The Wire

Greenpeace international has hit out at several huge internet companies over their growing contribution to greenhouse emissions. As so called “cloud computing” and storage grows, so too does the need for ever bigger data centres, many of which are run on dirty energy including coal and nuclear.

Some individual data centres are now so large they use the same amount of electricity needed to power 200,000 homes. Greenpeace says Apple, Amazon and Microsoft are the worst offenders and is calling on all IT companies to move to renewable energy.