Are You the Sheryl Crow of IT?
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This week, singer, environmentalist and former Lance Armstrong fiance Sheryl Crow stirred the pot, so to speak, by suggesting that we could all do our part to save the planet by using a single square of toilet paper each time we, well, you know. After much ridicule and lots of scatalogical humor, Crow came out and said she was just kidding to make a point. Jonathan Swift she's not. Anyhow, Crow did get me thinking some more about green IT, the newest catch phrase that every technology vendor under the sun now wants to be associated with. A recent slideshow produced by eWEEK Labs suggested several ways that companies can "go green," including investment in power-efficient systems and the use of DC power in the data center. Good suggestions all, but are we doing the technology equivalent of asking companies to use one square of toilet paper? A very informal poll of some of our eWEEK Corporate Partners--IT pros who help keep eWEEK edit staff focused on key business technology concerns--revealed that green IT initiatives are not at the top of their companies' priority lists. That's not to say that they aren't making changes that will result in energy savings where they can, but they aren't changing out significant parts of their infrastructure in order to go green. What's the exception and what's the rule these days? What are you doing at work or at home to help save money while saving the environment? We'd like to hear from you. |
Comments (21)
We're trading in all our PC's and servers and upgrading to Green friendly abacus's and slide rules.
Posted by Fred Farley | April 27, 2007 3:36 PM
The vast majority of the "go green" movement is based upon junk science and is largely promoted by people without a scientific background.
"Green IT" initiatives shouldn't be at the top of anyone's priority lists.
Posted by James | April 27, 2007 3:45 PM
This purported "green" movement will soon fade in the face of reality. It's a nice idea but not very practicle. If a company can get past nimby zoning laws and put solar panels or wind turbines on their property, that's well and good.
But one sheet Sheryl and her ilk are just bit disconnected from reality to begin with and anything they say should be taken with a grain of salt.
Shut up and sing.
Posted by Alan | April 27, 2007 3:56 PM
Unlike the highly competent science in blog comments like like James'?
Apparently you have not seen your datacenter's power bills, using less power is something that anyone one who has to pay bills for power will be interested in. And, you and your ostrich, neo-con friends can still ignore the all the science.
Posted by Joe | April 27, 2007 4:01 PM
From your very informal survey you say Corporate partners and IT Pros are, indeed, making changes that will result in energy savings where they can.
What's not green about that?
There are practical things that can be done, despite the claims by junk unscientists/oil salesmen and their ilk that are so disconnected from reality they can't comprehend making any changes for the better.
Posted by Shane | April 27, 2007 4:30 PM
Many companies are not actively looking to reduce their data center footprint as indeed power and cooling costs are high.
Items like virtualization, low power consumption consoles, etc, are making a dent into the problem, albeit a small one.
I find the above commenters rather amusing, like the annoying relatives who think they know it all. Pay them no mind, and eventually they fade away.
Going green should be a business driver, not an ode to "I like Cheryl Crow". Yea she's dopey, but the idealogy makes good business sense.
I would challenge that 90 percent of the companies that have enterprise data centers can reduce their footprint by at minimum 25 percent. There IS that much waste in today's data center.
Posted by Michael | April 27, 2007 4:48 PM
If your talking about saving the green as in cash, ahmen to reducing power consumption. I'm sure we would all benefit from that in business and our personal lives. As far as science, Only 1.5% of all the CO2 (The most prevelent green house gas) is caused by industry and fuel burning vehicles. It's those darn people and animals that exhale the highest percentage of it, and wow stop the volcanos will ya. Sure we contribute but unless we're willing to all wear rebreathers I don't think we can make a dent in the glacier ICE melt. I can't wait until the next Ice Age cycle starts to see how I caused that.
Posted by Dan | April 27, 2007 5:26 PM
Just wondering what the comfort level as regards the power bill these companies are willing to absorb. When the rate per kW/h of electricity becomes a serious line item in their budget, as it is or soon to be, they will all go green or layoff more IT workers to cover the cost of electricity.
