You can accuse Apple of a lot of things, but ignoring its impact on the environment isn’t one of them. Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed today at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco that the company has signed a deal to build an $850 million solar farm to power not only Apple’s headquarters but every Apple Store in the state as well.
“We know at Apple that climate change is real,” Cook said during the event. “Our view is that the time for talk is past, and the time for action is now.”
The 1,300-acre solar installation will be made possible by Arizona-based First Solar, which happens to have an office in San Francisco as well. The plant will be located in Monterey County, roughly a hundred miles south of Apple’s Cupertino headquarters.
Apple has long put an emphasis on its reputation as a green company, and the company’s eventual aim is to be run on green energy from top to bottom. It’s a personal passion for Tim Cook as well, who told an investor—a climate change skeptic who asked Cook directly why being green was a priority over increasing profits even further—to “get out of [Apple] stock” if return on investment was their only concern.
As you might imagine happens when a company makes a very public deal with Apple, First Solar will now have the spotlight thrust upon its. Excitement over the deal is already giving First Solar as huge spike in stock price, with after-hours trading pushing upwards of 50 points following a day which opened in the mid-40s.
H/T USA Today | Photo via Lance Cheung/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)