Wind and solar power could meet around 85 percent of US electricity needs, according to a paper published in Nature Communications. Batteries, capacity overbuilding and other storage options could increase that figure.

A blend of wind and solar power should be enough to meet most of the current energy needs in "advanced, industrialized nations," according to the study. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UCI), China’s Tsinghua University, the Carnegie Institution for Science and Caltech looked at 39 years of hourly energy demand data from 42 countries to determine whether there's enough wind and solar resources to meet requirements.

They found that most reliable systems, in which wind power is most prevalent, can meet energy needs in the countries they studied between 72 and 91 percent of the time, and that's before any storage considerations. Add the capacity to store up to 12 hours' worth of energy, and these renewable energy sources can meet between 83 and 94 percent of hourly energy needs. However, the researchers noted even when wind and solar sources can power over 90 percent of a region's energy needs, there would still be hundreds of hours per year where demand isn't met.

“Wind and solar could meet more than 80 percent of demand in many places without crazy amounts of storage or excess generating capacity, which is the critical point,” co-author Steven Davis, professor of Earth system science at UCI, said. “But depending on the country, there may be many multi-day periods throughout the year when some demand will need to be met by energy storage and other non-fossil energy sources in a zero-carbon future.”

There are geophysical challenges at play. The paper suggests it would be easier for larger countries closer to the equator to fully switch to sustainable power sources, since they can more reliably bank on having solar energy all year long. Germany, for instance, might struggle to meet most of its needs through wind and solar, since it's a relatively smaller country at a higher latitude.

One solution would be for neighboring countries to pool their resources. "A lot of consistency and reliability could be provided by a system that includes solar resources from Spain, Italy and Greece with bountiful wind available in the Netherlands, Denmark and the Baltic region," Dan Tong, assistant professor of Earth system science at Tsinghua University and lead author on the paper, said.

Many countries are cutting back on their reliance on fossil fuels, which is key to mitigating carbon emissions and limiting the impact of climate change. Europe generated more electricity from renewable sources in 2020 than it did from fossil fuels, according to a report from two green energy-focused think tanks.

The US Department of Energy wants to accelerate the development of carbon capture technology. On Friday, the agency announced a program called Carbon Negative Shot. Part of its Energy Earthshots initiative, the goal here is to foster the development of carbon capture technology that can sequester CO2 at a cost of less than $100 per ton, and can be deployed at the gigaton scale. To put that in perspective, that much carbon is equivalent to the annual emissions of approximately 250 million cars.

“By slashing the costs and accelerating the deployment of carbon dioxide removal — a crucial clean energy technology — we can take massive amounts of carbon pollution directly from the air and combat the climate crisis,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “With our Carbon Negative Shot, we can help remove the greenhouse gases already warming our planet and affecting our health — positioning America as a net-zero leader and creating good-paying jobs for a transitioning clean energy workforce.”

If it wasn’t clear already, the Energy Department has set an ambitious target. In September, Orca, the largest direct carbon capture facility ever, opened in Iceland. The plant will capture 4,000 tons of CO2 per year at a cost of about $600 per ton for bulk purchases. Chimeworks, the company that operates Orca, aims to reduce the cost to $300 or less per ton by 2030. That’s a long way away from the Energy Department’s goal of less than $100 per ton, but sustained and substantial support and investment from the government is exactly what could make that happen.

ZipCharge has launched a new type of charging product for EVs that might be able to convince people worried about range anxiety to switch from gas vehicles. The British startup has introduced a powerbank for EVs called ZipCharge Go at the Cop26 climate summit. It's about the size of a suitcase and weighs around 50 pounds — plus, it has wheels and a retractable handle, so users can put it in their trunk and easily take it out when they need to charge. 

According to the company, the Go can provide up 20 miles of range after being plugged into the car for 30 minutes. A higher capacity version will be able to provide an EV up to 40 miles of range. The device works with any plug-in hybrid or EV with a Type 2 socket, and it can charge that vehicle to its full capacity between 30 minutes to an hour. Charging up the device itself is as easy as plugging it into any socket, and users will be able to control and monitor it through an app, where they can schedule future charges during off-peak hours for cheaper costs. 

