ByteDance , which owns brief video app TikTok and recently forayed into cloud providers, is one of the lowest ranked cloud providers within China, according to Greenpeace East Asia’s most recent climate ranking from the country’s technology sector.
The company positioned seventh among 9 cloud providers, as it is yet to declare carbon neutrality goals or disclose the energy usage data.
The report, released on Tuesday, clubbed together nine cloud providers plus 15 data centre operators, which are the reason for more than 80% plus 78% of China’s public cloud and data centre markets, respectively.
Tencent Holdings , Alibaba Group Holding , the owner of this paper, and Baidu took the top three spots among impair providers because of their weather commitments, increase in renewable energy procurement and data transparency, according to Greenpeace.
“ByteDance is just not keeping up with its colleagues in China with regards to climate commitments and renewable energy use, ” said Ye Ruiqi, Greenpeace East Asia’s climate and energy project manager located in Beijing. “Tech giants like Tencent and GDS (Holdings) possess set ambitious focuses on and are starting to obtain renewable energy at range, but ByteDance have not even disclosed the greenhouse gas exhausts from its own procedures. ”
China’s data centres plus related infrastructure are becoming a major source of energy usage and carbon emissions. In 2020, information centres and 5G networks in Cina together consumed 201 billion kilowatt hrs of electricity, approximately the same as the mixed consumption in Beijing and Shenzhen. Co2 emissions from the nation’s digital infrastructure are projected to reach 310 million tonnes within 2035 from 123 million in 2020, according to a separate Greenpeace last year.
Amongst data centre providers, GDS Holdings topped the list for its commitment to reach carbon neutrality and 100 per cent renewable energy usage simply by 2030. Chindata Group and VNET curved off the top three.
The rank, released annually considering that early 2020, has seen an increasing number of Chinese language technology companies make rapid progress in the direction of cutting carbon emissions, according to Greenpeace Asia.
Since Chinese language President Xi Jinping’s pledge in 2020 to reach peak emissions by 2030 and accomplish net-zero emissions by 2060 , eight major technology conglomerates with cloud plus data centre businesses, including Tencent, Alibaba and GDS Holdings, have made a commitment to obtain carbon neutrality by 2030. In addition , 6 other ranked businesses have pledged to obtain 100 per cent alternative energy use by 2030, compared to only Chindata in last year’s ranking.
Nevertheless , the report found there is still space for improvement amongst China’s cloud services and data center providers to achieve a significant climate impact. For instance , GDS was the just company whose alternative energy use exceeded 30% in 2021. Other ranked companies use less than 10% alternative energy or have not disclosed renewable energy usage data.
In addition , four out of five businesses have not disclosed Scope 3 greenhouse gasoline emissions data, which includes all other indirect exhausts that occur inside a company’s value chain, Greenpeace found.
“When companies set carbon neutrality focuses on it’s critical that their entire supply chain is included, not simply their own operations, ” said Ye, including that companies must also focus on direct purchase methods, such as green power trading and constructing wind and solar power plants.
Carbon offsets are not a substitute for immediate emissions cuts and should not serve as an excuse for continued fossil fuel reliance, Ye said. – Southern China Morning Post