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 Although technology plays a huge role in creating a greener IT department, considering changing how your employees work has also been shown to have high returns when it comes to sustainability and productivity.

 A new innovative system from IBM is up and running in Zurich and aims at improving data centre efficiency. The new system, Aquasar, uses special hot water-cooled IBM servers and consumes up to 40% less energy than comparable air-cooled servers. 

 A new software program, SleepServer, by U.C. San Diego researchers allows computers to have minimal functionality while still operating to cut energy by 60 to 75 percent. 

 FIT4Green is a European Union project focused on ICT optimization policies. A recent research project by the organization hopes to reduce data centre energy consumption by 20% without impacting existing performance.

Virtualization continues to be a efficient way to reduce the energy demanded by data centres and IT departments. With many options available, it's important to understand what virtualization solution will be most cost effective and energy efficient.

Cloud computing is quickly becoming an efficent option for software. As managing an organization's carbon footprint is directly related to software, it's important to look for the most efficient and cost-effective ways for this measurement.

After much deliberation the US Envrionmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched Energy Star ratings for the data centre.

As of 2006, 1.5% of the US' energy usage was from data centres, prompting Energy Star to create the new program. The new program ranks data centres according to an EPA energy performance scale where the top 25% of data centres are awarded the logo.

The international police organization Interpol created the Global E-Waste Crime Group in 2009 to combat the illegal trade of e-waste.

When considering how to create a green data centre, IT professionals often look for a set of guidelines or how-tos to get them started. The IT industry has yet to create any standards which would help these green efforts.

The international police organization Interpol created the Global E-Waste Crime Group in 2009 to combat the illegal trade of e-waste.

When considering how to create a green data centre, IT professionals often look for a set of guidelines or how-tos to get them started. The IT industry has yet to create any standards which would help these green efforts.

In 2009 Greenpeace began the Cool IT Challenge to stimulate IT companies to create solutions for sustainability. In April of this year Greenpeace published the third instalment of the Cool IT Leaderboard, ranking the top 15 companies.

The Google PowerMeter is now getting more accessible as the release of the Application Programming Interface (API) for the energy tool is released. The API allows the PowerMeter is now able to be integrated with various manufacturers, making it more accessible.

A promising shift in attitudes is showing that organizations around the world are beginning to see forest offsets as a important tool for corporate social responsibility and climate change. The second Forest Carbon Offsetting Report shows that more businesses are investing in carbon offsets that go towards forestry projects.

Greenwashing (i.e. making a product seem more green than it really is)is often discussed in the Green IT industry, as it's an important factor to keep in mind when purchasing and when promoting your sustainability initatives. A worrying study done by US Congressional auditors found that the EnergyStar label, a respected and recommended tool for green purchasing, is easy a little too easy to obtain.

IT departments are often faced with bulky packages and shipping that can be called anything but green. It's important to remember simple ways you can impact the footprint of your shipping. One way is to remember to pick the slowest method you can and refrain from overnight shipping. Although sometimes inconvienent, planning ahead can ensure that your order isn't using carbon-intensive such as plane. Although your package won't arrive the next day you'll be promoting sustainability in the workplace by using other forms of transportation.

If you haven't already discovered GreenPrint - it's worth checking out. GreenPrint is a simple and easy way to reduce your printing waste and make your co-workers or employees more aware of their printing output.GreenPrint functions as an intermediary between the program you are wishing to print from and your printer.

If you're one of the lucky ones that doesn't have flourescent tube lighting in their office, consider a new lightbulb when yours burns out, and you may not be changing it for the next 17 years.

A new GE Energy Smart LED bulb will be on the market at the end of 2010 and although pricey (one bulb is slated to be $50!) the energy savings and longevity are huge.

A new report by nonprofit Ceres aims to help small organizations bring sustainability to all aspects of their business in order to compete in today's business world.

The report, "The 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability" gives advice on how businesses can incorporate sustainability into their structures, processes, and performance with the added help of case studies.

As the information and communication technology (ICT) industry is a huge contributor to e-waste and energy consumption, ways to evaluate different organization's carbon footprint are quickly emerging.

