Facebook’s 900 million users each emitted 3,228 grams of carbon by using the social networking site last year, resulting in the same environmental impact as drinking two glasses of wine, according to new figures from the company.
The social networking giant last week published its Carbon & Energy Impact, the first time it had revealed the carbon impact of its operations and a move that was hailed by Greenpeace as a major step towards greater transparency.
The figures showed that Facebook’s operations – including travel and data centres – were last year powered by 27 per cent coal, 23 per cent ‘clean and renewable’ energy, 17 per cent natural gas and 13 per cent nuclear. Another 20 per cent was purchased on the open spot market, so could not be catagorised.
The company also announced that it aimed to power 25 per cent of its business with renewables by 2015. Facebook’s greenhouse gas emissions totalled 285,000 metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent overall, equating to 269 grams per month per user.
In a statement on its website, Facebook said the average user’s carbon impact per year was equal to the emissions from eating three bananas, or drinking a couple of glasses of wine.
The data release is the first of its kind for Facebook and follows a pledge by founder Mark Zuckerberg to work with Greenpeace to source more clean energy to power its giant data centres.
Greenpeace welcomed the news as a major step towards Facebook becoming fully powered by clean and renewable energy.
“Facebook has committed to being fully renewably powered and today’s detailed disclosure and announcement of a clean energy target shows that the company means business and wants the world to follow its progress,” Greenpeace International senior IT analyst Gary Cook said.
Nice to see that another major organisation is taking their Corporate Social Responsibilities seriously. Check out Repak’s list of members here to see who takes their CSR seriously in Ireland.
