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w
W12665
GREENPEACE’S UNFRIEND COAL CAMPAIGN AND FACEBOOK1
Paul Bigus wrote this case under the supervision of Professor Michael Sider solely to provide material for class discussion. The
authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised
certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality.
Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation prohibits any form of reproduction, storage or transmission without its written
permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies
or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation, The University
of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7; phone (519) 661-3208; fax (519) 661-3882; e-mail cases@ivey.uwo.ca.
Copyright © 2012, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation
Version: 2012-02-06
On Thursday, September 23, 2010, Barry Schnitt, Facebook’s director of policy communications, was
faced with a situation that did not look like it was going to go away. A week earlier, on September 13,
2010, the non-governmental organization (NGO) Greenpeace launched an online animated YouTube
video that publicly critiqued the environmental sustainability of Facebook’s decision to build a new data
center in Prineville, Oregon.2 Over 200,000 people viewed the video the first week it was posted.3
Greenpeace objected to the fact that the new facility would be connected to a local utility provider that
supplied electricity mainly from the burning of coal, one of the largest sources of global warming. This
video was the latest in a series of actions that Greenpeace was calling the “Unfriend Coal Campaign,”
actions that Greenpeace had initiated some eight months earlier, immediately following Facebook’s
decision to open the Prineville facility. The campaign now had 500,000 followers and had generated
numerous media stories. Greenpeace’s goal was to pressure Facebook into adopting cleaner energy
policies by, ironically, using Facebook’s own social media against the company. Since Facebook had no
plans to stop building Prineville, Schnitt needed to figure out how to respond to the mounting pressure
from Greenpeace in order to alleviate the increasingly negative attention from media and consumers.
FACEBOOK4
The social media network “Facebook” was first launched by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and cofounders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin in a campus dorm room on February 4,
2004, under the domain name www.thefacebook.com.5 Thefacebook was not the first social networking
website created by Zuckerberg; he had previously developed Coursematch, a website available to Harvard
1
This case has been written on the basis of published sources only. Consequently, the interpretation and perspectives
presented in this case are not necessarily those of Greenpeace, of Facebook or any of its employees.
2
“Facebook: Unfriend Coal,” YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPty-ZLbJt0, accessed November 15, 2011.
3
“Greenpeace
vs.
Facebook:
Now
it’s
personal,”
Movement,
September
22,
2010,
http://www.mouvment.com/2010/09/greenpeace-vs-facebook-now-its-personal/, accessed on November 15, 2011.
4
Facebook, www.facebook.com, accessed November 15, 2011.
5
“Facebook Timeline,” Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline, accessed November 15, 2011.
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students that could be used to identify other students on campus taking the same program and courses.6
Zuckerberg had also introduced a short-lived, controversial website called Facemash that allowed
students to rate the attractiveness of other students on campus.7
In the beginning, the social media site permitted access only to Harvard Students, providing them with the
ability to connect to other Thefacebook users by sharing an online profile that included personal
information. Once a profile was created, a member could then search the Thefacebook network for people
they could request to add to their profile as friends. The plan was simple: the more people who joined, the
bigger the network became. It did not take long for the social media site to catch on. Over 1,200 Harvard
students signed up during the first 24 hours of operations, and over half the undergraduate student
population at Harvard joined within the month.8 In March, Zuckerberg and his co-founders allowed
students from top-tier schools to join.9 By late 2004, students from most North American colleges and
universities had access to the network.
The growth of the company led to business operations being moved to Palo Alto, California, in June of
2004, during the same month that Zuckerburg obtained a US$500,000 investment in Thefacebook from
Peter Thiel, one of the co-founders of the online payment system PayPal.10 Thefacebook continued to add
new features, including the ability to form and join online groups, a function that allowed members to
share and access information with specific people. By the end of 2004, after operating for less than a
year, Thefacebook network had boasted over one million users.11
The company officially changed its name from Thefacebook to Facebook in August 2005, after acquiring
the domain name www.facebook.com for US$200,000.12 Aggressive network expansion continued as
high school students were permitted to join the network, significantly increasing Facebook’s exposure to
the younger, tech-savvy population. By October 2005, further upgrades such as a photo application were
added, allowing members to post a profile picture and share photos with other users. In September, in an
effort to continue expanding the network globally, Facebook opened registration to anyone over the age
of 13 with a valid e-mail address.13 The move quickly increased Facebook membership from 5.5 million
users in December 2006 to over 50 million users by October 2007.
