Apple today announced that its global facilities, including retail stores, offices, data centers, and more, are powered with 100 percent clean energy.
Since 2014, all of Apple’s data centers have been powered by 100% renewable energy. Since 2011, all of these projects have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 54% from global facilities and prevented nearly 2.1 million metric tons of CO2e from entering the atmosphere.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple is “committed to leaving the world better than we found it.”
“We’re committed to leaving the world better than we found it. After years of hard work we’re proud to have reached this significant milestone,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’re going to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the materials in our products, the way we recycle them, our facilities and our work with suppliers to establish new creative and forward-looking sources of renewable energy because we know the future depends on it.”
To reach its clean energy goals, Apple has invested in and constructed renewable energy facilities all around the world, such as solar arrays, wind farms, biogas fuel cells, micro-hydration generation systems, and other energy storage technologies.
Reaching 100 percent renewable energy for all Apple facilities has been a longtime goal for the company. Since 2014, 100 percent of Apple’s data centers have been powered by clean energy, and since 2016, 96 percent of Apple facilities have been run on renewable energy.
Lisa Jackson, Apple’s VP of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, said in an interview with Fast Company today that Apple’s been close to the 100% mark for the last couple of years.
“It’s just 4% more, but it’s 4% done the right way,” she added. ”So this announcement feels like a classic Apple product release. Like our products, we sweat the details, we have pretty strict standards and we prefer to wait and meet our standards than to rush and make a claim.”
Apple has also been pushing its suppliers to use clean energy, and along with its own announcement, nine additional manufacturing powers have committed to using renewable energy sources, bringing the total number of supplier commitments to 23. New suppliers that plan to use renewable energy include Quanta Computer, Pegatron, Finisar, and more.