Green IT : Future of IT will be green alternatives

A consumer handbook on how individuals and families can reduce their carbon footprint and monthly outgoings has been published by WWF. The WWF Pocket Guide to a One Planet Lifestyle contains top tips on how to be more environmentally-friendly in the home, the workplace and when planning a holiday.

The booklet’s publication follows the recent launch by WWF of their “Living Planet Report” which warned that humanity was heading towards an “ecological credit crunch”. It revealed that we currently use 30 per cent more resources than the planet’s ecosystems can naturally replenish. If everyone on earth had the same lifestyle as an average North American, we would need five planets to meet the demands for energy and resources. Europeans have a “three planet lifestyle”.

The One Planet Lifestyle guide also attempts to set a new standard in sustainable publishing. Available primarily as an online e-book, the printed version is produced digitally on-demand on FSC certified paper and bound by screw rivets so that readers can easily unbind the book and insert updates, thus avoiding the need for printing new editions. The paper size has been chosen to reduce wastage to virtually zero, and only uses non-hazardous inks.

WWF has researched a series of “Ten Top Tips” of how we can reduce the ecological footprint of our homes, eating habits and methods of travel. These are coupled with tools to help us measure our footprint, and reduce and neutralise CO2 emissions. There are model “sustainability plans” for companies to put into practice.

Please follow the link below to know more:

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/policy/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=151361

Major debates are on to find solutions to the increasing effects of Global Warming. Studies show that there is no time left to start moving to alternatives if Planet Earth is to be saved from the effects of Global Warming.

Right from Floods and Natural Calamities to rising temperatures all are consequences of this phenomenon.

The amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is a major contributor to Green House effect.

So what is Green House effect?

Water vapour, carbon-dioxide and methane form a natural blanket of air around the Earth. However, the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation has led to a massive increase in the amount of carbon-dioxide released into the atmosphere. We are also releasing larger quantities of other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide. The surface of the earth is heated by the sun. As it warms up, it reflects heat back into the atmosphere. About 70% of the sun’s energy is radiated back into space. But some of the infrared radiation is trapped by greenhouse gases, which warm the atmosphere, and reflect heat back down to Earth.
As a result of the greenhouse effect, the Earth is kept warm enough to make life possible. But some scientists say that increased emissions of greenhouse gases are disturbing the balance of this complex system, causing global warming. In the last 100 years, the average global temperature has increased by about 0.4 to 0.8° C.

Consequences :

Right from Floods and Droughts this will lead to rising temperatures due to which glaciers will melt and subsequently continents will start sinking.

Saving Earth :

Numerous debates are beng done and efforts are being made to switch to alternative sources of energy so that harmful gases such as Carbon Dioxide can be prevented.
Its neccessary on every nations part to come up with innovative solutions to handle this problem.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is known for its inspections of nuclear facilities around the world. But it’s quite surprising to learn that the IAEA is collaborating with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to apply nuclear science to food security. ‘IAEA scientists use radiation to produce improved high-yielding plants that adapt to harsh climate conditions such as drought or flood, or that are resistant to certain diseases and insect pests.’ This mutation induction technique has been used for a number of years — even if I’m discovering this today. More than 3,000 crop varieties of some 170 different plant species have been released through the direct intervention of the IAEA, from rice to barley, and from bananas to grapefruits. But read more on this at :

Nuclear technology to beat world hunger?

Printed materials weigh a lot. From books to corporate brochures, these bulky materials are costly to ship and costly for the environment in terms of emissions from the planes, trains and trucks that transport them.

Normally, books are printed in one place, shipped worldwide to distributors and then forwarded to booksellers, each step of which can significantly contribute to the total volume of greenhouse gases an organization or company emits.

That opens a niche for what some organizations and entrepreneurs are calling “green” publishing — using technology to print these materials on-site rather than burn money and fuel on shipping.

(Newspapers like the International Herald Tribune, owned by The New York Times Company, already use information technology to print hundreds of thousands of copies sent by satellite to dozens of print sites around the world every day.)

