Google And Cisco Top Greenpeace Cool IT List

Google is still at the top of Greenpeace’s “Cool IT” league table of environmentally friendly tech firms – but this time it shares the top spot with network giant Cisco.

Greenpeace gave Google credit for investing in solar and wind energy and for pushing through deals which persuade its electricity providers to build renewable generation capacity. Other firms with a strong cloud presence, including Apple, Facebook, Amazon and eBay, are conspicuously absent from Greenpeace’s list, which is in its sixth annual edition.

Greenpeace knows best?

As before, Greenpeace has ranked 21 IT companies on their own use of clean energy, as well as their efforts to provide IT solutions to environmental issues through activity such as Smart Grids.

They are also rated on political advocacy – the extent to which they push for policy changes. All three figures are wrapped up into one ranking.

Google is praised for investing in renewable energy, as well as for pushing deals such as the green tariff it has with Duke Energy in California that result in new solar and wind capacity.

Cisco gets good marks for solutions which take energy savings into other sectors, while its own energy use is near the top of the rankings for that category.

Greenpeace has dropped two companies, Oracle and Tata Communications, from the leaderboard “due to a significant decline in performance”.

Ericsson, IBM, HP and Fujitsu all score well, but the absence of Facebook and Apple is striking.

Apple has responded to Greenpeace’s criticism of its data centres, with a policy to power them with renewable electricity, however, it has ignored other aspects of the kind of  activity Greenpeace wants.

Facebook, meanwhile is very open about its energy use, and has shared best practices, but is not interested in the source of its energy, as far as can be told.

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