State of Oregon Joins Climate Savers Initiative

PORTLAND, Ore. — The State of Oregon joined the Climate Savers Computing Initiative in a bid to make the IT equipment in its offices and agencies more energy efficient.

By 2015, the state wants to reduce agency energy consumption by 20 percent below 2000 levels. It pledged to consider computer equipment that meets or surpasses ENERGY STAR standards in its current and future purchase decisions, as well as educate workers about power management strategies that can save energy, such as hibernation and sleep mode.

Climate Savers, a program comprised of businesses, individuals and businesses, is targeting system optimization as one way of slashing IT-related energy consumption. For instance, roughly 90 percent of systems waste energy because sleep or hibernate state options are not enabled. Servers typically waste between 30 percent and 40 percent of the input power, the group said.

The group has a goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million ton by 2010 through its efforts to raise awareness of power management optimization.

"Oregon now joins Minnesota and Kansas as leaders in pledging to support sustainable practices," said Bill Weihl, Google's representative on the Climate Savers Computing Initiative board of directors.