While range anxiety is becoming less of an issue these days, it's still keeping those on the fence from making the leap. A company called Gogoro developed hot-swappable battery technology for scooters to address the problem, but batteries in electric cars typically can't be swapped out. SparkCharge has a portable EV charging system called the Roadie, but it's not nearly as easy to carry around as the Go. 

That said, the ZipCharge Go isn't available yet. According to InsideEVs, the startup plans to release a 4 kWh and an 8 kWh version, as well as to start deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2022. It can be leased for at least £49 (US$67) per month, though it will also be available for purchase to EV owners who don't mind paying for one and to businesses like hotels that don't have installed charging facilities. While ZipCharge has yet to reveal a price for it, The Sunday Times Driving section says the company aims to sell it for around the same cost as a 7.2kW home charging port installation.

Meta (Facebook's parent company) has joined other major tech companies in making more climate change pledges as the UN’s COP26 summit commences. Along with taking measures to reduce its own carbon footprint, Meta is focused on "helping people find accurate, science-led information, while also tackling misinformation," according to Nick Clegg, Meta's vice-president of global affairs and communication.

The company says that when its fact-checking partners rate a piece of content as false, a warning label is added and the post pops up less often on users' News Feeds. There's a keyword detection feature that Meta switches on during "critical public events" to help fact checkers find relevant content faster. This will be enabled during COP26 to help fact-checkers in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, German, French and Dutch find and debunk climate misinformation more quickly.

The Climate Change Information Center, which debuted last year to provide users with knowledge from experts on the issue, is now being rolled out to more countries and it will soon be available in more than 100 territories. The hub will also show national greenhouse gas emissions alongside countries' targets and commitments to perhaps make governments more accountable. On top of that, in more than a dozen countries, Facebook is expanding its use of labels on climate change posts to direct users to the center.

The UN will soon update its ActNow chatbot on Messenger, Instagram and its website to suggest 10 more actions users can take to fight combat change. There are new camera stickers on Messenger, Instagram and Messenger Kids that aim to help users "strike up a conversation" about climate change.

In addition, Meta is starting up a program to help businesses that use its apps reduce their carbon footprint and adopt more sustainable practices. The Green Boost for Small Businesses project will start this month in the UK and Spain, primarily centered on food producers, restaurants and the hospitality sector. Meta will broaden the program to Italy, France and other nations in 2022.

Elsewhere, Meta says it's a founding member of the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance. The group's goal is to push toward net zero air travel by investing in sustainable aviation fuel.

These efforts are intended to complement internal actions Meta has undertaken to combat climate change. The company hit net zero carbon emissions in 2020 and as of earlier this year, it's using 100 percent renewable energy. Other environmentally conscious efforts include reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 97 percent in the last four years and supporting measures to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Like Microsoft, Meta aims to restore more water than it uses by 2030.

As promised earlier in the year, Tesla is expanding access to its Supercharger charger network. Starting today, the company is opening 10 locations in the Netherlands to non-Tesla EVs as part of a pilot program. Provided you live in the country and you’ve installed the Tesla app on your phone (version 4.2.3 or later), you can use them to charge your car. The stations are located in Sassenheim, Apeldoorn Oost, Meerkerk, Hengelo, Tilburg, Duiven, Breukelen, Naarden, Eemnes and Zwolle.

The one thing to note about the pilot is it's only open to EV drivers who live in the Netherlands. However, if you drive a Tesla vehicle and you’re visiting the country, you can charge your car as normal at the stations. Additionally, how the program expands beyond this initial pilot will depend on congestion at the stations. “Future sites will only be opened to Non-Tesla vehicles if there is available capacity,” the company said.

On Monday, the company also put a non-Tesla port home charger on sale. Both the pilot and charger are a sign Tesla is looking outside of its ecosystem for revenue. That said, it may take a while before we see the automaker open its charging stations in the US to EVs from other companies since those use a proprietary connector.

With the UN’s COP26 climate summit now underway, Qualcomm has become the latest company to announce a sustainability pledge. The chipmaker says it will achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. Here’s the roadmap the company laid out. By 2030, Qualcomm says it will reduce its Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent from base 2020 levels. That same year, it plans to reduce its Scope 3 emissions by 25 percent from where they were in 2020.

