How to make your IT greener

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 15 November 2007 08:48

Your IT - Home IT

UK based alternative energy consultancy, CarbonFree, has released a report highlighting the challenges facing the IT industry as the focus shifts from the sheer processing power of IT equipment to the amount of energy consumed by data centres and networked PCs. According to CarbonFree, "Until recently the energy used by IT equipment has only been of minor importance to computer manufacturers and PC users. However...the recent rise in oil and gas prices, combined with the explosion in the use of information technology in both the home and workplace, has focused attention on the energy required to process and store the megabytes of data we create and access each day."

The free report, "Low Emission IT - The Internet Meets the Oil Crisis",   identifies challenges facing the IT industry. It argues that:  "One of these challenges is the steep learning curve IT managers have found themselves on as they get to grips with an array of initiatives and emission reduction schemes, as well as the new efficient technologies that vendors are bringing to the market."

According to Remi Wilkinson, analyst with CarbonFree, both manufacturers and users of IT are faced with a bewildering array of energy management technology and emission reduction schemes and initiatives. "While manufacturers are obviously interested in selling more equipment, and some are using the eco-badge to do this, there are a number of ways companies can reduce the energy requirements of their IT systems without investing in new equipment. This is very important at the moment as the current oil price spike has coincided with a credit crunch that could make it difficult to finance a complete upgrade of a corporate IT system."