> The cloud uses a lot of energy. They can use renewable energy but they aren't.
Do you have a source for that? In 2022, 64% of Google's data center energy was carbon free [1]. I was not able to find similar numbers for Microsoft or Amazon, but they have significant green energy investments as well [2][3].
My perception is that Google is the leader in this space but I don't have data to back that up.
I think Apple is, partly because they outsource a lot of their energy to the other clouds, partly because they have stronger PPAs with actual solar power plants.
According to statista, the leaders in cloud marketshare are (in order): AWS, Azure, and GCP [1]. I don't believe Apple has any significant cloud offering.
There is a question about the sustainability of consumer electronic devices but that's a whole different can of worms. As an aside, I appreciate how Apple pioneered long support commitments in phones.
Apple does have four large data centers in America and one in Europe. Their first-party datacenter energy footprint is about 10% as large as Google's, and they claim to have 100% renewable inputs. This is a brilliant PR strategy because Apple is a huge customer of GCP, AWS, and Azure for cloud storage and other cloud services on behalf of their users, but all that energy shows up on Google's, Amazon's, and Microsoft's sustainability reports.
"In 2023, our total GHG emissions increased 13% year-over-year, partially driven by a 37% year-over-year increase in our Scope 2 (market-based) emissions."
I see it uses "Carbon removal credits to neutralize our residual emissions". I think carbon credits are a scam. Just like how using 1 GWhr of power in the US while buying 1 GWhr of power in New Zealand, and calling that 100% renewable energy purchasing, would also be a scam.
In any case, suppose it was all 100% clean energy all throughout, with no carbon credits at all.
What that means is that Google can use it's monopoly/market dominance to outbid other users.
What, you can't afford clean power at the rate that Google can pay, so you've got to run your CPAP machine on fossil fuels? You should be ashamed of ruining the planet like that.
In 2023 highlights your link says: " We maintained 64% carbon-
free energy, on average, across
every grid where we operate—even
as our electricity use increased."