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October 4th, 2010 [by Doug Alder]
We’ve said many a time on this blog that ICT (Information Communications Technology) is one of the major contributors to CO2 emissions. The pace at which ICT is contributing to the problem is accelerating logarithmically.
that ICT now accounts for almost 42% of energy consumption in US homes and projections by the IEA that ICT could consume 40% of the world’s electricity by 2030 means we in the ICT industry have to do something before we become the new climate villains. This is unsustainable and needs to be stopped. ICT is the one industry that has the “smarts” and is used to moving at Internet speeds with easy access to VC money. We need to act now. (BSA)
It is absolutely critical for data centers (who account for >25% of all ICT CO2 emissions, to step up to the plate and do whatever is necessary to reduce their impact. Sadly few are.
Bill St. Arnaud recently postedOne of the big challenges we face in the Green IT industry is all the wild and exaggerated claims about the “greenness” of various products and services. As I have blogged many times most people confuse reduction in energy consumption with being green. The real problem facing the planet is not energy consumption but GHG emissions – so it is critically we measure the real objective in any product or service that claims to be green –its actual carbon footprint. Energy reduction or efficiency in many situations can be counter productive and actually increase GHG emissions.The Canadian Standards Association (CSA), one of the world’s largest standards organizations is developing globally recognized GHG standards based on the ISO 14064 to develop verifiable and auditable measurements of GHG reduction from the use of ICT. This will help quantify whether claims of lower PUE, virtualization or clouds actually do reduce GHG.They have kindly me allowed to publish the following overview of Carbon Accounting for Green IT. For those who have a genuine interest in moving beyond green washing and help reduce the GHG impact of ICT I suggest you contact the authors listed at the end of this presentation – BSAhttp://www.slideshare.net/bstarn/overview-carbonaccountingprotocol-v1
If you view that slide show you will note that RackForce plays a prominent role in it, and that’s because we believe strongly in being as green as we can. RackForce’s GKEL2 GigaCenter was designed from the outset, with the help of IBM’s Big Green team, to be the greenest commercial data center in its class in North America. Through the use of Hydro Electric power, in row cooling, absolute air separation, 30 ft. ceilings, free atmospheric cooling (air side economizer), and customized GigaVaults we have up to a 50 times smaller CO2 footprint than any other data center.As a company on the forefront of Green ICT, RackForce is pleased to be amongst a small select group working with CANARIE on the GreenStar Network Project to develop the GHG standards that Bill referred to above . Our role will be to assist the Canadian Standards Association in developing a protocol to supplement ISO 14064, to measure GHG emissions specific to ICT and supporting qualification for carbon offsets as these do not yet exist. As an organization, although we already have an extremely low carbon footprint (less than) 17gCO2eq/Kwh, RackForce has committed itself further to achieving a zero carbon status. That is not the full extent of our participation in the GreenStar Project by a long shot, but I will reserve that information for a future post.RackForce is doing its part, let’s hope the rest of the ICT industry does theirs.
