Greenpeace Asks Facebook To Unfriend Coal

Greenpeace is putting more pressure on Facebook to persuade the company to stop using coal to power its data centers.

Greenpeace is calling on Facebook to “unfriend” coal by Earth Day on April 22. The Greenpeace Unfriend Coal Facebook page has over 98,000 likes.

“Just as Facebook has revolutionised the way the world communicates, so it can revolutionise the IT sector’s current reliance on coal,” Greenpeace said in a blog post. “Facebook’s reputation for innovation means that wherever it goes, other IT companies will follow.”

Greenpeace is asking Facebook to develop a plan by 2021 to be entirely coal free. It is also calling on Facebook to educate its users about how it powers its services and its carbon footprint.

“At current growth rates, data centers and telecommunication networks – two key components of ‘the cloud’ that Facebook depends on – will consume about 1,963 billion kilowatts hours of electricity in 2020,” Greenpeace says on its Unfriend Coal Facebook page.

“That’s more than triple their current consumption and more than the current electricity consumption of France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined. Facebook has a real opportunity to lead by example by extending this spirit of innovation to the environment.”