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a think tank for industrialized countries, “green” publishing is particularly appropriate for readers and customers in far-flung global markets.

Fittingly, starting on Tuesday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris will be printing and selling its latest primer on sustainable development, “O.E.C.D. Insights: Sustainable Development,” at a bookstore in Australia on a device called the Espresso Book Machine.

The machines also will be used to print the book, which aims to outline ways countries can promote sustainable economic growth, as needed at locations in the United States, Canada, Britain and Egypt.

The O.E.C.D. says that by using the machine – which prints books on demand complete with color cover in a few minutes – will be practicing what it preaches: Each of the books printed and sold through the Angus & Robertson bookshop in Melbourne will save 5.8 kilograms in carbon emissions, the agency calculates.

“Using this approach, publishing can become a ‘just-in-time’ business that is both economically more efficient and friendlier to the environment,” said Toby Green, the head of publishing at the O.E.C.D.

But like so much that is leaner and greener, the initiative comes at a cost.

The Espresso Book Machine, made by a company called On Demand Books, costs about $100,000 for a single unit. Still, On Demand Books says the concept of what it calls an “ATM for books” has a bright future and that it already has printed, bound and automatically trimmed thousands of “library-quality perfect-bound” books in sites across the world.

(That would include the New York Public Library, which began experimenting with an E.B.M. unit in the summer of 2007.)

Mr. Green of the O.E.C.D. said bookstores and libraries around the world either lease or buy the machines from On Demand Books. He said revenue from printing the book on sustainable development would be split in roughly three ways, between the bookstore and On Demand Books and with a royalty for the O.E.C.D.

The biggest changes to shake up architecture in a long time may have their origins in the very, very small. Nanotechnology, the understanding and control of matter at a scale of one- to one hundred-billionths of a meter, is bringing incredible changes to the materials and processes of building. How ready we are to embrace them could make a big difference in the future of architectural practice. Read the full article on nanotechnology in architecture by GTF director George Elvin in Architect magazine :

http://www.architectmagazine.com/industry-news.asp?sectionID=1006&articleID=492836&artnum=1

Last year, Steve Jobs promised that Apple work work toward less toxic, easier-to-recycle consumer products. So how do the new iPod Nanos measure up?

It came as no surprise to the consumer electronic press that Apple introduced a sleek new line of iPod Nanos at its “Let’s Rock” media event Tuesday afternoon. The Nano media players was a bit overdue for a refresh, and it’s the time of year when companies look ahead to the Christmas retail season.

But the attention given during Steve Jobs’ presentation to the environmental improvements to the 4th generation Nanos underlines how seriously the company takes improving its Green cred. That’s a tough sell for the electronics industry. Those cute little entertainment devices and wireless phones we carry around punch beyond their weight in terms of materials you’d rather not see getting back into our soil and drinking water: Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), and a variety of exotic metals used in semiconductors.

Green My Apple :

Apple’s environmental policies began drawing fire a couple years back when Greenpeace mounted its Green My Apple website. The campaign highlighted Apple’s lack of leadership in Green electronics — something you wouldn’t expect from a commercial concern so geared to artsy, socially aware consumers.

We love Apple. Apple knows more about “clean” design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have abandoned? A cutting edge company shouldn’t be cutting lives short by exposing children in China and India to dangerous chemicals. That’s why we Apple fans need to demand a new, cool product: a greener Apple.

– From the Green My Apple website

Apple responds

In the spring of 2007, Apple responded with a five-page environmental statement called a Greener Apple. While pointing out that the company had, indeed, been making progress, Company CEO Steve Jobs laid out an aggressive program to reduce product toxicity and improve recyclability by 2010.

Specifically targeted: reducing lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and PVCs in computers and home entertainment components. Apple has also been giving some thought to its packaging, opting for biodegradable materials and reducing unnecessary bulk wherever possible. This summer’s 3G iPhones shipped in Styrofoam-free trays made from potato starch.

