NASBA Center For Public Trust 
Facebook, perhaps the world’s most widely used social media platform, is expanding its global reach in the area of solar power. Recently, this social media platform announced that it is investing heavily in a massive (think 4,600 acres) solar farm in Texas called Prospero Solar. The reason? Facebook says it is moving toward running entirely on renewable energy by the end of next year.
The solar farm is said to have a capacity of 379 megawatts, which is enough to power almost 300,000 homes, will comprise of over three million individual solar panels and will be one of the nation’s largest solar farms. What is even more outstanding is that this will be first time Facebook has invested directly in a renewable energy project. The goal for Facebook is to power its global operations with 100 percent renewable electricity by the end of 2020.
Peter Freed, Energy Strategy Manager at Facebook, recently said, “We are always looking for additional flexibility in the ways that we meet our renewable energy goals.” In addition, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder, wrote, “Our data centers are already some of the most energy efficient in the world, and last year, we set a goal for all our data centers and offices to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2020. These new solar projects will help us reach that goal.”
The key here is that we must keep pushing ourselves and asking ourselves, “What else we can be doing to help those around us?” Just because you are in a particular profession or have a specific set of skills, does not mean you are limited in your ability to do more and help the communities you surround yourself with. How will you help others today and in the future?
-Dina Barabash, NASBA Content Development & Web Specialist