Scope 1 includes all pollution produced directly by the company or any emissions sources it owns or controls. Scope 2, meanwhile, entails indirect emissions created from the electricity, heating and cooling Qualcomm consumes. Lastly, Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions produced by its value chain.

In the context of a company like Qualcomm that relies on TSMC, Samsung and other foundries to produce its chips, reducing its Scope 3 emissions is the most impactful (and difficult) way the company can lessen its impact on the environment. According to an estimate from Imec, which recently announced a sustainable chip program involving Apple, approximately 75 percent of the greenhouse emissions tied to a mobile device are produced when it’s made, with almost half coming from the chip fabrication process.

Notably, that’s where Qualcomm says the least about its sustainability plans. It notes it’s working towards purchasing all of the power it uses at its San Diego headquarters from renewable sources and decarbonizing its operations using a “minimal” amount of Renewable Energy Credits and carbon offsets. That’s not to say the company is trying to greenwash its environmental responsibilities, but there’s a significant difference between making its offices environmentally friendly and doing the same for its supply chain.      

COP26, the UN’s climate change conference billed as “the world’s last best chance” to prevent the most disastrous effects of global warming, kicks off in Glasgow on Sunday. Delegates from around the world will convene to hammer out another round of emission reduction targets with a goal of achieving “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century and keeping our rapidly heating planet temperature rise to a more manageable 1.5 degrees Celsius, rather than the calamitous 2.7 degree bump currently predicted.

With the eyes of the world firmly focused upon humanity’s disastrous planetary stewardship to date and wondering what might be done to rectify our past pollution, leading tech companies in recent weeks have become increasingly vocal in their pledges to reform business operations to help “save the planet.”

Apple, for example, announced the launch of 10 new environmental projects as part of its Power for Impact initiative as well as that 175 of its suppliers will switch to using renewable energy, the company said in a statement Tuesday, and that, by 2030, every device the company sells will have a net-zero climate impact. The company also noted that it has already reduced its carbon emissions by 40 percent over the past five years.

Google, on the other hand, pointed to its goal of achieving net zero emissions “across all of our operations and value chain by 2030,” according to a blog post published on Monday. The company also called out its efforts to assist its partners with reducing their own emissions, such as through the Environmental Insights Explorer (EIE) program which helps cities map their pollution data, air quality and solar power potential. Google also made sure to mention just how sustainable its products actually are for consumers.

Microsoft

Microsoft made even loftier claims on Tuesday: to be “carbon negative by 2030 and by 2050 remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted, either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975,” before expounding on the rapidly increasing efficiencies of its massive data centers.

Amazon, for its part, announced that its $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund investment program has selected three low-carbon startups: Resilient Power, which produces transformer-based EV charging technology; CMC Machinery, an order-specific-sized shipping box manufacturer; and Infinium, which devised “ultra-low carbon fuels that can be used in air transport, marine freight, and heavy truck fleets,” per the company’s blog post.

But do these protestations of environmental progress signify a legitimate effort by Big Tech to clean up its collective act or are they simply more PR spin seeking to offset their bad behavior? Because we’ve seen this sort of behavior before. It’s called greenwashing.

What is Greenwashing?

Merriam-Webster defines greenwashing as “expressions of environmentalist concerns especially as a cover for products, policies, or activities.” The term was first coined in 1986 by environmentalist Jay Westerveld in an essay examining the hotel industry’s practice of leaving placards in guest rooms admonishing them to reuse their towels to help “save the environment.” Back then, people got their news from three places: newspapers, television and radio — the same sources for virtually all advertising at the time. This information availability imbalance created a system wherein corporations could promote themselves in any flattering shade they wished, regardless of their actual actions, with little fear of the public actually realizing that a deception had even occurred.

The practice of greenwashing in America goes as far back as 1953 — though it wasn’t called as such at the time — when beverage manufacturers launched the Keep America Beautiful campaign, reminding the public to be good environmental stewards and not litter, in what was actually an effort to forestall incoming regulations on the use of disposable containers. Greenwashing metastasized in the 1980s as Big Oil companies ladled out their own laudations while they sought to minimize their own liability and culpability in environmental pollution scandals and global warming. These companies went so far as to work to actively prevent the government from passing clean energy laws. But you wouldn’t know it from their television ads.