Greener Nanos

At today’s Apple event — staged to introduce a general overhaul of the company’s iPod line and announce the availability of iTunes 8 — Jobs took a few minutes to highlight some of the environmental improvements to the new Nano line. They include:

Arsenic-free display glass
Construction free of Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs)
No use of mercury
No use of PVCs
Highly recyclable metal casings
These moves are consistent with Apple’s promise to green its products as suitable eco-friendly materials and technologies become available. Of course, dedicated Greenies will resist impulse purchases of manufactured goods, particularly those manufactured and shipped from overseas. But for most consumers, programs such as Apple’s represent a growing trend by companies to respect consumer desire for cleaner, less toxic products.

The new Nanos are priced at $149 for 8 GB storage and $199 for 16 GB. Featuring nine colors, an improved video display, and the addition of the motion-sensing accelerometer first introduced in Apple’s popular iPhone, they’re already onsale at the Apple Store. Retail outlets should stocked by this weekend.

Information Technology is a sector that is contributing not only in the automation of all processes but also in making life easier and effortless. But in achieving this the IT firms are facing issues when it comes to making the process Eco Friendly.

Context of Green IT: The Information Technology industry is responsible for greater than 2% of global CO² emissions, most resulting from the power consumption of PCs, servers and cooling systems. Most of the IT industry stakeholders are looking at devising their own green strategies, and are zeroing in on innovative measures to achieve their objectives.Green IT starts with manufacturers producing environmentally friendly products and encouraging IT departments to consider more friendly options like virtualization, power management and proper recycling habits.

What is Green IT? “Green IT” is an important agenda that most of the IT industry must deal with. Government organizations are more directly challenged because they play key roles in regulating and supervising environmental impact and because green IT will become more politically sensitive going forward. Green IT has three dimensions that one has to consider before embarking on crafting out a Green IT strategy,
A) Meeting regulatory needs

B) Reduce CO² emissions as a social responsibility

C) Adopting and promoting Green policies.

What organizations can do about Green IT?Greener business and healthier bottom line is what every company aspire for. Organizations can take numerous Green IT initiatives to help address their environmental responsibilities whilst maintaining or improving costs and service levels.

IT Related iniatitives

A) Greener Data Centres that ensure lesser emission and

smarter cooling

B) Better and smarter cooling systems for machine and people

C) Usage of tight policies on screen saver, shut desktops after

office hours

D) Usage of Grid computing, virtualization and KVM

E) Architect an application or hardware with Conscience

F) Use of technology to stitch the gap for communication and transport department thus enabling smarter utilization of company provided transport. Other areas are in the space of Building Automation Systems (BAS) which controls the lighting and temperature of the facilities.

G) Convergence of IT systems thus enabling lesser space utilization per person, thus bring down the overall area per square feet requirment per employee.

HR Related iniatitives

A) Introduce Work from home option where ever possible

B) Move to complete paperless office

C) Introducing CO² burn points against each BU/LOB

D) Creating Green policies that would be part of G&O of individuals

Enterprise Related iniatitives

A) Greener buildings

B) Use natural light and Change all light bulbs into CFL

C) Smarter options of landscaping the office premise

D) Telecommute instead of air travel

E) Use the power of Sun to fuel the energy requirements

F) Sensible ways to dispose e-waste

G) Ensuring no plastic bags are used for any product that is sold by the corporate

Conclusion: India has several large companies that has ingredients which can make it successful in the alternative energy area: availability of natural resources, cost-effective engineering and manufacturing talent. It also has the will to identify green iniatiatives. Its important that these iniatiatives have clear agenda in each sphere of the organization. This topic clearly identifies the IT side of the story.

If we were to go back to our early adaptor of green buildings, Emperor Shahjahan and if he were alive today, surely he could have gone in for a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for the Taj Mahal and his other magnificent buildings and palaces. In fact, he could have earned quite a few million dollars through the CERs gained (much like Olympia Technology Park). The money earned could have easily gone in to finance the Black Taj Mahal that he wished to make. And we would have one more magnificent edifice that we could admire and pride on.

One of the major concerns of all the nations today is how to reduce global warming and how to find alternatives to current energy sources. The problem is that most of the available energy resource will hardly last and hence the future belongs to those who can find energy alternatives.