A recent ranking from Two Tomorrow's, a London-based sustainability consultant, has developed a Tomorrow's Value Rating that helps to rank ICT companies based on their efforts to be sustainable.

Packaging for IT products always seems to be excessive, no matter the size and the distance the packing of products always seems to include packing peanuts, cardboard spacers and bubble wrap.

If your sending or receiving products, you may realize that eliminating this may not be an option, but greenbiz.com has come up with ways to help lessen some of that waste.

E-waste is a huge concern in the IT industry. Technology is constantly evolving making legacy equipment obsolete and often headed for the landfill. As companies look for sustainable ways of disposing of their electronics, they're often left wondering what is the "greenest" recycler of their e-waste.

Avoiding Mass Extinctions Engine (AMEE) has unveileved the beta version of a new search engine that lets the user discover GHG and carbon footprint information about a variety of products. AMEE's goal is to track the energy footprint of everything and anything and allow open access to the information.

The new search engine is completely transparent in where it gets its information from, and although still being completed it does give insightful information into a variety of products.

When purchasing electronics you're often left wondering where did all the parts come from? Well, SourceMap hopes to tell you exactly that.

SourceMap, from MIT Media Lab, tells the user the origins and footprint of various products - from electronics to household goods. The way SourceMap works is by breaking down the various products into their basic components and tracing their origin. Users can create "maps" themselves by imputing the product name and "made in" location.

Greenpeace has put out its Guide to Greener Electronics this year, with various electronic companies ranked based on sustainability criteria by Greenpeace. The 14th edition has added new criteria on support for revisions to the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive that would ban PVC vinyl plastic, brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and chlorinated flame retardants from electronics. The current ranking of companies is as follows:

As the United Nations Climate Change Conference fast approaches, the IT industry is revving up their case for IT’s inclusion in the talks. It’s previously been stated that the IT industry will be mentioned in the draft climate treaty, but now the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is asking for a more specific clause that sees the IT industry included in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Many businesses looking to upgrade their computers are left with little options for their legacy equipment. Recycling choices for computers are growing, but getting a financial return on your retired equipment is still hard to come by. A new recycling program from Wirefly, an online retailer of cell phones, is changing that with a new trade-in program.

We all know it only takes one person to make a difference. That’s why many sustainability organizations today are helping individuals get green. By joining a green organization your joining a community of like minded individuals focused on making a difference. These associations will give you the tools, contacts, and resources to help you really take charge of your sustainability efforts. The following are seven associations that you can join to get active with the green community.

I have often struggled with the question of social sustainability in the IT industry.  We can work diligently to reduce the environmental impact of the equipment and electricity we use in IT and we can measure this impact in CO2 emission reductions, kWh and against best practices.  In the area or social sustainability, it is much more difficult to see the impact.  We can make sure that we are purchasing equipment from responsible manufacturers who are not polluting water sources where they operate, we can look at the social impact of technology such as web 2.0 and the buildin

The data centre is quickly being recognized as a problem area for IT departments’ sustainability plans. To combat this, many tools and tips are cropping up to help create a greener data centre. One recent article, Six Tips for Green (and Greenwash-Free) Data Center Storage, details how you can create a more sustainable data centre. The following are the six guidelines summarized:

A new online tool is helping overcome the data center’s energy zapping ways. The Green Grid, a global consortium of IT professionals, is helping organizations with their sustainability efforts by offering a free cooling tool.

An old technology is getting a green facelift. Solid Ink is a Xerox printing technology, whereby solidified ink blocks are melted, producing high-quality print results with vibrant colour. Although this technology has been available for years, a new multi-functional printer (MFP) for the office now offers more environmentally-friendly features. 

An old technology is getting a green facelift. Solid Ink is a Xerox printing technology, whereby solidified ink blocks are melted, producing high-quality print results with vibrant colour. Although this technology has been available for years, a new multi-functional printer (MFP) for the office now offers more environmentally-friendly features.

