From Ecopedia

Overview

Founded by Mark Zuckerberg and friends, Facebook is a globally leading social networking site on the internet, which is privately owned and operated by Facebook, Inc.

Officially launched on February 4, 2004, Facebook opened up to all net users since September 6, by offering social networking services to any web user over thirteen years of age with a valid e-mail id. However, some countries including China, Iran, Vietnam and Syria banned the website.

In recent times, Facebook’s popularity increased tremendously. According to a study conducted by compete.com, Facebook topped the list of most used social networking sites. Today, over 400 million web users across the globe visit the website for contacting, messaging or sharing photos with friends or to join networking groups organized by colleges, schools or workplace.

Environment-related pages on Facebook

Various environment-friendly groups, organizations and websites feature in the Facebook. Some such popular groups include:

Environmental Working Group, which utilizes public information power for safeguarding our environment

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which endeavors to minimize carbon footprint by regulating greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions globally

Environmental Humanities Graduate Program, an interdisciplinary university program for developing a growing interest in as well as a need for a human-perspective on the environment.

Environmental Information

Greenpeace International, a publicly vociferous environmental group accused Facebook of utilizing coal power for powering the website’s backbone and data centers situated in Oregon and Prineville.

Coal, a fossil fuel, is considered to be the world’s largest contributor of greenhouse gases, which are known to cause greenhouse effect. Greenhouse effect is the major cause for the environmentally-harmful global warming phenomenon.

Greenpeace is conducting a social awareness campaign against Facebook in order gain support for the cause. Greenpeace is striving to convince Facebook to change stance and opt for eco-friendly renewable energy sources.

Greenpeace reported that Facebook’s decision to get power from PacifiCorp, which generates electricity from coal-powered stations, would put the industry’s leading player in the wrong light. Instead, as a major company, taking a stand for an eco-friendly renewable source of energy would make a strong case in favor of the Facebook.

In response, Facebook referred to the data center’s energy-efficient designing standards as well as equipment specifications that fall well-within most environmental criteria.

Facebook also cited that the new data center in Oregon is equipped with highly energy-efficient computers as well as servers that ensure a smaller carbon footprint. Moreover, Facebook’s decision to build the data center on an energy-efficient cloud computing platform would ensure minimal energy consumption.

Furthermore, Facebook assured the company’s critics that the new data center would be green in various other ways and would even get certification from LEED.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook http://www.crunchbase.com/company/facebook http://www.blippr.com/apps/336650-Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ewg.org http://www.facebook.com/EPA?v=box_3 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Salt-Lake-City-UT/Environmental-Humanities-Graduate-Program/168898246631 http://twittown.com/social-networks/facebook/facebook-blog/your-facebook-account-hurting-environment http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/02/22/greenpeace-criticizes-facebook-for-data-center-not-using-renewable-energy/ http://www.helium.com/knowledge/107532-evaluating-the-environmental-impact-of-e-waste http://www.greenzer.com/blog/tag/environmental-impact-of-facebook http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/facebook-grows-coal.php