HANOVER, United States — The industry-led initiative will kick off its work on the continent at the massive IT and telecom trade show next week; CeBIT will be emphasizing energy efficient and environmentally friendly technologies of all kinds, and plans a special 'Green IT Village' at the event.
The Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which has been spearheaded by tech companies Dell, EDS, Google, HP, Intel, Lenovo and Microsoft, along with Pacific Gas & Electric, the World Wildlife Fund and other tech companies, aims to reduce the power consumption of computer hardware by 50 percent by the year 2010.
The group will set up camp in CeBIT's "Green IT Village," part of an overall environmental theme at this year's gathering. The green village will add to the conference's goal of touting the latest advances in technology for businesses, homes and IT-intensive industries with a series of exhibits and technical presentations highlighting the impact global computer use has on the environment and pointing out solutions that are within reach.
In order to achieve its energy-efficiency goals by 2010 -- success will result in dropping global CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year, equal to the annual output of 11 million cars -- Climate Savers will promote its strategy of increasingly energy efficient hardware and software from manufacturers, as well as increased energy-management on the part of individual users and IT managers. Implementing simple tools like power management software on a company's machines can result in significant savings: as much as 65 percent of energy at individual workstations is wasted when employees leave computers on overnight.
The Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which was formed in June 2007, has already developed an online catalog of green computer products, and late last year partnered with the National Governors Association to help spread the word about green computing.
CeBIT runs from March 4 to March 9 in Hanover; information, agendas and presenters are online at http://www.cebit.de.