Tags: Green IT, IT products, LCD display, USA
The annual “meeting of the minds” in the display industry will meet next week to discuss industry trends, analyze market opportunities and forecast the future of the display and TV business around the world. The annual Display Search US Flat Panel Display Conference offers manufacturers, channel partners and industry analysts the chance to explore current and future markets for display products. TCO will be there and be assured, there will be plenty of talk about Green IT solutions. Look for my blog posts direct from the conference. For more information log onto www.displaysearch.com
Tags: Government, Green IT
I noticed this video from the Local Government Channel in the UK, with a good example of how local government is making smart choices in Green ICT and how working closely together with a vendor can streamline the process. Click here to view the video.
Tags: computer display, display, Green IT, IT products, monitor
January LCD monitor production for top PC and monitor brands about 85% of the market was 12.5 M, the highest level in more than a year, as noted in the newly announced DisplaySearch Monthly Desktop Monitor Brand and OEM Production Report. Additionally, near-term production build-plans show that March could be the highest monthly production of LCD monitors on record, reaching over 12.9M.
Read the article here
Tags: carbon footprint, CO2 emissions, energy saving, environment, Green IT, IT products, save energy, sustainability, sustainable IT
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
Tags: CES, Green IT, ICT products, USA
ust back from the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Mobility, social media and eco-friendliness were key themes among many of the product lines on show.
Of particular note was the number of tablet PCs that were creating a lot of attention – offering consumers a more powerful PC than a netbook, but more versatility than a larger sized notebook. Touch screens were also a popular trend, with some netbooks featuring multi-touch technology allowing for maximum flexibility for the user to manipulate the image on the screen. Social media applications were everywhere, with facebook- and twitter-friendly technologies gaining a lot of attention. Microsoft and HP even organized a spontaneous “Tweet and Greet” event on the show floor, relying exclusviely on the social network to spread the word and gather attendees.
Environmental features continue to be a big story in consumer electronics. Energy efficient LED backlit TVs and Notebooks are growing in poularity and several products featured motion sensor technologies that set the screen into sleep mode once the user left the room, and even a TV that can detect whether a viewer is or doing another activity, and adjusting the brightness of the TV automatically.
Overall, industry reps we talked to at CES are looking to these new technologies to help drive the economic recovery. Click here for more product reviews and news from CES.
Tags: combine usability and environmental aspects, design, environment, Green IT, sustainable IT, usability, World Usability Day
I think this heading captures the purpose of truly sustainable design and the theme for World Usability Day 2009.
Each year, World Usability Day is an opportunity to highlight achievements in user-centric design. On November 12 usability thought leaders, consumers , industry and researchers gathered at events in over 43 countries to discuss the latest innovations in usability design. Basically, the mission of the event is to “Make Life Easier”.
This year’s theme was “Designing for a Sustainable World”, and reflected the growing demand for “green” design in combination with highly functional products. In the United States, TCO Certified showcased a selection of TCO Certified notebook PCs at the event hosted by Sabre Holdings in Southlake, Texas. The event featured product exhibits, usability testing demos and a keynote presentation by renown design professor and author, Nathan Shedroff. You can view a copy of Nathan’s presentation below -a useful source for why usability and sustainability in design must go together.
Nathan’s message in short: “Don’t design things today that make tomorrow worse”
http://www.worldusabilityday.org/sites/worldusabilityday.org/themes/wud/resources/nathanshedroff.pdf
Tags: Green IT, SCP, Sustainable consumption, Sustainable production
Sustainable consumption and production, SCP, is a core theme for the United Nations and EU when working towards sustainable development. The European Commission and the European Environmental Agency (EEA) have identified the SCP priority areas which are: housing, food and drink, and mobility. These are the areas that lead to the highest environmental impacts over their full life cycle. I suppose ICT is a great enabler within these areas: smart houses, software that takes care of the energy supply system and reduces the energy use is coming are only two examples. ICT is also a great enabler for reducing the travels, but also for making us wanting to travel and see more of the world…. We should keep an eye on the ICT:s as well and make sure they follow the goals within SCP: energy efficient, as low impact as possible on the environment and of high quality which makes them last longer and want to be used longer by the end user. Also, check out TCO Development White paper on Green IT.
Tags: carbon footprint, dumping e-waste to developing countries, E-waste from USA, e-waste; Greenpeace, energy efficency, Green IT, Green IT Expo, ICT products, TCO Certified
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
Posted by Birgitta Halvarsson
Tags: display, environment, Green IT, TCO Certified Edge
OK Green IT enthusiasts, here’s a product worth noticing.
Lenovo ThinkVision L2251x Wide - World First TCO Certified Edge display
Today we’re proud to announce, together with PC maker Lenovo, the launch of the first computer monitor to achieve the groundbreaking TCO Certified Edge award for achievement in environmental and high performance design. The Lenovo ThinkVision L2251x Wide desktop computer display achieved this world first in recognition of its 65 % post consumer recycled plastic content. Including such a high percentage of post consumer plastics has long been a challenge among industry and we at TCO are thrilled to reward this cutting edge achievement. Other eco-friendly features include recycled packaging materials as well as a proximity sensor to save energy when you’re away from the computer.
TCO Certified Edge is a supplemental award open to those products that already meet the worldwide TCO Certified criteria for environment and usability in IT design. The purpose of the award is to identify leading edge products and technologies that go beyond the requirements in existing eco-labeling programs.
Check out full details and product specs in our multimedia press room or login to TCO Development’s website
Tags: Green IT, procurement, usability, verification
..and another to offer green it solutions. Since we at TCO Development started to develop our certification programme that declared greener displays with better usability we have had many contacts with public procurers and private professional purchasers. When it comes to actually purchasing a greener product it can sometimes be difficult to know whether a product really fulfils the criteria the purchasers have set up, and the vendors sometimes have difficulties translating and understand the demand and criteria set up by the purchasers. Verification and certification schemes are often of good help here. And, therefore I got very excited when I saw Consip, the Italian company working with efficiency in public administration, asking vendors to offer them 75.000 computer desktops that were according to the requirements in TCO-certified. A clear statement; this is what we want. The users should have a green desktop with proven usability qualities. Action is everything!
Also, see the cut-and-paste procurement document developed by UNEP/ICLEI: http://procureitfair.org/publications-en/Publication_2744/at_download/fullfile
