Power to change: the environmental impact of computing

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knoydart

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#241132 1-Aug-2009 04:49

I have to say that at least I look for the power consumption of my computing. The IT industry is slowing providing information on how "green" their products but that info is out there, in the UK, Ethical Consumer published this report to pull together what info is out there for people trying to be green.

CiscoKid

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#248643 19-Aug-2009 13:54

Very good thread. However in terms of green priorities I think a lot more should be said and done regarding IT waste rather than power consumption where a lot of work has been done since there are financial savings to be made.

With the IT corporates quietly pushing their 3 year replacement policies there's must be an incredible pile of plastic, PCBs, lead, cadium etc being dumped somewhere, not to mention packaging. I poked my nose into the storeroom at work and my jaw dropped at the floor to ceiling piles of Pentium 4 desktops, laptops, old printers, cabling, keyboards etc most of which had ended up there due to the end of support cover. Management wont allow it to be given it away as the process to do so has costs associated with it. In the end after enough time it becomes totally worthless and will be skipped. Intel, IBM etc are happy as they dont wont that stuff being recycled as it means they can go after poorer markets - ie lucrative developing countries as well

.

I wonder if your storeroom, garage has a similar pile..

freitasm

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#265708 21-Oct-2009 15:40

An interesting release from the Auckland Chamber of Commerce today:

By participating in the HP Power to Change campaign, the Auckland Chamber of Commerce saved 602 kilowatt-hours of energy in one month ? equivalent to taking 24 cars off the road. The Chamber encouraged its 47 employees to reduce their environmental impact by simply shutting off their computers every evening. The HP Power to Change widget downloaded by staff on 1 September measured energy savings and sent a daily reminder to shut down before leaving the office.

Michael Barnett, Chief Executive at The Auckland Chamber of Commerce said: ?This has been a great example of how a small change to behaviour can make a big difference. It?s been great for our staff to see how their daily actions and the actions of others globally have combined to make a big difference to energy savings.?

Research shows that only 36% of business computers get turned off at the end of the day, but during the month of September, Chamber employees turned their computers off 88% of the time.
?If a small organisation like The Auckland Chamber of Commerce can take the equivalent of 24 cars off the road in a month just by turning off office computers at night, imagine how much energy could be saved if every person in New Zealand did this at home and work every day,? said Warwick Grey, SMB Marketing Manager for HP New Zealand.

The Chamber?s local office initiative was part of the global HP Power to Change campaign which recognised that turning off an idle PC is a small and easy step to take to have a positive environmental impact. I?ve attached a media release sent out at the launch of this campaign for background information.

paradoxsm

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#265840 21-Oct-2009 22:16

It is great to see. One other thing that really needs to be focused on is the time it takes for a pc to boot up. Ours take about 8 minutes and need user intervention during this process. We generally leave them on as a result which is easy but not that good when 3 monitors and two machines are running.

freitasm

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#265844 21-Oct-2009 22:20

paradoxsm: It is great to see. One other thing that really needs to be focused on is the time it takes for a pc to boot up. Ours take about 8 minutes and need user intervention during this process. We generally leave them on as a result which is easy but not that good when 3 monitors and two machines are running.

That doesn't sound like a Windows problem. Too many services starting up? Not enough memory for the programs needed? It sounds too bad, when a laptop these days can boot to Windows desktop in about 30 seconds (not counting BIOS).

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