With the dawning of corporate social responsibility, CIOs have the opportunity to use green IT initiatives to move their business ahead of the competition. At the intersection of information technology management and sustainability, there is a significant opportunity to not only reduce operational costs but also to improve operations and gain an edge in the public eye.

You don’t have to be Google, with your own hydroelectric dam, to reap the benefits of a green IT program. A recent case study from the Royal BC Museum Corporation, based on the museum’s 200 employee workstations, showed remarkable potential to cut costs.

Consider a few of these statistics: green IT reduces businesses’ energy costs by 15%, on average, reduces operating costs by increasing efficiency, increases employee and customer loyalty and helps organizations to be sustainable through technical solutions.
 

Whether you have a green IT program or you're thinking about implementing one, a baseline of your current IT operations is critical to your success. Yet, many companies are skipping the assessment process.

The most important thing to remember when you are promoting your environmental efforts is to be honest. Be transparent about where you are in the process of greening your product. Talk about your diligent research, your goals and the current steps you are taking. Don’t be tempted to announce your product is suddenly ‘green’ when in fact you have a ways to go.

Upper management’s approval? Check. Green IT baseline? Check. Green IT strategy? Check. Engaged employees? Not quite.

This is the scenario of many organizations implementing green IT programs. Employee engagement is one of the most critical components to your organization’s green IT program but it’s often overlooked.

"EPEAT registry of leading green IT products expanded to cover 40 countries

Firms looking to purchase equipment should find it easier to identify the most environmentally friendly models from this week, following the global launch of the US-based Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT).

Finally we are starting to see the fun side of green IT - widgets and applications that bring a sense of play, innovation and fun to reducing our impact.  A UK-based computer manufacturer, VeryPC, has launched webcam application called PecoBOO (with an emphasis on the 'eco').  The app uses the webcam and facial recognition to determine whether or not you are sitting at your computer. Similar to activity monitors, the computer goes into standby mode after 15 minutes of not seeing you there.

"ZURICH, CH -- IBM today unveiled a new, first-of-its-kind high-performance computer (HPC) that will use water for cooling, as a way of cutting energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from data centers.

This article describes the technologies that are now available to support green IT initiatiaves.  Now we must work on management practises and behaviors in the work place.

With more news of green IT on-line calculators and free tools, we thought we would bring them all together here for you to check out.  This is a list of seven tools that we have found useful in getting green IT conversations started within organizations.  We've included two categories: (1) Power Management Tools and (2) Green IT Calculators. 

We are always interested to here how other organizations have used the resources we recommend. Please post comments below if you have used any of these tools and what you thought about the results.

According to Gartner's latest webinar on technology trends, "Technology trends you can't afford to ignore", green IT is something you should already be doing. The webinar presents the top 10 trends that organizations must consider over the next several years, and green IT appears in many of the trends listed as well as being a trend in its own right.

One of my favourite websites to watch is EnviroGadget - seeing new messages in the RSS feed for this site always means they have some new and funky environmentally friendly gagdet.  Today Dan, the primary writer for EnviroGagdet, puts on his researchers hat and pulls together the most interesting and important to know facts about batteries.  Check out his article here and sign up for the newsletter or feeds - you won't

Victoria, BC –Green IT Tools environmental efforts may be worthy of gold. The company is a finalist in the VIATeC Technology Awards “Environmental Excellence” category.

Motivated by the fact that information technology accounts for roughly two per cent of the world's carbon emissions each year, Green IT Tools provides all sizes of businesses with the knowledge and tools they require to reduce the impact of their IT operations.

A Fujitsu study of 310 CIOs in Australia reports that IT departments are waiting for enterprise-wide 'green' policies to be set before embarking on projects within IT.  Although some projects like virtualization or power management may be initiated for the cost saving benefits - these have not been supported by an overall strategy for green IT.

1. Use EPEAT when purchasing new desktops, laptops and monitors
EPEAT (the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) will help you to choose the most environmentally respectful electronic products on the market.  More than 1000 products are registered and aren’t harder on the budget.

Reports swirled around the last release of the Greenpeace Gude to Greener Electronics (version 10) that the rating of Apple was purposefully low in order to spur action.  If those reports were true, according to the latest Guide to Green Electronics (version 11) which was released on March 31st, it worked.  Apple has improved.

