Greenpeace East Asia and the North China Electric Power University have released their first-ever renewable energy ranking of China’s tech giants.
Greenpeace has released their first-ever renewable energy ranking of China’s tech companies. Chinese data center operator Chindata took the top spot with a score of 80 out of 100. Alibaba received a score of 60, and Tencent, GDS, and Baidu scored 52, 48, and 46.
Limited renewable energy procurement
According to the report, more than half of the companies analyzed have begun to actively procure renewable energy on a limited scale. Alibaba, Chindata, GDS, and Baidu each operate one data center that is powered in significant part by wind and solar energy. 80% of companies in the list have not publicly disclosed electricity consumption or greenhouse gas emissions data. One noteworthy exception is Tencent, which has disclosed energy consumption data for data centers. Alibaba, GDS and Baidu fell short in the energy transparency category, as they do not disclose electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emission data.
Greenpeace East Asia climate and energy campaigner Ye Ruiqi said,
“In the face of global climate crisis, there’s an urgent need to clean up our internet. Power consumption from China’s internet industry is skyrocketing, and it’s imperative that Chinese internet giants lead the sector to break away from its reliance on coal. Many of China’s biggest tech companies have made some progress on renewable energy procurement in recent years, but they still lag behind their global peers. They must scale up their ambition and action.”
“China’s leading tech companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, and GDS, must dramatically scale up clean energy procurement and disclose energy use data. Chindata just became the first China-based data center company to commit to 100% renewable energy, and we hope that more will soon follow.”
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