By December 2009, Facebook had 350 million users. It had become recognized not only as a household
name but also as a valuable public relations tool by the media, the government, and business. News
reports, political campaigns, and television commercials often included a reference for people to find out
more information about a company, product, or cause on Facebook. Indeed, organizations increasingly
chose Facebook as their primary source of public information: their phone number, website, and e-mail
could all be acquired in one place on a Facebook profile page.
6
Sarah
Phillips,
“A
brief
history
of
Facebook,”
The
Guardian,
July
25,
2007,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jul/25/media.newmedia, accessed November 15, 2011.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
“Facebook Timeline,” Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline, accessed November 15, 2011.
10
“Why you should beware of Facebook” The Age, January 20, 2008, http://www.theage.com.au/news/general/bewarefacebook/2008/01/18/1200620184398.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2, accessed November 15, 2011.
11
“Facebook Timeline,” Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline, accessed November 15, 2011.
12
Christopher Williams, “Facebook wins Manx battle for face-book.com,” The Register, October 1, 2007,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/01/facebook_domain_dispute/, accessed November 15, 2011.
13
“Terms,” Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/terms.php, accessed November 15, 2011.
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GREENPEACE14
The non-governmental organization (NGO) Greenpeace began in 1970 as an attempt to stop ongoing U.S.
military nuclear-weapons testing at Amchitka Island, Alaska. The original members of the group were
Marie and Jim Bohlen, Ben and Dorothy Metcalfe, Dorothy and Irving Stowe, and Bob Hunter.15 Legend
has it that the group found its name during a meeting in a church basement when one of the members held
up two fingers as they were leaving and said, “Peace.”16 Bill Darnell, a Canadian ecologist who had
attended the meeting, responded by saying, “Let’s make it a Green Peace.”17
By the mid 1980s, Greenpeace was a household name, known for its deep commitment to environmental
causes, its deep pockets, and the willingness of its members to put themselves at risk on both land and sea
for the causes they believed in. Campaign work was based on the following core values:
Bearing Witness
Going to the scene of environmental destruction to bear witness in a peaceful, non-violent
manner.
Non-violence
Using non-violent actions to raise awareness and public debate on environmental
problems. Peacefully showing that alternatives are possible.
Independence
Maintaining financial independence from political and commercial interests.
No Permanent Friends or Foes
In exposing threats to the environment and finding solutions, Greenpeace has no
permanent allies or adversaries. The only standard is that the environment has to benefit.
Promoting Solutions
Greenpeace seeks not only to identify environmental problems and raise awareness, but
also to provide research, solution development, and concrete steps to improve the
environment.
The organization had many high-profile accomplishments. In 1975, it forced France to end nuclear
atmospheric testing in the South Pacific Ocean. In 1982, it forced the International Whaling Commission
to impose a moratorium against whaling. In 1989, it exposed indiscriminate fishing practices using largescale drift nets in the open ocean, resulting in a UN moratorium. In 1993, its actions led to a permanent
ban on the dumping of radioactive and industrial waste in oceans. In 2001, due to pressure from
Greenpeace, a number of European retailers, food producers, and multinational companies agreed to keep
genetically engineered products out of ingredients. And in 2010, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement,
the largest forest conservation agreement in history, was announced in Canada following a seven-year
campaign by Greenpeace and other environmental organizations against the destruction of Canada’s
boreal forest by the logging industry.
Indeed, by 2010, Greenpeace had become established as one of the largest and most recognizable global
environmental organizations in the world, involved in a wide range of issues, including climate change,
forests, oceans, agriculture, toxic pollution, and nuclear power.18 It maintained a presence in over 40
14
“Greenpeace International,” Greenpeace, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/, accessed on November 15, 2011.
“The Founders of Greenpeace,” Greenpeace, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/history/founders/,
accessed on November 15, 2011.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
18
“Greenpeace International,” Greenpeace, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/, accessed November 15, 2011.
