that Greenpeace is not as squeaky-clean as it likes to make out. After launching an attack on Facebook for not using renewable energy, the organisation was forced to admit in an interview with Data Center Knowledge that most of Greenpeace’s hosting operations are housed in data centres powered by coal and nuclear power.

At the time Gary Cook, a climate policy advisor for the Greenpeace Cool IT Campaign, told Data Center Knowledge that Greenpeace was trying to run the greenest possible operation, and was buying renewable energy certificates to offset the carbon output of its data centre facility. “We want to put our money where our mouth is,” he said.