UK businesses have launched an initiative to help IT managers and directors reduce the environmental impact of their IT infrastructure.
The Green Technology Initiative has commercial backing from Cisco, EDF Energy and Global Crossing, as well as the support of the Department for Rural Affairs.
By submitting your email address, you agree to receive emails regarding relevant topic offers from TechTarget and its partners. You can withdraw your consent at any time. Contact TechTarget at 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA.
According to analyst firm Gartner, the energy from manufacturing, distribution and use of information and communications technology emits approximately 2% of total global carbon dioxide, equal to the emissions from the airline industry.
The Green Technology Initiative aims to become a meeting point where businesses can find out how to reduce their IT carbon footprint from those with expert knowledge and experience.
Dan Sutherland, founder and acting chair of the Green Technology Initiative, said a lack of standards in measuring energy efficiency of datacentres and other computing systems was hampering the efforts of IT departments in reducing their impact on the environment.
"IT managers don’t know what their overall contribution is to their firms’ environmental impact, so it’s hard for them to know what to do to help,” he said.
The Green Technology Initiative would help to share best practice by publishing approaches to greener computing used by its members.
Last year, the IT industry launched the Green Grid, which also has Cisco as a member. Phil Andrews, European datacentre business development director at Cisco, said Green Grid was helping to use technology in reducing the environmental impact of IT, whereas the Green Technology Initiative was designed to help IT managers improve efficiency with technology available now.
Comment on this article: firstname.lastname@example.org