15
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countries and operated 29 national offices. Its operations were carried out by more than 150 full-time
staff and 15,000 volunteers.19 Its operating income was a staggering US$251 million.20
PRINEVILLE DATA CENTER21
On January 21, 2010, after experiencing many consecutive years of growth, Facebook announced it
would be opening a new data center facility in Prineville, Oregon. Data centers represented an important
part of Facebook’s operations, as they housed the thousands of computer servers that provided the
collective computing infrastructure to make Facebook’s various online services work.22 In previous years,
the company had been able to lease data center space at various facilities on the east and west coasts,
often alongside other companies in the same building, eventually leasing entire facilities altogether.
However, over the years, as Facebook operations rapidly expanded, so did the financial feasibility for the
company to execute the option of building its own large, data center facility. Tom Furlong, director of site
operations for Facebook, commented on the Prineville location decision, stating, “After a rigorous review
process of sites across the West Coast, Facebook concluded that Prineville offered the best package of
resources – including a suitable climate for environmental cooling, renewable power resources, available
land, talented regional workforce, and supportive business environment.”23
At a cost of US$188 million to build, the new data center facility was expected to be approximately
147,000 square feet in size.24 Once completed and fully operational, Facebook planned to hire 35 fulltime employees to work at the new Prineville location, with additional part-time and contract positions
being created. A key feature that the location provided was cool, dry air, which would allow the new
facility to utilize an airside economizer, a system that brought in outside air to cool internal systems.25
Due to the cooler climate and higher elevation of Prineville, Oregon, it was expected that an airside
economizer system could be used most of the year, resulting in better energy efficiency and significant
operating cost savings.26 The company also planned to reuse server heat in the facility offices. Facebook
claimed that the new data center design would be among the most efficient in the world, with a powerusage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 1.15. A PUE rating of 2.0 indicated that, for every watt of IT power,
another watt was used by the facility.27
The Facebook decision to build the new data center created excitement in Prineville. Located in the center
of Oregon, with a population of 10,000, this rural community possessed an economy that was largely
19
“Greenpeace structure and organization” Greenpeace, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/how-isgreenpeace-structured/, accessed November 15, 2011.
20
“Annual
Report,”
Greenpeace,
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/greenpeace/2010/Annual_Report_2009/AR2009.p
df, accessed November 15, 2011.
21
Rich Miller, “It’s Official: Facebook is Oregon’s Company X,” Data Center Knowledge, January 21, 2011,
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/01/21/its-official-facebook-is-oregons-company-x/, accessed November
15, 2011.
22
Jonathan Heiliger, “Breaking Ground on Our First Custom Data Center,” Facebook, January 21, 2010,
http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=262655797130, accessed November 15, 2011.
23
Rich Miller, “It’s Official: Facebook is Oregon’s Company X,” Data Center Knowledge, January 21, 2011,
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/01/21/its-official-facebook-is-oregons-company-x/, accessed November
15, 2011.
24
Patrick Thibodeau, “Prineville, Ore., Pop. 10,000, is Facebook's new friend,” IDG News Service, January 22, 2010,
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=5684C4FE-1A64-6A71-CEA38017574533A5, accessed November 15, 2011.
25
Ibid.
26
Jonathan Heiliger, “Breaking Ground on Our First Custom Data Center,” Facebook, January 21, 2010,
http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=262655797130, accessed November 15, 2011.
27
Patrick Thibodeau, “Prineville, Ore., Pop. 10,000, is Facebook's new friend,” IDG News Service, January 22, 2010,
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=5684C4FE-1A64-6A71-CEA38017574533A5, accessed November 15, 2011.
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based on the production of forest products. Global economic instability had hit Prineville hard: its
unemployment rate was 20 per cent.28 The Facebook data center represented a new opportunity for
Prineville, and Governor Ted Kulongoski thanked Facebook for “choosing Oregon,” saying that its
decision to build Prineville would “act as a big ‘open for business sign’ for other companies in this
quickly growing field.”29 With the new facility expected to take a year to construct, Facebook kept open
the possibility of building additional data centers at the Prineville location, depending on future growth
and company business needs.
