Ahead of Earth Day celebrations planned for tomorrow, Apple today has completely revamped its environmental site with new stats alongside announcements for initiatives planned for the year to come. It also gave an interview with its new head of environmental issues Lisa Jackson. If you don’t want to dig through and read the multiple pages in Apple’s updated report, below we’ve put together a roundup of all the numbers and initiatives Apple announced today: Expand Expanding Close
Apple notes that the report, which details a number of topics from job creation to construction of its new spaceship campus, was put together by Keyser Marston Associates, Inc. (KMA) for the City of Cupertino under contract with Apple Inc.
With net annual sales in excess of $156 billion, 16,000 employees currently based in the Cupertino area, and annual purchases from local Silicon Valley-based businesses of $4.6 billion, Apple is a cornerstone of the Silicon Valley economy and of the fiscal resources of the City of Cupertino.
Much of the report focuses on the economic impacts and future contributions of Apple’s currently under construction Apple Campus 2. In the report, Apple details how its new campus will “add an estimated 7,400 new high-quality jobs,” increase revenues for the local economy, and enhance tax revenues for the city and surrounding areas. Apple says it will support 24,000 jobs in Cupertino alone when the campus is ready in 2016.
It also detailed investments being made in public improvements surrounding its new campus including infrastructure and utility improvements and its transportation program: Expand Expanding Close
Despite Apple currently constructing one of the nation’s largest solar arrays and expanding its North Carolina data centers, Greenpeace just released its “How Clean is Your Cloud” report claiming Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft “are powering their growing 21st-century clouds with dirty, 19th-century coal energy.” The organization is urging consumers to read the 50-page report and then contact the companies mentioned to convince them to change their approach when it comes to powering the cloud.
“If Apple is really interested in having the “high percentage” of renewable energy it claims to want for the iCloud, it will have to look beyond the initial steps for on-site generation and use its tremendous cash reserves to invest in or purchase renewable energy and also to put pressure on Duke Energy to to provide cleaner energy”
Apple issued a statement to various media outlets today in response (via NPR):
“Our data center in North Carolina will draw about 20 megawatts at full capacity, and we are on track to supply more than 60 percent of that power on-site from renewable sources including a solar farm and fuel cell installation which will each be the largest of their kind in the country,” said Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokesperson. “We believe this industry-leading project will make Maiden the greenest data center ever built, and it will be joined next year by our new facility in Oregon running on 100 percent renewable energy.”