Victoria, BC – The green IT industry is coming together in San Francisco next week and Green IT Tools is proud to sponsor the event.

Green:Net 09 is being billed as "The First Green Conference for the Internet Technology Industry." The conference features an impressive roster of speakers and attendees and promises to show attendees how the tools created in the Internet, computing and IT revolutions will be crucial for fighting climate change. The sold-out event is a must-attend for business leaders and green IT specialists.

Victoria, BC – Terrabytes Consulting, operator of Green IT Tools, and Seattle-based IT services provider X-BAR are hosting two joint webinars addressing green information technology.

1.  "The State of Green Business 2009: Information Technology Plugs into Green", by Joel Makower, GreenBiz.com

"The greening of IT has become a huge business opportunity, as companies find ways to consolidate and optimize operations in ways that provide multiple benefits: lower energy use,equipment costs, real estate, and personnel -- all while maintaining or growing their data processing and storage capacity. "

The truth about many vaunted green IT initiatives is that they're just ROI-based business decisions wrapped in environmentally friendly packaging. With the power used by data centers doubling over the past five years and the national average rate for electricity jumping 44% since 2004, for example, it's no mystery why more efficient data centers are all the rage. But as the economy continues to slow down, will initiatives that focus on the broader environment and cost a bit--or a lot--more be slashed, regardless of their positive impact on the planet?

To be honest, there was a real lack of interesting Green IT articles over the past two weeks.  While I usually compile the most interesting articles each week, last week was particularly slow so I decided to wait another week and see how it went.  Again not much luck but here is what I found.

This week my colleague Benjamin Privitt and I had the opportunity to chat with David Marks, the co-founder and principal engineer at TEECOM Design Group. We spoke about the significant opportunities for efficiency in designing IT systems. David's passion for ensuring that clients needs are best served by the most efficient technology infrastructure and solutions almost always saves money and is undoubtedly good for the environment in the long term.

As a facility manager looking to present an economically viable power management solution to your director, you might find yourself tempted to try free power management software. Instituting power management in the home can be done efficiently with one of a few free (generally open source) programs on the market. However, used over an extensive network of machines, the free software solutions won’t have the same enterprise capabilities that many commercial solutions on the market have. IT managers can benefit most from one of these enterprise packages.

Because power management starts in the office, data center or computer lab, facility managers must work with IT managers to decide on a beneficial solution for both parties. The facility team might want to develop a solution that limits the time frame machines are powered-on; on the flipside, the IT team might be more concerned about finding a solution that doesn’t impede the normal functionality of workstations for users and IT staff. The facility manager should be aware of potential conflicts between power management and office practicality.

We’ve discussed how power management works in theory, but we haven’t seen much hard evidence. Let’s take a look at the effectiveness of power management in the workplace as demonstrated by some notable success stories.

Faronics and the Coeur D’Alene School District

The significant theme for this week was growing awareness, confusion and rigor around the opportunities and impacts in technology.  This week's green technology news was dominated by a report that a Google search has bigger climate impact than drinking a cup of tea and the ensuing debate and clarifications to the story throughout the week.  While there were many, many stories and we found the "discussion" facinating, we still only dedicate two of this weeks top stories to this particular topic.  We also found articles raising the issue of consumer confusion over &qu

With the slowing economy, cost trends are demonstrating the strain wasted electricity through excess heat and unused, powered-on equipment can put on companies. Even as early as 2006, the price of commercial electricity rose to 9.5 cents per kWh. Breaking it down further, the price of coal – which makes up 56 percent of fuel used to generate electricity – continues to move upwards, while we have seen oil rising to staggering highs over 2008.

With increasing pressure from consumers and government to focus on green computing, upper management turns to facility managers and IT managers to apply power management solutions. Beyond environmental benefits, green computing – specifically in the realm of power management – is a powerful money-saving technique that often puts facility and IT managers at odds over implementation processes.

