Meta withdraws from a clean energy initiative

The giant American “Meta” group confirmed its retreat from a commitment it had made alongside a number of major multinational companies, which required the use of renewable electricity exclusively, which constitutes a setback in the midst of the boom in highly energy-consuming data centers.

The RE 100 initiative, affiliated with the non-governmental organization Climate Group, aims to encourage climate action among companies, and includes among its 444 members Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

The initiative’s website no longer mentions “meta” among its members.

A spokesman for the group, which includes the social media networks Facebook and Instagram, confirmed Meta’s withdrawal from the initiative.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse, he stressed META’s efforts to invest in renewable energy sources, and not to back down from its goal of relying on clean energies to cover its entire electricity consumption.

Recharge News, a website specializing in renewable energy news, was the first to report this decision.

Meta joined the RE100 initiative in 2016, according to an archive available on the Wayback Machine website.

Meta’s withdrawal comes in the context of a feverish race between major technology companies to build data centers aimed at training and operating artificial intelligence systems, but they are very energy-consuming.

The sector is spending huge sums of money to build these giant warehouses from scratch, equip them with expensive electronic chips, and ensure their connection to the electricity grid. Meta has concluded agreements with energy providers to put new gas-fired stations into service, especially to feed its Hyperion data center in the state of Louisiana in the southern United States.

The group confirms on its website that, since 2020, it has covered 100% of its electricity consumption through “clean and renewable energies” thanks to its investments in wind and solar energy. But the Climate Group believes that this is no longer enough.

The Recharge News website quoted a representative in the organization as saying: “After a number of in-depth discussions between Meta and Climate Group, Meta withdrew from the RE100 initiative because it was no longer able to meet the technical standards due to investments in new gas stations.” Meta is not the only technology group that has taken this approach. Last month, Microsoft signed an agreement with Chevron to supply a data center in Texas with natural gas, and Alphabet (Google) also concluded similar agreements.