Facebook Becomes The Largest Buyer Of Renewable Energy & Hits Net-Zero Emission
On April 16, 2021, Mark Zuckerberg, Founder, and CEO of Facebook, announced that Facebook had become the largest buyer of renewable energy. Previously, we talked about the rivalry between Big Oil and Tech Giant companies going head to head to buy renewable energy. Now, tech giant company Facebook has won the race and set an example for the whole world.
Currently, the global operation at the company is now wholly supported by 100 Percent renewable energy. Furthermore, the company has also achieved net-zero emissions. Facebook now is one of the largest corporate buyers as well as users of renewable energy globally. Nonetheless, the company now has contracts for 6 GW (GigaWatts) of renewable energy across 18 states and 5 countries. Facebook sustainability is all harnessed through wind and solar. Likewise, the company stated, “All the 63 projects are new and are located on the same electric grids as the projects they all support”.
Recently, Facebook has struck and finalized a deal to buy renewable energy in India. The renewable energy will come from a local firm’s wind power project, the company’s first such deal in a South Asian Nation. In a joint statement with CleanMax, one of the Top Renewable Energy Companies in India, they said, “This 32 MW (MegaWatt) wind power project is a part of a larger portfolio of wind as well as solar projects that they are working together on. The project is located in Southern Karnataka State, and the joint effort is to supply renewable power into India’s electrical grid.”
Likewise, Clean Max will own as well as operate the projects. Meanwhile, Facebook’s role is to buy the power off the grid via environmental attribute certificates or else using carbon credits. Till now, half of the projects have already been commissioned and are generating power efficiently. Urvi Parekh, Facebook’s Head of Renewable Energy, said, “The company doesn’t own the power plants but rather has signed long-term electricity purchasing agreements with CleanMax. Therefore, this will help the project with the financial support it will need.”
Urvi Parekh followed up by saying, “Facebook also has a similar partnership with Sunseap Group, Teerenus Energy as well as Sembcorp Industries for renewable energy projects worth 160 MW (MegaWatt) of solar power. All these companies are Singapore-based. Renewable energy from all these projects is set to power Facebook’s first Asian data center within next year.” According to the International Energy Agency, Data Centers driving tech companies like Facebook consume as much as 1 percent of the World’s total energy.
Till this date, the social media giant tech company has poured over USD. 8 billion into clean energy projects. This is whilst the latest 63 wind and solar projects added. This means the company has contracts in place for more than 6 GW (GigaWatt) of renewable energy. Although Facebook is set to run 100 Percent on renewable energy, another big tech giant company, Amazon, has a larger number with 6.5 GW worth of investment. Amazon will hold the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy soon, but that doesn’t mean they will run 100 Percent on Renewable energy and overtake Facebook in the race. Amazon needs more numbers to reach the 100 Percent Renewable Energy landmark.
However, the company doesn’t seem to stop here and has already set its eyes on its next goal. Their next goal is reaching net-zero emissions for its value chain. The goal is named Scope 3 emissions, and the company hopes to achieve it by 2030. Therefore, hardware manufactured and physical materials, goods, and services, along with products made and developed by Facebook, will all produce net-zero carbon emissions. In addition, all the company plans to make their suppliers, business activities such as traveling and employee commuting eco-friendly.
Other tech giant companies like Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Microsoft all have also pledged to operate carbon-freely. They are also putting their maximum effort toward achieving net-zero emissions. However, it is good to see all companies are taking vital steps towards tackling climate change, thereby creating a greener future.
Facebook’s Inside-Out Sustainable Office
If you don’t know, Facebook hasn’t only worked on buying and operating on renewable energy. Still, their dedication to a sustainable environment is also seen in the structure of their inside office. So along with fun games, sustainability is also embedded in the core of Facebook’s office.
Greenesa is constantly working on the renewable energy sectors for the past 5 years. We are on a Global mission to revolutionize the way we consume Energy. We here at Greenesa strongly believe that the world should completely run on Renewable Energy. Do you think we missed something? Do you know of some other way this energy contributes worldwide? Feel free to comment below. We always appreciate your suggestions.
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