AWS, Oracle, Netflix still powered by dirty energy: Greenpeace

Greenpeace gave Apple, Facebook and Google top marks among the companies listed, with each scoring an 'A' on the company scorecard, which analysed energy type (clean, natural gas, nuclear and coal) and company engagement, such as transparency, commitment and advocacy.

Google was the first to sign a wind energy power purchase agreement in 2010. It was not until Facebook committed to be 100 percent renewable powered in 2011 that Google and Apple started to effectively taking action in 2012.

Alibaba, Oracle and Samsung each scored a 'D' for their high use of either coal or nuclear energy. 

On the colocation and CDN company scorecard, only US-based colocation, telecommunications and cloud services provider Switch had an 'A'. Switch owns nine data centres in the US, has two under construction and another eight planned.

Still in colocation and CDN, Equinix and Akamai followed, each landing a 'B'. Acer, Asus and LG were some of the names with 'D' or 'F' ratings.

Among the video streaming category, Youtube was the only company to receive an 'A' with 56 percent of its energy from clean sources.

Netflix and Vimeo each scored a 'D'. While Vimeo uses 47 percent of clean energy, it failed in commitment, efficiency and mitigation and advocacy.

"Like Apple, Facebook, and Google, Netflix is one of the biggest drivers of the online world and has a critical say in how it is powered. Netflix must embrace the responsibility to make sure its growth is powered by renewables, not fossil fuels and it must show its leadership here,” Cook added.

Netflix did not reply to CRN's request for comment.

2017 Video Streaming Scorecard

In the social media category, Facebook and Instagram both received an 'A' and LinkedIn a 'B' – but most companies listed landed an 'F', including Reddit and Twitter. Amazon.com got a 'C' for its e-commerce, and Amazon Prime also got a 'C' for video streaming.

The report provided an estimate of the percentage of clean energy supply for each company. This was calculated based on estimates of power capacity and resource mix of the facilities including natural gas, nuclear and coal.

Based on this, AWS, Digital Realty, Equinix, HP, IBM, Microsoft and Rackspace registered only a 12 percent use of clean energy in its Australian facilities.

This was the first report that included Asian companies such as Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba. The region is running well behind the US market largely due to fewer clean energy options from monopoly utilities. 

The full report can be accessed here.