The spot above is from ​​Chevron’s People Do campaign. It should be noted that many of the programs promoted in that campaign were actually government-mandated actions and that while this campaign was running, Chevron was repeatedly found in violation of the Clean Air and Water Acts, and was caught dumping oil in wildlife refuges.

Exxon’s actions through the ‘90s were equally abhorrent. The company continually muddied the waters around humanity’s role in climate change, knowing full well how the burning of fossil fuels inflamed the growing crisis.

In 2017, a Harvard study of ExxonMobil’s climate change communications (both internal memos and public-facing advertorial newspaper content) produced between 1977 and 2014 found that while more than 80 percent of internal documents acknowledged that human activity was largely responsible for global warming, just 12 percent of the company’s advertorials did the same.

"Within hours of publishing our study, ExxonMobil responded with ad hominem attacks," Harvard Research Associate Geoffrey Supran, told Client Earth last year. "I was invited by the European Parliament to testify about ExxonMobil's history of climate denial. The day before, they sent a private memo (which has now been leaked) to Members of Parliament to try to discredit me. If these experiences tell us anything, it's that the Exxon tiger hasn't changed its stripes."

Greenwashing in the modern era

Greenwashing remains a widely-used marketing tactic even today — and not just the mealy-mouthed word salads regurgitated by oil executives during a House Oversight Committee hearing this Thursday.

Take bottled water, for instance. Nestle alone has spent millions of ad dollars over recent years in an effort to convince the public that, as it claimed in 2008, “bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world.”​​ This despite the fact that barely 31 percent of plastic water bottles actually get recycled and the rest end up cluttering landfills and the ocean — scientists estimate that around 8 million metric tons of plastic entered the ocean annually.

And they are far from alone. Coca-Cola came under fire in 2015 in Australia when it rolled out Coke Life, a supposedly light sugar variant packaged in a bright green can. Sure it made consumers feel like they were making a health conscious purchasing decision but that was despite health advocates pointing out that “the reduction to 10 teaspoons of sugar in a 600ml bottle made little difference in terms of health impacts.” More recently the company launched its World Without Waste campaign which, at its essence, pushed consumers to simply recycle more, rather than actually adjust the way the company conducts its business.

In 2013, Tyson Meats was taken to task over the fawning self-framing of how it cares for its animals and their relative well-being, not two years before five Tyson supplier employees were charged with 33 counts of criminal animal cruelty for repeatedly kicking and punching pigs. And who can forget Volkswagen, which launched a “Clean Diesel” marketing campaign amid the Dieselgate emissions scandal?

Why Greenwashing works so well

So why do companies insist on greenwashing their operations rather than actually reform themselves? Because it is far more profitable to simply adjust public perception than it is to make meaningful reforms. A 2015 Nielsen poll found that 66 percent of respondents would be willing to pay a premium for “environmentally sustainable products” and among those willing to pay more more than 50 percent were influenced by sustainability factors such as “a company being environmentally friendly (58 percent), and company being known for its commitment to social value (56 percent.)”

It’s also because we, collectively, keep falling for it. Consumers’ desires to help address the climate crisis, especially in the face of barely tepid responses from world governments, primes us to view virtually any action on that account as a positive one. “SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] and ‘net zero’ have kind of created an opportunity for a lot more greenwashing, because it allows you to describe yourself as a green company when you’re doing a thing that’s fundamentally not green,” Dave Powell, co-presenter of the Sustainababble podcast and the former Head of Environment at the New Economics Foundation, told Client Earth. “You effectively buy your way out of trouble, for example, by promising to plant large numbers of trees.”

"As part of their climate strategies, many companies are relying on voluntary carbon offsetting. However, if not done well, offsetting can result in greenwashing,” Dr. Aoife Brophy Haney, Research Lecturer at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, added. “To mitigate this risk, government and society at large should support the use of best practice guidelines, such as the recently released ‘Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting’, to help ensure offsetting is done in a rigorous and credible way that ultimately contributes to net zero goals."

