Apple fired back at Greenpeace this morning. Greenpeace issued a report yesterday criticizing Apple for its reliance on coal based power for its North Carolina data center. At issue are estimates over how much power the data center will actually draw. Greenpeace puts it at 100 megawatts. Apple says the data center will only use 20 megawatts, meaning a much larger percentage of its power will come from the solar arrays and fuel cells it’s installing at the data center’s site. But all this arguing over trying to guess the final power draw for the data center aside, what’s amazing is that it’s just no longer okay for a company to build a data center that relies too heavily on dirty power. Apple rarely responds to criticism from anybody, nor does it give out information about how it plans to execute any project. The fact that it did both (Apple disclosed the power draw for the NC data center and guaranteed that its next data center in Oregon would be 100 percent renewable), shows just how much IT companies are beginning to feel like they have to show their green credentials. Now if only this trend could infect other industries like automobile manufacturing or building construction.