GREENPEACE CAMPAIGN AGAINST FACEBOOK
Following Facebook’s announcement of the new data center, Greenpeace launched a social media
campaign in February 2010 to protest the decision. Although Facebook stated publicly that the new
facility would utilize energy efficient systems, many NGO’s such as Greenpeace saw this as a small
concession upon discovering that the electricity used to power the date center operations would be from
PacifiCorp, a utility provider that sourced 60 per cent of its energy from burning coal, one of the largest
contributors to global warming.30 Greenpeace viewed Facebook as a company that could use its
purchasing power, global brand, and corporate influence to control where it built its infrastructure, thus
advocating the importance of clean energy and setting a strong example for the rest of the information
technology industry to follow.31 Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google all had data
centers located at various locations that relied on coal power. However, greener, environmentally friendly
alternatives were shown to be readily available. Yahoo had just built a new data center near Buffalo, New
York, that would source energy from hydroelectric facilities.32 Data center energy use was seen as a
growing environmental concern. If global telecommunications and data centers were considered a
country, they would rank fifth overall in the world for energy use in 2007, behind the United States,
China, Russia and Japan.33 Based on Facebook’s current growth rate, Greenpeace released figures
showing that the company’s energy consumption would triple by the year 2020, consuming about 1,963
billion kilowatts hours of electricity, an amount greater than the 2010 electricity consumption of France,
Germany, Canada and Brazil combined.34
When first beginning the protest against Facebook in February 2010, Greenpeace creatively named the
cause the “Unfriend Coal” campaign and asked Facebook to concede to four demands:35
1. Increase the use of clean energy to make Facebook coal free.
2. Develop a plan to make Facebook coal free by 2021.
3. Educate Facebook users about how the company powers its services and its carbon footprint.
28
Patrick Thibodeau, “Prineville, Ore., Pop. 10,000, is Facebook's new friend,” IDG News Service, January 22, 2010,
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=5684C4FE-1A64-6A71-CEA38017574533A5, accessed November 15, 2011.
29
Rich Miller, “It’s Official: Facebook is Oregon’s Company X,” Data Center Knowledge, January 21, 2011,
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/01/21/its-official-facebook-is-oregons-company-x/, accessed November
15, 2011.
30
“Facebook update: Switch to renewable energy now,” Greenpeace, February 19, 2010,
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/facebook-dump-coal190210/, accessed November 15, 2011.
31
“Unfriend Coal,” Greenpeace, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/ITs-carbonfootprint/Facebook/?thingstodo, accessed November 15, 2011.
32
Peter Henderson, “Coal fuels much of Internet ‘cloud,’ Greenpeace says,” The Globe and Mail, March 30, 2010,
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/coal-fuels-much-of-internet-cloud-greenpeace-says/article1516945/,
accessed November 15, 2011.
33
Ibid.
34
“Unfriend Coal,” Greenpeace, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/ITs-carbonfootprint/Facebook/?thingstodo, accessed November 15, 2011.
35
Ibid.
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4. Advocate for clean energy at the local, national, and international levels.
Ironically, Greenpeace also utilized Facebook’s very own social media network to create a Facebook
group page that provided detailed information about the company’s decision to build a new data center in
Prineville using electricity heavily sourced from coal. Greenpeace used its Facebook site to provide
ongoing information updates in the ensuing months as the online campaign continued. By September
2010, the Unfriend Coal group page had 500,000 supporters.36
Greenpeace also used other methods to draw attention to the Unfriend Coal Campaign. On September 1,
2010, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, sent a letter to Facebook Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg outlining the importance of exhibiting good corporate
citizenship to the over 500 million people it connected and served (see Exhibit 2).37 In the letter, Naidoo
expressed his disappointment at Facebook’s decision in July 2010 to double the size of the Prineville data
center, thus increasing the amount of coal-sourced energy consumption.38 Before ending the letter,
Naidoo urged Zuckerberg to take a leadership position in addressing climate change, inviting Facebook to
engage Greenpeace in discussing environmental goals and company growth plans to reach a common
ground. Naidoo posted his letter on Greenpeace’s Facebook site, where it quickly caught the attention of
the media.
