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Computers and the networks they access daily come withan environmental cost—including increased energyconsumption and an expanding carbon footprintmeasured in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—that gobeyond the impacts that occur throughout the supplychain. Is the use of computers and enterprise data centersat odds with corporate “green” priorities to reduce GHGsand energy consumption? Would our lives be lackingwithout access to e-mail, databases, and the Internet? Theshort answers are: No and Yes. This column considers theimpact of personal computers and servers on climatechange and a few of the high-tech innovations that canhelp reduce their environmental footprint.

Energy ChallengesGrowth in global energy demand and increasingcomputer power generation are resulting in rising energycosts and greater GHG emissions. Computers andenterprise data servers pose a huge energy demand, muchof it wasted. For example, the average desktop personalcomputer wastes nearly one half of its power, while theaverage server wastes one third.

Imagine standing inside a data center at eBay, theworld’s largest virtual garage sale, or Google, the world’slargest search engine. These enterprise data centers—withrows upon rows of server racks, high-voltage switchingequipment, backup power generators, uninterruptiblepower supplies, and high-capacity air conditioning units—create enormous power demands. It’s estimated that U.S.energy use by data centers doubled from 12 billion to23 billion kilowatt hours from 2000 to 2005 (see “Lean &Green—Taming the Data Center Colossus,” BusinessProcess Management Forum, 2008). Last year, increaseddata center energy use caused many IT organizations torun out of space, power, or cooling capacity (seeMillard, E. “Green Computing: Hype Cycle or ActualTrend,” Baseline Magazine, April 23, 2008).

Data center energy consumption is so critical an issuethat the U.S. Congress passed a law requiring the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study energyimpacts on and from data centers, identify energyefficiency opportunities, and recommend strategies todrive the market for efficiency (Public Law 109-341). TheEPA study found that data networks and storage devicesaccounted for approximately 1.5% of the total powerconsumed in the United States in 2006 and were projectedto consume approximately 2.5% by 2011. The study also

by Jill Barson Gilbert

estimated that energy-saving strategies in use at the timecould reduce data center power consumption by 10%;simple management improvements could result in a 20%reduction; and best practices, a 50% reduction (see “EPAReport to Congress on Server and Data Center Efficiency,”August 2, 2007).

While IT organizations believe that environmentallyresponsible operations are a priority, they lack theresources to control their energy consumption. Even withnewer, energy-efficient servers, business justification isdifficult. The immediate energy cost-savings are smallwhen compared to server costs. Most data centers willbecome “greener” as they apply server virtualizationstrategies, retire unneeded equipment, and phase innewer, more energy-efficient, servers.

Corporate Social ResponsibilityToday, companies are judged not only on financialresults, but also on corporate social responsibility. Inhigh-tech manufacturing firms, environmental or “green”initiatives go beyond emissions management, wasterecycling, and sustainable operations. Semiconductormanufacturers identify several initiatives within their ownoperations:

• microarchitecture changes to boost product energyefficiency;

• lead-free and halogen-free products;• environmental requirements for product packaging;

and• product sustainability—requirements for batteries,

plastic marking, and recyclability.

emco lumn

High-Tech IndustryHeats Up Efforts toLessen Climate Change

IT Insight by Jill Barson Gilbert

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“The entire semiconductor industry is strugglingwith the heat of chips, which increases exponentially asthe number of transistors increase,” says Intel (seewww.intel.com/technology/silicon/high-k.htm). The goodnews is that chip manufacturers have found how to packmore transistors into a smaller space, while gener-ating less heat. The latestcomputer processors andchipsets have the smallestfootprints and lowest-energyrequirements ever. The new45nm silicon technology, forexample, includes twice asmany transistors in the same space as the older 65nmtechnology. Dual-core and quad-core architecture increaseperformance-per-watt efficiencies without increasingpower requirements.

Server manufacturers such as Sun Microsystems, HP,IBM, and Dell offer a portfolio of high-performance,sustainable servers. According to Jeff Johnson of Dell,innovations in server design, with a 25% reduction inenergy demand, will allow data centers to expand and gettwice the capacity in a given space (see “The PowerSmackdown in the Data Center,” April 2, 2008;http://jeffatdell.wordpress.com).

To complement their hardware, server vendors offer arange of services to help customers optimize server spaceand energy usage. Virtualization, a relatively new concept,is a set of practices and software utilities that help ITorganizations consolidate underutilized servers andoptimize server workloads.

Green PartnershipsEnergy Star (www.energystar.gov), a joint program led bythe U.S. Department of Energy and EPA, is aimed atprotecting the environment through energy-efficientproducts and practices. Energy Star works with public- andprivate-sector organizations to set energy efficiency stan-dards for products, homes, and businesses. In August2007, Energy Star released a report to Congress on serverand data center efficiency. The report outlined an EPAinitiative to develop a new product specification forenterprise servers (see “Enterprise Server and Data CenterEnergy Efficiency Initiatives” www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=prod_development.server_efficiency).

Also in 2007, a group of electronics manufacturers,corporate consumers, utility companies, governmentagencies, and environmental stakeholders formed theClimate Savers Computing Initiative (www.ClimateSaversComputing.org). Members of the Initiative commit to

produce and purchase energy-efficient products. The goalis to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions from theoperation of computers by 54 million tons per year by2010, equivalent to the annual output of 11 million cars or10–20 coal-fired power plants, which will lead to a 50%reduction in power consumption by computers and a

collective cost-savings ofUS$5.5 billion in energycosts.

It’s hard to imagine lifewithout personal computers,enterprise networks, or 24/7Internet access. However,

computers and enterprise servers pose significant energydemands. Realizing the potential impacts on limited energyresources, as well as on global climate change, high-techmanufacturers, alone and in partnership with other stake-holders, are investing significant resources in research anddevelopment to find solutions—and they are makingprogress. Under the umbrella of corporate social respon-sibility programs, computer and component manufactur-ers are committing to producing energy-efficient,environmentally responsible products; corporate con-sumers are committing to buying power-efficient comput-ing products to save energy and reduce GHG emissions;and organizations are finding ways to better utilize existingIT equipment until it can be replaced with more energy-efficient hardware. em

Computers and enterprise dataservers pose a huge energy demand,

much of it wasted.

Jill Barson Gilbert, QEP, is a governance, risk, andcompliance software thought leader and president ofLexicon Systems, LLC. She applies information systemsand technologies to facilitate well-informed, strategically-aligned decisions. Reliable knowledge enhances enterpriseagility via improved compliance, risk management,business performance, and sustainability.E-mail: jbgilbert@lexicon-systems.com.

ARTICLE COURTESY OF LEXICON SYSTEMS, LLC • www.lexicon-systems.com • +1 281.280.8106