Twitter is the latest target for Greenpeace, the environmental watchdog.
Greenpeace protested at Twitter headquarters against that company’s lackadaisical attitude to renewable energy commitment.
Greenpeace held a symbolic demonstration with a large green egg display in front of Twitter’s Market Street offices and someone in a green Twitter logo costume hopping around and chirping at passersby. A message, “Make our tweets green” was displayed on the egg.
The protest comes on the heels of the release of Greenpeace’s report in which it ranked 19 companies based on their Clean Energy Index. Apple was ranked no.1 on the scorecard. Six major Internet services companies – Facebook, Apple, Google, Box, Rackspace and Salesforce.com – have committed to making their data center operations 100 percent based on renewable energy, according to the report.
Amazon Web Services was among the least committed to renewable energy, earning F grades in three out of Greenpeace’s four categories. Twitter is also among one of them that scored low in Clean Energy Index.
Twitter got low marks across the board: F’s for “energy transparency,” “energy efficiency and mitigation,” and renewable energy deployment and advocacy,” and a D for “renewable energy commitment and siting policy.”
Gary Cook, senior IT analyst at Greenpeace and lead author of the Clicking Green report, described the protest as “friendly.” Greenpeace wants Twitter should make a strong stance in the shift to green power.
Cook said the protest was about demanding a commitment from Twitter to commit to using 100 percent clean power — a pledge it hasn’t yet made.
He said Twitter is particularly accountable because it is a fast-growing and fast-moving company, and one of the chief issues is the company’s lack of transparency about its energy practices.
“We want tech companies to do what they are really good at doing: innovate,” Cook said.