Information Technology has seen a major rise in the last decade and as some of the major IT firms worldwide are also having concerns about cheaper and environment friendly alternatives which can not only save the planet earth but could lead to Eco Friendly operations.

Its here largely that Green IT becomes talk of the Industry with major Investments being made in this sector.

Remember Y2K? That was the “millennium bug,” the software glitch that threatened to melt down millions of computers when their internal clocks tried to roll over on Jan. 1, 2000, because they were not designed to handle that new date.

And remember that the only country that had enough software programmers to adjust all these computers so they wouldn’t go haywire, and do it at a reasonable price, was India. And remember that it was this huge operation that launched the Indian outsourcing industry — which is why I have long felt that Y2K should be a national holiday in India.

Well, remember this: there is an even bigger opportunity for India than Y2K waiting around the corner. I call it “E2K.”
E2K stands, in my mind, for all the energy programming and monitoring that thousands of global companies are going to be undertaking in the early 21st century to either become carbon neutral or far more energy efficient than they are today. India is poised to get a lot of this work.
I first started thinking about this when I heard Michael Dell declare that Dell Inc. would become “carbon neutral” in its operations by the end of 2008. He said Dell would take inventory of its total greenhouse gas outputs and then develop plans to reduce, eliminate or offset those emissions.

With a carbon tax or cap-and-trade legislation looming, every day you are going to see more and more companies doing the same thing. It is going to be the next big global business transformation. And it’s going to require tons of software, programming and back-room management to measure each company’s carbon footprint and then monitor the various emissions-reduction and offsetting measures on an ongoing basis. Guess who’s got the low-cost brainpower to do all that?
Some of the smartest Indian outsourcing companies are already positioning themselves for the E2K market.
“What did Y2K do?” asked Nandan Nilekani, the co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, one of India’s premier outsourcing companies. “It was a deadline imposed by the calendar, and therefore it had a huge ability to concentrate the mind. It became a drop-dead date for everyone. Making your company carbon neutral is not a date, but it is an inevitability.”

When Y2K came along, some companies responded tactically, doing only the minimum reprogramming to keep their computers operational after Jan. 1, 2000. Others approached it more strategically, saying: “Since we’re going to have to go through all our software anyway, why not just retire all the old stuff and upgrade to the newer, simpler systems that will make us more efficient.”

These companies went from seeing I.T., or information technology, as a cost to looking for ways to make money from it — through data mining and using better information to cross-sell products, reduce cycle times for introducing new services and to manage inventories more efficiently.
The key to winning E2K business for the Indian outsourcing firms, said Mr. Nilekani, will be showing big global companies, like a Dell, how becoming more energy efficient or carbon neutral doesn’t just have to be a new cost they assume to improve their brand or satisfy regulators, but can actually be a strategic move that makes money and gives them an edge on the competition.

“The strategic companies will say: ‘We are stuck with this problem — why not take advantage of it and use it to revolutionize and rejigger our whole energy infrastructure,’ ” added Mr. Nilekani. They will use E.T. — energy technology — “to reduce material costs, simplify logistics, drive down electricity charges and shorten supply chains.”

As they start to do this, it will require a lot of data management, which companies will want to do as cheaply as possible. Hello India. Hello E2K.
“My impression is that there is certainly a significant opportunity for Indian outsourcing companies,” said B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services, another top Indian outsourcing company, adding that the precise size of that business will depend on “the speed and scale at which the carbon neutral policies are adopted by the global companies.”

To better compete for such business, Mr. Nilekani is installing solar systems and other efficiency technologies at Infosys’s Bangalore campus. Satyam is planning to do similar things with its verdant Hyderabad complex, which already has its own zoo.

I.B.M. seems to be moving into this space, too. Big Blue knows that even if Indian companies do a lot of the back-room work, there will be lots of front-end jobs nearer the customers.
So, mom, dad, tell your kids: if they’re looking for a good stable-growth career — green consultants, green designers, green builders are all going to be in huge demand. And if they can speak a little Hindi — all the better.