Environmental Leader has a post on eBay committing to a 15% GHG reduction.
eBay to Emit 15% Fewer GHGs by 2012
E-commerce powerhouse eBay plans to reduce its 2012 greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent, when compared to its 2008 emissions. This news comes at the same time as eBay has donated some old servers to the University of Notre Dame, where the servers will assist in AIDS and cancer research.
Heat generated by the Notre Dame servers will be used to warm a greenhouse that is adjacent to where the servers are housed, according to a press release.
eBay will do most of its work in reducing emissions by improved data management and infrastructure. Next year, the company will begin using a “green” data center that will handle more than a third of its IT infrastructure. The site, in South Jordan, Utah, is being built to LEED Gold status.
The eBay press release is here, and extracted the data center parts.
Energy Efficient Operations and Data Management
As an ecommerce company, eBay has a relatively small carbon footprint with a majority of the company's environmental impact coming from the energy consumed by its data centers. The company's approach to data management and infrastructure will be a key efficiency driver. In 2010, eBay will unveil a new state-of-the-art green data center that will house more than a third of its global data infrastructure. The site, which is being built to the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold standards in South Jordan, Utah, will deliver state-of-the-art efficiencies in cooling and power management, as well as in IT infrastructure and software.
Hardware efficiency is mentioned.
eBay also operates on a two-year tech refresh system that allows the company to process more transactions per watt. While this system drives energy efficiency in its operations, it comes with environmental collateral damage in the form of e-waste. To address this, eBay has undertaken new initiatives in the past year to actively repurpose and extend the useful life of hardware.
and eWaste is addressed
An example of the company's commitment to reuse can be found in its recent donation of old servers to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. The server donation initiative not only puts old eBay servers to work in Notre Dame's research labs to power AIDS and cancer research, but leverages the heat generated from those servers to warm a greenhouse that sits adjacent to the laboratory.
Renewable energy is part of the reduction with fuel cells.
Investments in Renewable Energy
eBay continues to support the use of renewable energy to green its operations. The company opened a 197,000 square foot office building in San Jose last year, which features a 650 kW solar installation and has also been LEED Gold certified - with dimming systems and the use of recycled materials throughout. Following that, eBay is installing a new 100kW solar installation at the company's offices in Denver, Colorado. A fuel cell strategy is also under way - to be announced in early 2010.