Saturday 11 August 2012

Day 32: Bill Gates, Microsoft - Time to Kick the Coal

As Chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates still has a lot of clout.  I'm going to recycle yesterday's post and send a letter to Bill.

Microsoft office coal protest
Clever error message in Israel office


To: Bill Gates

Thank you for all of the amazing work the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does in the world! However, the world today cannot be changed by non-profit foundations alone. Businesses can increase their value by making the world a better place.


As you may have seen in this petition:
The coal-fired power plants that energize your giant data centers are one of the world’s top sources of airborne carcinogens and greenhouse gases.

You’ve probably seen the Greenpeace International report confirming just how much coal is being burned to keep all those servers online. It casts quite a cloud over all that IT innovation, but the facts are easy to see: Our data is downright dirty.

But you have an opportunity to clear things up, leading us toward the realization of IT that is powered by the sun and the wind, not dirty coal. Here’s what you can do to make it happen:

 - Make it company policy to seek renewable energy when siting your data centres.
 - Urge your electricity suppliers to move away from dirty energy
generation, investing instead in renewable energy generation, capacity, and efficiency.
- Advocate full transparency of your energy use and carbon footprint for all products, as well as your cloud presence.
- Encourage your product suppliers and manufacturers to adopt similar policies, and give preferences to green suppliers

As an environmentally aware digital citizen, I'm asking you to help us all breathe a little easier by working with Greenpeace to create a world where data centres powered by dirty coal are a thing of the past. Along with being the source of so many IT breakthroughs, you'll literally give us all a breath of fresh air.

Sent to: billg@microsoft.com



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