Green IT Edge » carbon footprint

Is Industry Collaboration the Future of Green IT?

Clare Hobby — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:25:54 +0000

While major electronics brands compete to develop more eco-friendly PC products, some areas of Green IT are actually shifting towards greater industry collaboration. A couple of recent stories caught my attention. Firstly, at CES I attended an Electronics Takeback roundtable, hosted by the US EPA and featuring senior environmental managers from Panasonic, Best Buy and L.G. When discussing the challenges of implementing a cohesive takeback infrastructure, industry reps agreed there is a need to work together to create a common eco-system and create efficiencies in how takeback is handled across multiple product categories.

Second, the Green Touch project was announced this week in a cross-industry effort to reduce PC processory energy use 1000-fold. In real terms, this would mean being able to run the world’s communications networks, including the internet, for nearly three years using the same amount of energy it currently uses in one day. The Green Touch project kicks off in February. More details here

Money talks when it comes to energy efficiency, but when will e-waste be on the top of the green-IT agenda?

Birgitta Halvarsson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:20:46 +0000

Report from London Green IT Expo

My colleague Susanna and I went to London Green IT Expo, which took place on November 10-11th. We had expected to see some interesting innovations and hear some good discussions regarding green IT.
To some extend our expectations were met: There were a lot about energy efficiency and efforts to increase the carbon foot print.

But there were surprisingly very little about e-waste and recycling of ICT-products at Green IT Expo.
Research director Andy Lawrence from The 451 Group, held a presentation about the coming trends within green IT for the next five years. All of the trends he presented were about energy efficiency and none about how the industry and the users should act on decreasing the problems with e-waste.
But there was one exception: Catalina McGregor from Green ICT Delivery, HM Government’s CIO/CTO Council held an interesting presentation on the topic: Dirty ICT: What it is? And How Do You Clean Up Your Act. Ms McGregor showed some videoclips from Greenpeace that illustrated the huge problems e-waste from the so called developed countries are dumping in the third world. See video from Greenpeace: one from India and one from Ghana

The messages from these films are that the best way to decrease the problems with hazardous substanses from e-waste is to don’t have these substances in the ICT products at all. TCO Certified is working in this direction by having criteria on minimized levels of hazardous substances and that the products must be repaired for recycling. The goal is to ban all hazardous substances. Another thing you can do to decreasing problems with e-waste is to buy a product with good performance that has a long life time, so you will keep your product longer.

It is definitely time for the richer countries to make some significant efforts when it comes to e-waste. In 2009 no people in the world should be exposed for hazardous and toxic substances as led, mercury and cadmium etcetera. And it is also about time that e-waste will have a bigger share of the Green IT concept.

If you would like to know more about the e-waste from USA, see this film

Who wants a high performance mobile phone designed for the environment?

Birgitta Halvarsson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:25:22 +0000

I want to minimize my carbon footprint, I don´t want to contribute to use of hazardous substances nor increase e-waste prematurely due to discarding product that doesn’t perform well. I know many others share my opinion. Nevertheless, when looking for a new mobile phone it is almost impossible to get information about the environmental aspects or how well the mobile phone communicates.

Great demand for eco-labelled mobile Phones
Why is it that manufacturers put eco labels on computer displays, TVs and printers but not on mobile phones? There is a huge demand among institutional purchasers and consumers who would like to see mobile phones with an eco label. Every week get several e-mails and phone calls from people around the world asking us at TCO Development why there are no TCO certified mobile phones, or which mobile phone can we recommend that has a minimal impact on the environment and that also has good usability.

An opportunity for mobile phones manufacurers to take the lead
If I was a marketing director at a mobile phone company and wanted to increase my market share I would definitely try to certify mobile phones according to an environmental certification program. Today this is an open window for the mobile manufacturer that truly would like to take the position as the brand to choose for green mobile phones.