OPINION: Google to go all green, will other tech giants follow?
Google announced on Thursday that by the end of 2017, its entire operation, including data centers and corporate offices around the world, will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy.
Since 2010, when it first started contracting with wind farms, the company has become “the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable power,” Urs Hölzle, the senior vice president of technical infrastructure, said in a company blog post. Google purchases more than twice as many watts as Amazon, its closest competitor, TechCrunch reports. But as other tech companies, including Facebook, Apple, Rackspace, Salesforce and Box, follow Google’s lead, the tech industry not only becomes greener, but gains more power to set a precedent and influence the energy industry.
“Essentially what it means is that we will be buying as many renewable energy megawatt hours as we’ll be consuming at our facilities,” Gary Demasi, Google’s head of global infrastructure and energy, told The Washington Post. “Add them up at the end of the year, and they will match.”