Schnitt attempted to respond proactively. He pointed out to the media that the Oregon facility was chosen
with energy efficiency in mind, noting that Facebook, like any other company, did not have control over
the fuel sourced for its electricity.39 In addition, Schnitt provided a lengthy blog post on Greenpeace’s
website where he wrote, “It’s true that the local utility for the region we chose, Pacific Power, has an
energy mix that is weighted slightly more toward coal than the national average (58 per cent versus about
50 per cent). However, the efficiency we are able to achieve because of the climate of the region
minimizes our overall carbon footprint.”40 He also pointed out that Greenpeace operated servers in a
rented Northern Virginia data center that sourced 46 per cent of its power from coal.41 Before ending the
blog post, Schnitt posed a question to Greenpeace: “The point is, if an organization focused on
environmental responsibility like Greenpeace can’t do better than the mix above for just a few servers,
what options are available to Facebook?”42
Despite Schnitt’s response, Greenpeace stepped up its campaign efforts by launching a YouTube video on
September 16, 2010.43 The video opened by providing a title that altered the familiar Facebook slogan
“The Social Network” to instead read “The So Coal Network.” Lasting two minutes in duration, the
video, which used a child as narrator, described the Pineville problem to Facebook viewers and asked
36
Martin LaMonica, “Facebook reacts to Greenpeace anticoal campaign,” CNET, September 3, 2010,
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20015522-54.html, accessed November 15, 2011.
37
Jodie Van Horn, “Executive Director of Greenpeace to CEO of Facebook: Unfriend Coal,” Greenpeace, September 1,
2010,
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/Cool-IT/executive-director-of-greenpeace-to-ceo-offa/blog/26324/, accessed November 15, 2011.
38
“Facebook to Expand Prineville Data Center,” Facebook, July 30, 2010,
.http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=411605058132, accessed November 15, 2011.
39
Martin LaMonica, “Facebook reacts to Greenpeace anticoal campaign,” CNET, September 3, 2010,
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20015522-54.html, accessed November 15, 2011.
40
Jodie Van Horn, “Executive Director of Greenpeace to CEO of Facebook: Unfriend Coal,” Greenpeace, September 1,
2010,
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/Cool-IT/executive-director-of-greenpeace-to-ceo-offa/blog/26324/, accessed November 15, 2011.
41
Ibid.
42
Jodie Van Horn, “Executive Director of Greenpeace to CEO of Facebook: Unfriend Coal,” Greenpeace, September 1,
2010,
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/Cool-IT/executive-director-of-greenpeace-to-ceo-offa/blog/26324/, accessed November 15, 2011.
43
“Facebook:
Unfriend
Coal,”
Greenpeace,
September
16,
2010,
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/multimedia/videos/Facebook-Unfriend-Coal/, accessed November 15, 2011.
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Zuckerberg to find or create a facility with a cleaner energy source: “Mark Zuckerberg can still change
his mind, and I know which [kind of facility] I would choose and so do all his friends. If you let your
friends down, you let yourself down, and, with 500 million friends, it’s a long way down.” Over 200,000
people viewed the video in the first week alone.44
ACTION
Greenpeace’s escalation of the campaign despite Schnitt’s attempt at dialogue was a major cause for
concern. The letter from Greenpeace Executive Director Kumi Naidoo to Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg, in addition to the launch of the animated YouTube video, sent a strong message that the
Unfriend Coal campaign would not be losing momentum anytime soon. Did Facebook have an ethical
obligation to use its purchasing power, global brand, and corporate influence to set an environmental
example for the rest of the rapidly growing technology industry? With construction of the new Prineville
data center well under way and the facility set to open in 2011, certain decisions were already in motion.
Nevertheless, Facebook needed to carefully consider how to publically respond to the mounting pressure
from Greenpeace.
44
“Greenpeace
vs.
Facebook:
Now
it’s
personal,”
Movement,
September
22,
http://www.mouvment.com/2010/09/greenpeace-vs-facebook-now-its-personal/, accessed November 15, 2011.
2010,
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Exhibit 1
FACEBOOK MEMBERSHIP GROWTH
Facebook Members in Millions
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Source: Facebook. (2011). Timeline, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline, accessed November 15, 2011.