Potential in Power Management

This week we found articles on how both solution providers and organizations can and are capitalizing on the savings and efficiency benefits Green IT can provide.   We expect to see more and more articles like these describing case studies and massive PR campaigns as the Green IT industry ramps up.  We also saw an article discussing the challenges in measuring and declaring carbon neutrality.  To round out the top articles we included a very interesting look at the technology of the future that will make our hardware more effecient and less toxic.

In the usual holiday season fashion, most bloggers and news sites like to post "Top News Items for 2008" and "Top 10 Reasons For...".  So for my first edition of the best articles for 2009, I am focusing on picking the most informative of the "Top" articles.

Many experts (myself included) have cautioned against a wholesale upgrade of old inefficient equipment if a simple memory upgrade can make the equipment last longer.  The reason for this caution is to recognize that computers and related components have a much larger impact on the environment than just the energy consumption during the time it sits on your desk.  Computers have a significant environmental impact starting with extraction of materials for inputs to the manufacturing, packaging and shipping to end user, energy consumption during use and then ending with disposal and recycling.

This week we found articles reconfirming the financial savings of green IT practises in data centres as well as a challenge to the readiness of cloud computing.  We also found an article discussing the use of wikis in corporate environments and the launch of two new certifications - one for e-waste and one for managed service providers. 

You may be wondering why we encourage organizations to complete a Green IT Assessment before implementing any changes in your organization.  I'll share the rationale here and explain the benefits of completing a Green IT Assessment as the first step after setting out a project charter.

There are four main reasons - an assessment will: (1) identify information sources and gaps, (2) identify performance metrics, (3) set a baseline for reporting results and (4) set expectations and quantify the importance to your business.

This week there has been a significant focus on e-waste and the environmental impact of manufacturing.  Significant reports on Chinese e-products manufacturing sector and the Greenpeace ranking for electronics manufacturers were released this week.  Across all articles there was a theme of calling for more action from electronics vendors.

Last week there was a focus on the impact that Green IT can have in the global climate crisis abatement strategies, political discussions on government actions as well as Gartner sharing data center best practises.  On the social side of things, FastCompany discusses a 'people-powered Internet".  These were our favourite articles and resources.

I recently had the privelege of attending a forum where Bob Willard of Sustainability Advantage gave the keynote address.  This is the second time I have had the opportunity to hear Mr. Willard speak and he certainly has gift for simplifying the business case for sustainability.  I have also referenced his books The Sustainability Advantage and The Next Sustainability Wave in many writings.  Along with his ability to simplify and quantify the business of sustainability, Mr. Willard also has a sense of humor. 

'Virtualization’ is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources (1). Virtualization, also sometimes referred to as server consolidation, is the concept of one physical computer servicing several applications and allowing each to use the same underlying hardware without interference with one another. Virtualization allows for different applications to have sufficient hardware resources - central processor units, memory and I/O, the essential physical resources to run an application.

GreenITTools.com, a Green Information Technology information portal, proudly announces the launch of the new GreenITTools.com community website. GreenITTools.com provides products and services (through Terrabytes Consulting) to help IT organizations reduce environmental impact, save money and simplify operations while doing so.

Green IT Tools.com is pleased to announced two interactive webinars focusing first on getting up to speed with Green IT and then the practical steps to assess your organization's IT impact.  We will help you to create a strategy to "Green Your IT".  The webinars will take place on November 27, 2008 at 1pm EST (10am PST) and December 4, 2008.

Webinar Description - Introduction to Green IT - November 27, 2008

We are proud to announce the release of Version 4.0 based on the feedback and suggestions we collected during the month of September.  Thank you very much to all the past and new clients who took on the challenge of providing feedback to make a better product.

GreenITTools.com Team

In this article, we describe the high-level business case for sustainability initiatives and then discuss the opportunities for IT to contribute to sustainability initiatives and to the bottom line.

We have all seen the various energy conserving techniques proliferate on our home and business personal computers, such as the power management policies for our hard drive, monitor and system. But what about supercomputers, are they immune from this same energy efficiency future we have been headed toward? Don’t supercomputers use an enormous amount of power and incur significant cooling costs? Well, there is growing evidence that energy efficiency of supercomputers is now a growing IT issue and gaining international attention.

