50% pain and 50% opportunity…
I am currently participating on the 2-day OECD conference on how ICT can improve the environmental performance and mitigate climate change in all sectors of the economy. Around 230 high-level experts and government representatives have gathered to develop some solutions. Some of the highlights as I see it has been the emphasis on the need for investment in education and R&D regarding Green IT – both to reduce the environmental impact of ICT and using ICT reduce other kinds of environmental impact. “The global economic crisis is 50 % pain and 50 % opportunity”, said Esko Aho, former prime minister of Finland who lead the country through a similar local crisis.
Another interesting point made by Marcus Courtney from Union Network International was that a significant part of the problem is that 75 % of all ICT equipment manufacturing is outsourced to low cost countries where there is less control with environmental factors and labor rights. We need producers who can guarantee and document that they meet both environmental and labor right standards.
When it comes to the use eCollaboration tools for travel reduction, Jeanette M. Wing from the US National Science Foundation, was not impressed how this technology has evolved. As a professional researcher she expected this technology to be much better by now. Talking with her afterwards she made a point out of that several criteria must be evaluated when choosing such systems. In my own view there seems to be certain criteria that will be mostly helpful for users to find good eCollaboration systems. These critieria include sound and picture quality as well as synchronization and increased user friendliness of such products.
The discussion continues tomorrow and I’ll be back to share more impressions with you then, so stay tuned.
Erich Must Wessel
Blogger for TCO Development
Helsingör, Denmark
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