Green computing

Some believe they can and should become climate neutral by 2030 [citation needed] The carbon emissions associated with manufacturing devices and network infrastructures is also a key factor.

For example, launching an online shopping platform may increase the carbon footprint of a company's own IT operations, while at the same time helping customers to purchase products remotely, without requiring them to drive, in turn reducing greenhouse gas emission related to travel.

[5] In 2009 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a survey of over 90 government and industry initiatives on "Green ICTs" (Information and Communication Technologies), the environment and climate change.

The report concluded that initiatives tended to concentrate on the greening ICTs themselves, rather than on their actual implementation to reduce global warming and environmental degradation.

The Energy Star program was revised in October 2006 to include stricter efficiency requirements for computer equipment, along with a tiered ranking system for approved products.

[9] The statutes either impose an "advance recovery fee" for each unit sold at retail or require the manufacturers to reclaim the equipment at disposal.

[10] Green digital governance refers to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support environmentally sustainable policies and practices.

[11] This can include using digital tools and platforms to monitor and regulate environmental impact, as well as promoting the development and use of clean and renewable energy sources in the technology sector.

[14] The green transition may accelerate innovation and adoption of digital solutions offering the ICT sector new opportunities for becoming more competitive.

As powerful enablers for the sustainability transition, digital solutions can advance the circular economy, support the decarbonisation of all sectors and reduce the environmental and social footprint of products placed on the EU market.

For example, key sectors such as precision agriculture, transport and energy can benefit from digital solutions in pursuing the sustainability objectives of the European Green Deal.

[17] Modern IT systems rely on a complicated mix of people, networks, and hardware; as such, a green computing initiative ideally covers these areas.

A solution may also need to address end user satisfaction, management restructuring, regulatory compliance, and return on investment (ROI).

In 2018, three new US Patents make use of facilities design to simultaneously cool and produce electrical power by use of internal and external waste heat.

A similar approach has also been used to cut energy usage by routing traffic away from data centers experiencing warm weather; this allows computers to be shut down to avoid using air conditioning.

Local availability of renewable energy, climate that allows outside air to be used for cooling, or locating them where the heat they produce may be used for other purposes could be factors in green siting decisions.

However, choosing a well-suited compression algorithm for the dataset can yield greater power efficiency and reduce network and storage requirements.

[40] The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), an open industry standard, allows an operating system to directly control the power-saving aspects of its underlying hardware.

[citation needed] Some programs allow the user to manually adjust the voltages supplied to the CPU, which reduces both the amount of heat produced and electricity consumed.

[47] Microsoft significantly improved this in Windows Vista[48] by redesigning the power management system to allow basic configuration by Group Policy.

Windows 7 retains these limitations but includes refinements for timer coalescing, processor power management,[49][50] and display panel brightness.

[62][63] As hard drive prices have fallen, storage farms have tended to increase in capacity to make more data available online.

[78] A drawback to many of these schemes is that computers gathered through recycling drives are often shipped to developing countries where environmental standards are less strict than in North America and Europe.

[79] The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has estimated that 80% of the post-consumer e-waste collected for recycling is shipped abroad to countries such as China and India.

The old storage devices still hold private information, such as emails, passwords, and credit card numbers, which can be recovered simply by using software available freely on the Internet.

[citation needed] GreenOps, also known as DevGreenOps, DevSusOps or DevSustainableOps, is emerging as a framework to include sustainability into cloud management.

This includes techniques like demand shifting, which means moving computational workloads to locations or times of day with cleaner energy in the grid.

Degree and postgraduate programs provide training in a range of information technology concentrations along with sustainable strategies to educate students on how to build and maintain systems while reducing its harm to the environment.

The Australian National University (ANU) offers "ICT Sustainability" as part of its information technology and engineering masters programs.

[97] In the UK, Leeds Beckett University offers an MSc Sustainable Computing program in both full- and part-time access modes.