And, most importantly, companies continue to engage in greenwashing because there is very little downside to doing so, at least from a regulatory perspective. In the US, the FTC guidelines for environmental marketing claims are only voluntary, though the FTC does retain the right to prosecute outright false or misleading advertisements.

However, cracks in the greenwashing facade may be beginning to show, starting in the financial sector, as regulators’ interest in ESG fund (environmental, social and governance) oversight grows. As Financial News London reported Monday, German asset manager DWS has recently been investigated by both US and German regulatory agencies after a former employee accused the company of fudging the environmental credentials in its 2020 annual report.

“You have to be careful, as there is a big reputational risk,” an unnamed senior executive at a European asset manager, told FN London. “We’re not saying we were bulls***ing before, but there’s a recognition now that it’s more complicated.”

“Most have probably been a bit too pushy in marketing their alleged ESG expertise and they are now applying more caution,” ​​Philip Kalus, managing partner at consultancy Accelerando Associates, added. “Some would even say there is panic in the house. Nobody wants to be the next one being accused, but it is an important and overdue wake-up call for the industry.”

That’s not to say that environmental pledges made by Apple, Google, Microsoft or Amazon are meant to intentionally gaslight the public (though Exxon, Shell and Chevron absolutely did). These companies have a vested financial interest in at least appearing as positively as possible to their customers because, frankly, nobody’s going to have time to talk about the slick new features of the Pixel 8 or iOS 15 when we’re in the midst of a global climate meltdown-slash-water war.

Is Google’s “moonshot goal” of operating its data centers and campuses entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030 going to make more than a blip of difference when it comes to mitigating the impacts of climate change? Probably not, definitely not on its own and certainly no more so than Microsoft’s promise to reduce water use in its data centers by 95 percent by 2024 or Apple’s plan to build robots to more effectively recycle old handsets. But these claims do not, in and of themselves, constitute greenwashing. Their changes may not be enough to make a noticeable impact at this point, but these good faith efforts attempt to do something, anything, to stave off what could well be humanity’s self-inflicted extinction. And given how America’s most recent effort to invest in environmentally responsible energy technologies was single-handedly killed off by the coal-loving Senator from West Virginia, these sorts of corporate initiatives may likely be the best we’ll soon see.

Mercedes is using the impending COP26 climate conference to highlight its EV efforts — and show how sustainability can involve more than a switch to battery power. The newly unveiled Sustaineer delivery van concept is fully electric, as you'd guess, but it also improves the environment around it. Fine particulate filters on the front and underbody purify the air around the van no matter what its speed. It even uses cast iron, ceramic-coated disc brakes that both reduce the amount of dust in the air and limit brake wear.

The Sustaineer also has solar panels on its roof to extend range and reduce the need for plug-in charging (this sometimes contributes to CO2 emissions). It can further power devices whether or not the van is running, such as tools and laptops. Solar power on electrified vehicles is nothing new, but Mercedes clearly hopes implementations like this would keep EVs as green as possible.

Other eco-conscious technology includes an energy-saving heating system that hews close to the body (including the seatbelt) and a heavy use of recycled materials. The filler is made from household waste, the cab partition is built from natural straw and the underbody includes recycled polypropylene and used tires. Mercedes lowers noise pollution, too, thanks to a quiet electric drivetrain, low rolling resistance tires and a hushed automatic delivery door.

Safety is a concern as well. A camera monitors road conditions to share reports of potholes and other hazards with cities, while digital mirrors provide a clearer field of view than you normally get with cargo vans. A "biologically active" light keeps the driver alert by filling the cab with illumination similar to daylight while maintaining a natural rhythm.

There are no mentions of plans to mass-produce the Sustaineer. With that said, Mercedes stressed that all the van's technology was crafted with large-scale production in mind. You might see this in other vans, not to mention other Mercedes vehicles. The company already has other green tech on the horizon, such as sustainable repairs for EV batteries in 2022, and Sustaineer is ultimately a logical extension of those plans.

Ahead of the UN's COP26 climate change conference, which starts on Sunday, Microsoft has revealed more details about its plans to make its data centers greener. Among those is a goal of reducing the amount of water its data centers use by 95 percent by 2024 — around 5.7 billion liters each year.

