[somethingwitty1]

This feels a bit misleading. Both Microsoft and Google still use fossil fuels for their data centers. I understand the "value" of RECs, but it definitely doesn't mean your data center is actually powered by renewable or "clean" energy, despite it allowing you to claim that. I really wish these companies had to publish the real numbers. That would demotivate them to buy RECs though...so here we are.

The climate pledge has started to make an impact: https://climatepledgearena.com/. And there are plenty of articles that seem to indicate the climate pledge is doing things: https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2020/06/30/amazons...

These might be puff pieces, but at least from reading them, it seems like Amazon is actually moving towards doing things. Not only that, but they are getting other companies to sign the pledge and take action.

[woodhull]

what?

Google has been running on 100% renewable electricity since 2017. Microsoft has reached that milestone as well, but I can not find a date for when they achieved it.

AWS aspires to eventually reach that goal by 2025. One of the clouds is dirtier than the others.

[somethingwitty1]

They don't run 100% on renewable electricity. They offset their non-renewable by buying RECs, which allows them to claim they are 100% renewable. RECs work by allowing you to use non-renewable energy (from the coal power plant that is local to your data center/business). Then, you buy an equivalent number of RECs from somewhere else (could be an entirely different state) and you are allowed to claim you run on 100% renewable energy.

See: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/renewable/ "In 2019, for the third year in a row, Google purchased enough renewable energy to match 100 percent of our annual global electricity consumption". They are not running on renewable energy, they are simply buying RECs. Albeit, one can argue that is better than not buying RECs, but it is misleading to claim they are "running on 100% renewable energy"