66085c36239fc-greening-it-59

CHAPTER 10 Out of The Box W ays IT Can Help to Preserve Nature and Reduce CO 2 So \u201cgreen\u201d goes pop! Suddenly , green seems to be the solution for ev- ery problem in the world (fr om layoffs to climate changes). Ther efore, technology could not be far from that r eality - and Green IT is the name given to explain that phenomenon in the binary world. According to the Gr een IT Promotional Council in Japan, the de\ufb01- nition of Green IT entails ener gy saving in IT devices as well as using IT devices to save energy in society . According to some members on Gr eenpeace\u2019s online forum how- ever , such Green IT concept is a myth, as computers will always be \u201cpollution beasts\u201d due to the amount of harmful, toxic materials that most PCs are constr ucted with. Furthermore, when a PC is thr own into a land\ufb01ll, these toxic materials can have potentially adverse affects on the environment. Battles apart, I personally believe that IT can provide many other solutions that go far beyond the noticeable ones, such as Cloud Com- puting (see chapter 5) or Smart Meters (see chapter 7); both of which 165 Chapter 10 Out of The Box W ays IT Can Help to Preserve Nature and Reduce CO 2 - by Fla vio Souza are good examples of using IT devices to save ener gy . One of those out of the box solutions is illustrated by a recent announcement by Mi- crosoft Japan, which will start to of fer refurbished license agr eements for those PCs that are built fr om recycled parts. Microsoft\u2019s pr oblem is that most of the users remove the whole har d drive (which includes W indows operating system (OS)) before they dump the machine in a \u2018re-selling\u2019 shop or ship it to land-\ufb01lls in China. A computer without an OS is like a car without an engine, there is nothing contr olling the hard- ware and it is ef fectively non-operational. Therefor e, the new owner of the recycled machine has to buy a new license, which can be mor e ex- pensive than the recycled machine itself, or possibly illegally copy and install an unof\ufb01cial version that consequently makes Micr osoft loose money . By offering a mor e affor dable license, Microsoft makes an ef- fort to avoid the PC being dumped to a land-\ufb01ll because of a lack of the OS; thus keep the business happily running as usual. Micr osoft\u2019s strategy at the same time saves the environment fr om the toxic materi- als and energy wasted that it would have taken to make a brand new computer . It is a W in-W in strategy for business and environment. There ar e a number of other creative possibilities, such as applying successful Internet business models in favour of a greener world via IT - could they play an important role in the near futur e and help to Preserve Natur e and Reduce CO 2 Simultaneously? Sure they can. Let\u2019s take a look at some business models that were heavily in\ufb02u- enced by the popularity of the Internet: \u2022 Brokerage Models (r eads eBay) help bring together \u2018buyers\u2019 and \u2018sellers\u2019 and facilitate recycle pr ograms that for instance would take into consideration the location factor between the two, and consequently reduce the need of long distance travel for delivery , which overall contributes to CO 2 reductions. \u2022 Furthermore, Demand Collection systems (known by the patented \u2018name-your-price\u2019 model, pioneer ed by Priceline) could again play a positive role in bringing down prices on Gr een IT 166 Chapter 10 Out of The Box W ays IT Can Help to Preserve Nature and Reduce CO 2 - by Fla vio Souza devices. \u2022 Lastly , the Community model (r eads Facebook, Mixi, LinkedIN among others) could, for example, speed up the green innovation creation and implementation by sharing knowledge/learning over the Internet. But perhaps the biggest contribution of IT will come fr om the Inter- net itself. 10.0.3 Can the W eb Save Us Fr om Global W arming? In one word - Y es! According to the r ecently published book, Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman (Friedman, 2008), the challenge ahead of us is to create a system that takes into account the thr ee main points of climate change: 1. Speed (we must move fast in our actions if we want to have a chance to stop global warming) 2. Protection (we have to stop what we alr eady have from being de- stroyed) 3. Innovation / education (we have to intensify our knowledge sharing in order to achieve br eakthroughs to cr eate a new gen- eration of the Earth\u2019s guardians) How could we build such a system in a very short time? W ell, maybe the answer is that we do not need to build one from scratch, but utilise what we already have. That is, we need to utilise the Inter- net\u2019s capabilities. Looking at the Internet as a Green IT technology makes good sense. The Internet and the provided online services today , daily saves us from snail mail, going to the bank and a number of other time and en- ergy consuming activities - thus making daily r outines and tasks more ef\ufb01cient. Y et, the Internet has a far greater potential than optimising processes and saving ener gy . 167

66085c36239fc-greening-it-59

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