Facebook 'greener' than Google

Washington, Aug 2 (ANI): Social networking site Facebook has stolen a march over its less environmentally friendly tech rival Google by revealing its 2011 carbon footprint.

The figure was good enough to earn the social network earn kudos from environmental watchdog, Greenpeace.

"Today's detailed disclosure and announcement of a clean energy target shows that the company means business and wants the world to follow its progress," Mashable quoted Greenpeace International Senior IT Analyst Gary Cook, as saying, in a statement.

The report by the firm revealed that Facebook's total energy usage last year was 532 million Kilowatt hours, minus the 36 percent of its energy the company gets from renewable and nuclear sources, that led to 285,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, while Google 's was found to be 1.5 million tons of CO2 in 2010.

"To put this into context, one person's Facebook use for all of 2011 had roughly the same carbon footprint as one medium latte. Or three large bananas. Or a couple of glasses of wine," the report cited.

Facebook has reportedly designed its own servers to be as energy efficient as possible and claimed that it would like to get up to 25 percent renewable energy in the short term, but admitted that its carbon emissions are likely to "get worse before they get better", since the company is growing so fast. (ANI)