Is Greenpeace’s War On ‘Dirty Data’ A Just One?

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace has a history of direct action that includes chasing whaling ships, scaling industrial chimneys and other acts of daring do (or reckless environmental activism depending on how you see these things).

Next week the IT industry will find itself the subject of some Greenpeace direct action, admittedly in a slightly more low-key format. Greenpeace campaigners will take the stage with IT executives at an event in London, to discuss the campaign group’s recent report on data centre energy use. The debate at the Hosting and Cloud Transformation Summit will be a chance for Greenpeace to come face to face with an industry it accuses of making poor choices on energy efficiency.

It’s all in the mix

In the report entitled ‘How dirty is your data? A look at the energy choices that power cloud computing,’ Greenpeace analysts state that companies offering cloud services including Apple, Amazon, HP and Microsoft may have purposefully obscured accurate data centre energy consumption information from public scrutiny.

According to Greenpeace, there has also been too much focus on energy efficiency, and not enough on the sources of the energy used to power computing facilities. Apple in particular was singled out for criticism on this front. Steve Jobs may have been accurate when he told the audience at the iCloud launch earlier this month that Apple’s new North Carolina data centre is extremely efficient. What Jobs didn’t mention was that the state has one of highest percentages of coal in its energy mix in the US. Unfortunately that fact hasn’t escaped Greenpeace.

The Greenpeace report is highly critical of the mix of energy being used in many large data centres. The report’s authors contend that energy consumption and energy efficiency are secondary when compared to the actual source of the energy. The data centre is focused on energy efficiency because it helps to drive down energy costs rather than because of any altruistic or environmental considerations.

Greenpeace is particularly critical of companies that use a high percentage of coal-based power – listed as a ‘Coal Intensity’ figure – such as Apple at 54.5 percent and Facebook at 53.2 percent. Coal intensity is also related to the grade awarded for ‘Infrastructure Siting,’ which assesses suppliers on the geographic location of their data centres. Both Apple and Facebook faired poorly in terms of coal intensity and infrastructure siting for choosing to construct new facilities in North Carolina. The state’s utilities use a large percentage of coal, 61 percent according to figures cited by Greenpeace, to generate electricity.

Andrew Donoghue is Analyst, Eco-Efficient IT and Datacenter Technologies, at The 451 Group.

Representatives from Greenpeace and the data centre industry will take part in a live debate at The 451 Group’s Hosting and Cloud Transformation Summit in London from the 28th to 29th June.

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