How green is my Valley?

With hot button environmental issues like global warming increasing green sensitivity on the street, closer attention is being paid to the traditional policies and practices of the IT and telecoms industries as calls for reform get louder. ~ ~ A Forrester Research survey of 124 companies and professionals in North America and Europe has found that while 85 per cent say environmental factors are important in planning IT operations, only 25 per cent consider green issues in regard to their purchasing processes. And most large companies have no such policies or standards in spite of growing awareness that environmental concerns will impact their future IT operations.~ ~ Christopher Mines, a senior vice president at Forrester Research says, “We heard two reasons why green matters: efficiency and corporate responsibility. Most IT decision-makers told us that a green purchase would only happen in the context of cost reduction. These are hard-headed, ROI-driven business decisions.”~ ~ However, leading technology vendors are now beginning to employ methods to reduce their environmental footprint, devoting resources to green programmes such as building servers that are more energy efficient, run cooler and are cleaner to manufacture and to recycle.~ ~ There is also a new US non-profit group, called the “The Green Grid”, dedicated to “advancing energy efficiency in data centres and computing ecosystems.” The Green Grid recently held a first-of-its-kind “green technical summit” in Denver, Colorado. The conference, heralding the formal launch of the organisation, produced detailed technical objectives and green programme plans for the rest of the year.~ ~ The conference agenda addressed three key areas: definition and measurement of data centre efficiency, guidance for data centre owners and managers making decisions pertaining to data centre architecture and planning, and guidance for data centre owners and managers looking to improve energy efficiency during day-to-day operations.~ ~ Despite the hippie–ish name, The Green Grid is no flaky tree-hugger outfit.