Salesforce Worst of ‘Dirty’ Cloud Companies, Greenpeace says

by | Apr 18, 2012

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Salesforce, the world’s largest vendor of enterprise cloud computing, gets the worst ratings in a Greenpeace report that claims cloud computing companies are perpetuating the use of fossil fuel, while Apple has shown marked improvement from last year.

The report, How Clean is Your Cloud?, compares energy choices from global IT and internet giants including Apple, Google and this year’s top performer, Yahoo.

Greenpeace estimates that just four percent of Salesforce’s used power is drawn from renewable sources – less than the lowest percentage recorded in the 2011 report. Salesforce is a new addition in this year’s report.

Apple, last year’s worst offender, improved the amount of energy it draws from renewable sources from 6.7 percent in 2011 to 15.3 percent in 2012. Apple now has the fifth-lowest score in the report. It leapfrogged Microsoft, IBM and Amazon.

Amazon’s share of energy drawn from renewable sources declined by almost half from 26.8 percent in the 2011 report to just 13.5 percent in the 2012 edition. The share of Microsoft’s electricity being drawn from renewable sources dropped from 25 percent in 2011 to 13.9 percent in 2012.

Yahoo topped the survey. The internet firm sources 56.4 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, up from 55.9 in the 2011 report. New entrant Dell draws 56.3 percent of its energy from renewables, the report says.

This year’s report is a follow up to last year’s How Dirty is Your Data? and expands coverage from 10 tech firms to 14. The four new additions, besides Salesforce, are Dell, Oracle and Rackspace Hosting.

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