A Social Media Company Powered By Coal?

Greenpeace has launched a campaign aimed at Facebook. The green group is seeking an end to Facebook plans to build a coal powered data centre in Oregon. Greenpeace argues that Facebook is out of step with more sustainable trends in the IT industry as a whole. The organization has already collected 500,000, signatures for its Facebook petition. Greenpeace is known for high profile pr events, confrontational tactics and media savvy. This new campaign uses Facebook terminology by calling on Facebook to “unfriend Coal.”

Crunchgear sees a strategic aim in going after Facebook. The influence of Facebook could lead to a ripple affect if Greenpeace is successful in its efforts in getting Facebook to switch energy sources.

Nicholas Deleon at Crunchgear elaborates:

Greenpeace’s main problem with Facebook is that its new datacenter will run on “dirty coal-fired electricity.” Being that burning coal throws a tremendous amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, you can imagine how much gunk a Facebook data center would generate.

And given that Facebook, is, shall we say, influential, any decision to back away from coal could serve as a lesson or example to other companies out there. A sort of, “Well, if Facebook doesn’t need coal, then maybe we don’t either.”

Greenpeace

Crunchgear: “Next On Greenpeace’s Enemies List: Facebook”