Day 34: Apple - Quit The Coal!

An Apple a day won't do much good if you're breathing in air polluted by coal.

Sorry for the pun. But really...Apple isn't struggling, it can afford to do this.

After pressure from Greenpeace, Apple declared its newest data centre would all be powered by renewables.  Not bad. But they could do better. I'm sure they've got more than one data centre.

Same letter, new CEO...here we go!

The Letter

To: Tim Cook

Thank you for making Apple's new NC data centre powered all by renewables. But the other data centres should still have their energy sources converted away from coal. 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.

Source

Sent to:

tcook@apple.com