The field of sustainability is new to business in general and even newer for IT departments. Best practices and standards are still in the earliest stages of development. Some emerging standards and initiatives are described below. We anticipate there will be many more developments in the next 6 months.

In a recent article titled "Is Green IT Your Emporor With No Clothes", Forrester associate Doug Washburn posits that "technology is not green and never will be."  Washburn adds that although the technology itself is not green, enterprises have much to gain from greening initiatives including financial and environmental performance improvments.

GreenITTools.com is seeking IT and sustainability professionals to provide input into the next version of the Green IT Guide and the Green IT Guide and Toolkit!  We believe the best knowledge comes from the community of practise and we would like to have your input on how to make our Green IT products better!  Let us know what to add, subtract, enhance, or revamp and receive a free copy of the new version!

Green IT Tools.com and Strategic Sustainability Consulting are pleased to announced an an interactive webinar focusing on the practical steps to assess your organization's IT impact and create a strategy to "Green Your IT".  The webinar will take place on September 11, 2008 at 1pm EST (10am PST).

Register on-line through Strategic Sustainability Consulting.

Webinar Description

An article published earlier this year titled "Green carrots needed for IT chiefs" by Tim Ferguson on silicon.com has raised the issue of IT department's not being fiscally responsible for the energy consumption of their equipment.  We often come across the complaint from facility managers that IT managers are not motivated to implement energy saving programs because it does not affect their budget positively (generally there is a cost and the benefits are gained by another department).  The article points to a survey completed by Quocirca that found "less than one

While it sounds like common sense to recycle hardware, what is not commonly known is that some recyclers do not actually recycle the materials, and a significant amount of waste is shipped to countries like India and China where components can be extracted at a lower cost.  Environmental laws in these countries, although relatively strict, are often not enforced in rural areas where this processing often occurs.

On July 15, 2008, IDC, an IT research organization, release the criteria and the first 5 organizations to be certified under their new asset recovery  certification program.  Dell, HP, IBM, Intechra and Redemtech were the first U.S. companies to receive the seal of approval under the guidelines IDC has developed.

Have you ever wondered what goes into the development of the ENERGY STAR specifications and when the specifications change?  We did, so we did some research and here's what we found.

Today we have launched our brand new website complete with a slightly updated version of the Green IT Guide.  The updated version has been provided to all customers who purchased version 3.1 as it includes some useful information and does not constitute a full release.

We look forward to hearing your feedback on our new site!

GreenITTools.com Team

Xerox has released an interesting new calculator to assist customers with calculating possible improvements by optimizing an organization's printing solutions.  Xerox sales representatives are armed with a powerful calculator to assist clients but they have also posted a paired down version on their website for anyone to use.  

Small businesses have a somewhat different business case for sustainability initiatives in general and green IT is no exception.  Small businesses have a unique set of challenges and opportunities that can actually make the transition to sustainability much quicker.

For smaller businesses there are two special considerations when looking at sustainability initiatives; cash flow and flexibility.

GreenITTools.com is proud to announce the release of Green IT Guide and Toolkit Version 3.0.  Many sections of the Guide have been updated with current information.  In addition the information provided in the many white papers that are part of the toolkit (and posted in the Articles section of the website) have been updated.

A few formulas have been fixed in the workbooks and we have tidied up some of the wording.

We have also added a second version of the Performance workbook specifically for our British customers that uses pound symbols instead of dollar signs.

Responsible purchasing policies are an excellent way for organizations to begin their Green IT efforts.  For example a company practicing responsible purchasing policies set out a comprehensive set of measures that include criteria for purchasing decisions other than price such as whether or not the equipment meets emerging voluntary environmental standards and Energy Star ratings, the manufacturer’s performance in social responsibility, and waste and disposal services provided.  The EPEAT standard (discussed in

Green IT initiatives for the IT department can be organized into four major categories; policies and performance reporting, energy consumption, strategic asset management and green business support.  Each of these is discussed below with examples.