Tag Archive for 'clean energy'

Facebook is all Green now, don’t give us any more suggestions please.

Published on November 8, 2010 in Facebook, business, clean tech, environment, social media and technology. View Comments

Perhaps in response to the earlier reported pressure from Greenpeace and others, Facebook has put up a ‘Green on Facebook’ page, highlighting the company’s “efforts to be a green and sustainable global citizen”.

Green On Facebook

The page has information on Facebook’s environmental and energy efficiency programs, and has links to its energy efficiency partners, such as Digital Energy Solutions Campaign, Alliance to Save Energy and The Green Grid.

Facebook may be correct in asserting that “By enabling millions of people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share, we believe we can help unleash innovative environmental initiatives across the globe.”. In addition, it appears that Facebook has now realised, with more than a little pressure it has to be said, that it should also lead by example.

An obvious question now, given how big Facebook has become, is: do you think Facebook is doing enough? Facebook’s stated programs and energy efficiencies now include:

  1. Encouraging recycling and composting throughout Facebook facilities.
  2. Reducing water consumption by nearly 60%, including auto/dual flush toilets and motion sensor faucets.
  3. Motion sensor controlled lighting, reducing energy consumption by 60%.
  4. A Green transportation program offering shuttles, car and vanpooling, bike racks and subsidised public transport for employees.
  5. Facebook has designed a programming language (HipHop for PHP) that provides 50% CPU savings, meaning fewer servers are needed.
  6. Facebook has made the storage of user photos more efficient, so it uses 20% less power than industry standard storage architecture.
  7. Facebook has invested in and is introducing various data center efficiencies on an ongoing basis.

Not bad. They have also added a “Have any further suggestions related to Facebook and the Environment, submit it here” link, but strangely enough, when I clicked it, it came back with:

Facebook page not foundHmm, bit of an oversight there. No doubt they’ll fix that. They do allow comments on their wall though. I noticed quite a lot of “No To Coal” spam there as it happens.

Greenpeace campaign takes aim at Facebook’s coal–fired servers [animated video].

Published on September 19, 2010 in Facebook, Google, clean tech, environment, social media and video. View Comments

Following the recent social media driven success of Greenpeace’s campaign to get Nestlé to stop using palm oil linked to the destruction of rainforests, it seems the activist organisation is now taking aim at Facebook’s massive new data center. Apparently, the new facility is not powered by clean energy.

Greenpeace wants Facebook to “drop coal and commit to 100 percent renewable energy, cutting its carbon footprint and helping in the struggle to prevent catastrophic climate change”

Greenpeace has released the embedded animated video, which is a bit of a spoof on the new feature film The Social Network – another movie Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will not be particularly happy about.

Earlier this month, Facebook responded (in the comments section) to a Greenpeace open letter to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, maintaining that their massive, new Oregon data center is quite energy efficient, although not run on renewable energy.

Perhaps Greenpeace feels Facebook is a good target for this kind of campaign as it’s getting pretty huge, with over 500 million users now. In addition, Facebook is increasingly in competition with the likes of Google, which is doing substantially more to address its carbon footprint, and even making investments in renewable energy technology.

What are your thoughts on what Greenpeace is asking Facebook to do? Could Facebook be doing more, given its huge size and growing revenue? In any case, It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how this one turns out.

How Would You Begin To Run A World Without Oil?

Published on June 1, 2009 in clean tech, environment, technology and video. View Comments

I’m continuing the clean tech theme from my last post, as I’ve come across another inspiring TED2009 presentation that I think is well worth sharing. This one is about a bold plan to deploy convenient, affordable, 100% electric cars, fueled entirely by clean energy. This is not a plan that’s going to happen at some stage in the future, they are working on it right now, and it’s a big plan.

So how would you run a whole country without oil? These are the first words in this presentation by Shai Agassi, founder and CEO of Better Place. This seems to me like a great place to start when thinking about starting a new tech business for the 21st century. While many are still thinking in terms of fossil fuels and cutting emissions slowly, others are leaving that thinking well behind and attempting to create a different future, one without the need for coal and oil – zero emissions as soon as possible. Needless to say, I think this presentation is well worth watching.