Data centers often use water to keep servers cool. Microsoft has researched server performance at higher temperatures and found that it's able to "create higher set points for a variety of different climates for when water-based, evaporative cooling is necessary to preserve server performance and reliability," as Noelle Walsh, Microsoft's corporate vice president of cloud ops and innovation wrote in a blog post.

The company says this project, which it expects to be fully implemented by 2024, could completely eliminate the need to use water for cooling in locations such as Amsterdam, Dublin, Virginia and Chicago. It may reduce water use in desert data center locations (like Arizona) by up to 60 percent.

Meanwhile, Microsoft continuing its research into liquid immersion cooling to reduce its dependency on water. The company says that, this year, it became the first cloud services provider to run "two-phase liquid immersion cooling in a production environment." It's been looking into overclocking as well and found liquid cooling can increase performance of some chipsets by 20 percent.

"Because of the efficiencies in both power and cooling that liquid cooling affords us, it unlocks new potential for datacenter rack design," Walsh wrote. "In short, liquid cooling paves the way for more densely packed servers in smaller spaces, meaning increased capacity per square foot in a datacenter — or the ability to create smaller datacenters in more strategic locations in the future. This adds to the benefits of waterless cooling design."

Last September, Microsoft announced plans to become "water positive" (i.e. to replenish more water than it uses) by 2030, and these data center efforts will be a key part of that goal. It also aims to be carbon negative by the end of the decade by removing more carbon than it emits. By 2050, the company plans to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it has generated since it was founded in 1975.

In addition, Microsoft says it's designing data centers with local ecosystems in mind "to renew and revitalize the surrounding area so that we can restore and create a pathway to provide regenerative value for the local community and environment."

It's attempting to use more environmentally friendly processes in designing and building data centers to reduce its carbon footprint. The aim is to use building materials that reduce "embodied carbon," or emissions linked to materials and construction during a building's life cycle. Concrete and steel are said to be major contributors of such emissions. Microsoft says it has found ways of reducing embodied carbon from those materials by up to 60 percent.

Elsewhere, the company has opened up a public preview of a tool called Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability to help companies and other organizations record and report their carbon emissions. The tool will also offer suggestions on how to reduce emissions. Earlier this month, Google announced similar features for its Cloud Platform customers.

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) kicks off on Sunday, and ahead of it some of tech's biggest companies are announcing new initiatives. Amazon is investing in three companies working on creating sustainable technology as part of its $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund. 

The first of these companies is Resilient Power, a company working to make delivering electricity from the power grid and delivering it to electric vehicle charging stations more efficient. The company appears primarily focused on fleets — think businesses that need to deploy vehicles en masse, like shipping services — rather than individual vehicles. The company claims it can build out EV fast-charging stations at one-tenth the standard size and installation time as current stations. Naturally, an efficient, fast-charging solution for fleets of delivery vehicles is something that could be directly relevant to Amazon. It also could relate to the company's existing investment in EV maker Rivian, which could plausibly make EVs for Amazon delivery services down the line. 

The second company, CMC Machinery, can design and manufacture custom-fit boxes for whatever items need to go inside, without waste like extra space and single-use padding materials. Again, the benefit to Amazon is obvious here — if the company is going to continue to ship things at the rate it currently does, reducing the amount of packaging waste the company produces would be significant.

Finally, a company called Infinium is working on renewable fuel technology as an alternative to traditional diesel and jet fuels. The company claims its Infinium Electrofuels are "ultra-low carbon fuels that can be used in air transport, marine freight, and heavy truck fleets." This marks Amazon's second investment round in Infinium, and it'll be used to help develop facilities for producing the company's fuel. Amazon also says that this investment will help the company actually deliver its fuel for the first time, which would be a pretty major milestone. 

With these three new companies, Amazon is now supporting 11 total companies with its Climate Change Pledge, a key component in its plan to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2040. Given that goal, it makes sense that these investments are in companies that can directly help Amazon reduce its carbon footprint. With COP26 about to start, both Apple and Microsoft have also made announcements around moves they're making to become more eco-friendly. Apple, which plans to be carbon-neutral by 2030, announced it has "more than doubled" the number of suppliers committed to using clean energy. Microsoft, meanwhile, is hoping to reduce data center water consumption by 95 percent by 2024, just a few short years from now.