Dive Brief:
- Facebook has switched all electric accounts at its Menlo Park headquarters to Peninsula Clean Energy’s ECO100 option, making the social media giant the largest participant in the San Mateo County supplier's program.
- PCE launched in October 2016 and is a Joint Powers Authority for all 20 cities in the county. The company began serving large customers in April of this year, and Facebook is the largest corporate customer in the county to enroll in ECO100.
- Facebook has set a goal of reaching 50% clean and renewable energy for its data centers in 2018, and wants to ultimately reach 100% renewable power.
Dive Insight:
Large tech companies are continuing a push to utilize clean energy, and Facebook's Menlo Park HQ will now be powered entirely by renewable sources.
According to PCE CEO Jan Pepper, "all of our power is sourced directly from power plants that deliver into California, and in 2016 our ECO100 supply was from 100% wind power.”
“Facebook is committed to being a good neighbor and that includes reducing its potential impact on the environment,” Facebook Sustainability and Community Outreach Manager Lauren Swezey said in a statement. Enrolling in the ECO100 option, she said, will help reduce the company's carbon footprint "and help Menlo Park reach its local climate action goals.”
According to PCE, there are more than 4,200 customer accounts enrolled in ECO100.
Almost half of Fortune 500 companies have climate or renewable power goals, according to an analysis out this year. The report from WWF, Calvert Investments, CDP and Ceres found almost 80,000 emission-reducing projects by 190 Fortune 500 companies.
According to the report, those projects resulted in nearly $3.7 billion in savings in 2016, with annual emission reductions equivalent to taking 45 coal-fired power plants offline.