Posted by Solo | April 28, 2007 12:31 PM
I think it is an insult to our collective intelligence to think that anything we do as a nation will even have any measurable impact on "so called" global warming. Let's ignore the fact that it is a proven scientific fact that a single volcanic eruption puts more greenhouse effect causing gases into the atmosphere than all of the vehicles ever created by man since the beginning of time. Forget for the moment that Al Gore, the loudest mouthed "greenie" there is has a larger "carbon footprint" than most third world countries and let ignore the fact that Al Gore thinks it acceptable to buy "indulgences" for cash that will obsolve any frivilous over use of fossil fuels and contributions to global warming. Let's forget that our congress and senators that author the "green" legislation are some of the worst offenders. 6orgetting all of that what about China and all of the ex-soviet and any of the other countrys that are just now hitting the peaks of their industrial cycles of social developments that are cranking out tons of greenhouse gases into the air? Our politicians and so-called greenies only want their fifteen minutes of fame so they can rake in the dough so they too can hit the top users and abusers lists with the largets carbon footprints. Hipocrits one and all.
Posted by XFeverMan | April 29, 2007 1:33 AM
No, it's not a top IT priority, but it's easy and painless to take some steps in IT to conserve energy. Replace incandescents with CFLs, have users turn off computers rather than logging-out, replace the few CRTs left with inexpensive LCDs, etc. If every IT department would make even these small changes, the cumulative impact would be huge.
Posted by Cameron | April 29, 2007 1:42 PM
I cannot think of a single instance when I sold an idea by insulting the reader.
Having said that, there are some compelling reasons to run IT more efficiently. Why don't we bloggers focus on that aspect of the problem and show others how to get it done and save money in the process?
Vendors of IT hardware are focusing on performance per watt. Intel is one of many good examples. A huge component of a data center's electricity cost is the environmental control of the data center. We could save electricity by finding a more efficient way to direct the cooling solution to the places that need cooling. Perhaps chilled water storage would help us defer the need for electricity-driven environmental cooling until non-peak hours.
Posted by Wisesooth | April 29, 2007 7:27 PM
As an environmentalist I find the above comments to be absolutely depressing. It's no wonder your country is not a signatory to the Kyoto accord when her citizens don't understand the problem.
Going Green isn't about stopping our use of something it's about stopping waste. My office has a recycling program, we use energy star compliant products, we have virtualized many of our servers, consolidated our servers, switched to green energy where possible (Wind Power), put in innovative cooling / heating solutions, subsidized public transit instead of parking, and a host of other things.
Best of all WE SAVED MONEY DOING THESE THINGS.
The sad thing is it's going to take a major environmental disaster before any of you will wake up to the fact that you are part of the problem and not the solution. It doesn't hurt to do your part for the planet.
Posted by Rob H | May 1, 2007 4:55 PM
The idea of useing one piece of tp to go green is rediculas,I hope she has alot of wetnaps.........lmao
Posted by Alfred Simard | May 2, 2007 7:36 AM
I'm not a big supporter of the "sky is falling" crowd but there is a simple way for many companies to reduce energy costs. At least this is applicable to where I work. Simply design the air conditioning system so as to keep equipment rooms sufficiently cool, work spaces sufficiently cool but in a way that doesnt make the worker have to have an electric heater at his or her desk to keep warm enough to work. Refrigerating a huge building to keep data centers cool isn't the smartest nor most economical answer in the world.
Posted by JoeC | May 2, 2007 10:54 AM
Be it "junk science" or not, it makes good sense to go green--in everything you do including IT. It is called being responsible to the environment. I have often wondered why a lot of this heat entergy is not "re-used"--like using the IT center as a "water heater"--or at least to susidize one. Or, use the IT center as a heater in the winter time--by redirecting a recurculating the heated air througout the entire building. Living in Arizona, I never use our heater in January. Rather, I just turn on my computers and open the door to the computer room--it keeps the house nice and warm and I am using the computers anyway, so it's not a waste of enegy.
Cooling in the summer, that's something different, but solar panels can certainly help bring down the costs over the long run.
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