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Exhibit 2
GREEENPEACE LETTER TO FACEBOOK
September 1, 2010
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg:
Climate scientists around the world tell us that global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015 in
order to stay within a critical temperature threshold to have a chance of avoiding runaway global
warming. To do this, we must break our addiction to oil, coal, and other dirty fossil fuels and transition
away from them as rapidly as possible. Given the tremendous growth of IT cloud computing companies
like Facebook expected in this same period, your company has an increasingly essential role to play in
helping to drive the deployment of renewable energy sources needed to avert the most devastating
possible effects of our changing climate.
Facebook, which now connects over 500 million people, has a responsibility to exhibit good corporate
citizenship toward the growing public it serves. No global business leader, particularly not one who
reaches so many people daily, could deny that in this time it is both a threat to a company’s reputation and
financial health risk to ignore their company’s environmental impacts.
Facebook appears to be on a path that will make breaking our addiction to dirty coal-fired electricity even
more difficult. As you are aware, following Facebook’s announcement to build a new data center in
Prineville, OR, Greenpeace and over half a million Facebook users have expressed significant concerns
with your decision to power this data center with dirty coal-fired electricity from PacificCorp, which runs
an electricity mix that is disproportionately powered by coal, the largest source of global warming
pollution.
Despite this controversy, Facebook’s recent announcement that it will more than double the size of the
Prineville facility, and thus double the demand for dirty coal energy in Oregon, is a disturbing sign that
Facebook remains on the wrong path.
Other cloud-based companies face similar choices and challenges as you do in building data centers, yet
many are making smarter and cleaner investments. Google, for instance, entered into a long-term
agreement with a large wind power producer earlier this month. It has demonstrated that it is not only
possible to prioritize the purchase of clean energy, but prudent as well.
Greenpeace regularly uses Facebook to engage its supporters and their friends to hold other corporations
accountable for their environmental impact. Facebook’s innovative and easy-to-use platform has enabled
it to become an incredibly important tool for connecting people to engage in driving social change.
Facebook is uniquely positioned to be a truly visible and influential leader to drive the deployment of
clean energy.
Greenpeace has spent the last six years focusing a significant portion of our corporate engagement within
the IT industry. We have worked with a number of companies including Hewlett Packard, Toshiba, and
Google on corporate and government policy issues. We have seen big progress ranging from curbing
electronic waste to eliminating toxic chemicals from IT equipment. More recently we have been tackling
energy and climate change issues. We see the potential for the sector to use the hallmark values of
innovation and competitiveness that are pervasive in the IT world to become leaders in the fight against
many of our greatest environmental challenges, including global warming.
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Exhibit 2 (continued)
Given that your corporate and public policies on the environment have not been articulated, we would
welcome the opportunity to sit down with you and your team to hear what work Facebook has planned
and to discuss the steps we feel would put Facebook in a leadership position on climate change within the
IT sector. Key areas of leadership for Facebook should include:
1. Commit to a plan to phase out the use of dirty, coal-fired electricity to power your data centers;
2. Use your purchasing power to choose locations that allow you to rely on only clean, renewable
sources of electricity;
3. Advocate for strong climate and energy policy changes at the local, national, and international
level to ensure that as the IT industry’s energy demand increases, so does the supply of renewable
energy;
4. Disclosure your greenhouse gas emissions inventory (through mechanisms such as the carbon
disclosure project);
5. Share this plan for environmental stewardship publicly on your website so your hundreds of
millions of users know that your company is a climate leader.
It is with the interest of your company, your millions of users, and our planet in mind that I urge you to
exercise bold and immediate leadership in addressing climate change. I invite you to engage with me in
dialogue regarding these points, as I am sure that with further discussion regarding your company’s
environmental goals and growth plans, we will be able to reach common ground. I look forward to your
response.
Sincerely,
Kumi Naidoo
Executive Director
Greenpeace International
Source:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/Cool-IT/executive-director-of-greenpeace-to-ceo-offa/blog/26324/, accessed November 15, 2011.
This document is authorized for use only by Sri Ram Sai Vallabhaneni in Business, Government & Society Fall 2024 taught by STEVEN KREFT, Indiana University - Bloomington from Aug
2024 to Feb 2025.