With Saint Paddy’s Day approaching, it seems everyone is turning green, even geeks. Much to my surprise and delight this week’s cover story on Information Week is “Green is Good: Tree huggers, make room for the suits in IT. Yes, there’s a compelling business case for Green Computing.” Here are some highlights from that article:
Green Computing isn’t a save-the-planet-for-our-kids movement. It’s about the other green: cutting operating costs as the demand for computing power soars. It’s a movement grounded in measurable, near-term results. “The top priority at hand is data center efficiency,” says Sabet Elias, CTO of investment bank Lehman Brothers, which last year boosted energy efficiency 25% and set a goal of another 35% by next year.
It’s not just financial services companies, with their huge processing needs, that stand to benefit from green computing. Companies in every industry, from nonprofits to consumer goods, are paying much closer attention to their power bills, as the amount spent on data center power has doubled in the past six years.
IT execs would be wise to keep an eye on more than the economics of energy-efficient computing. Energy consumption has gotten so huge–U.S. data centers consume as much power in a year as is generated by five power plants-
The article goes on to note that the government has stepped in to help set standards for green computing:
…with EPEAT, or the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool. EPEAT was created through an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers council because companies and government agencies wanted to put green criteria in IT requests for proposals.”
Equally important but often overlooked is the environmental impact of computing refuge:
The United Nations estimates that 20 million to 50 million tons of computer gear and cell phones worldwide are dumped into landfills each year, and it’s the fastest growing segment of waste, says Greenpeace legislative director Rick Hind. At most, 12% of PCs and cell phones are recycled, he says, putting chemicals such as mercury and PVC into the environment.
From a Marketing for Good standpoint, the door is wide open for computer companies to build more environmentally friendly computers, ones that use less energy, generate lower emissions and are easier to recycle. At the same time, every company can start monitoring their IT energy use and identify concrete ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.
Just to make sure we practice what we preach, Renegade has formed a Green Team to help us monitor our consumption (energy, paper, water, etc.) while encouraging ways we to reduce and recycle. Since we are moving to bigger space in the next week or so, the timing is perfect to start such an initiative. What’s particularly great about this project is the enthusiasm expressed by my fellow Renegades to embrace a greener office space. I am optimistic this enthusiasm will translate into the requisite behavioral changes like turning off computers every night, finding the recycle bin for aluminum cans and selecting the printers that reuse paper. With a goal of reducing per capita energy use by 20% this year, we’ll no doubt need to engage more than just our newly glamorous green geeks.