The MoPR Blog

It’s no secret that I’m environmentally conscious.

I’m an avid backpacker, a crazed recycler and a volunteer for the U.S. Forest Service.

Living in Portland has been a great opportunity for me to express my greener side—as those of you who read this blog know, I’m from Mississippi, which is about as far from green as you can get—and I’ve been very excited to read (even in technology news) how environmentally-friendly practices are catching on.

For example, I recently read a blog post on ZDNet that talked about the possibility of a new string of solar-powered Apple devices.

The New York Times article tells readers that Apple has developed the technology in order to free portable entertainment devices and newly released iPhones from the cumbersome wires and connection cables that provide their power sources.

While the article doesn’t mention whether or not Apple has an environmental reason to create and patent solar cells on portable devices, this effort from a tech giant proves just how integrated the green movement is becoming in society.

More and more options are becoming available for professionals to reduce their impact through solar technology and other energy efficient developments. In fact, at CTIA this past year, my colleagues and I were very interested in portable solar panels provided by PowerFilm Solar, which not only eliminate the need for toting your laptop and computer charger, but allow consumers to take their device with them, no matter what–increasing mobility and productivity from any location.

Now might be the perfect time to talk about green computing and IT practices, and how technology companies can benefit from these efforts, while simultaneously doing something good for the environment.

What is green computing?

Not only do computers use exorbitant amounts of energy, but the energy used to run our “electronic briefcases” comes from burning fossil fuels. Couple that with the fact that most of the time, computers are being left idle or on all night and day so that we can stay constantly connected, and we’re setting ourselves up for a whole lot of waste, which equals big time disaster long term.

According to a recent University of Colorado report, the typical desktop PC system requires about 255 watts of electrical power. If you leave your computer on all day and night, your costs will be at about $125 annually. That might not seem like much, but in the grand scheme of things, every little bit counts—especially when you consider the number of computers in operation today. To give you some perspective, when operating your PC only during normal business hours, energy costs decreases by over 75 percent, coming in at about $30 annually.

Here are some suggestions for more energy efficient computing:

1. Turn off screen savers—Screen savers cause your monitor to consume the same amount of energy as it does in active use. Changing your screen saver to black will allow you to save some wattage, but the best thing to do is to put your computer in standby, rather than displaying moving images during idle time.
2. Use sleep mode—Simply enabling the sleep feature will reduce your computer’s energy consumption by nearly 70 percent. According to the university report, this feature could ultimately save enough electricity annually to power Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, cut electricity bills by $2 billion and reduce CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 5 million cars. Wow.
3. Turn it off!—It’s okay. You will not die if you can’t check your email every five minutes. If you are busy working, consider data services for your cell phone, check your email via your mobile or use programs like Copernic Mobile Desktop Search to share files and information. If you’re not working, shut your system down. This does not decrease the life of your machine and will drastically cut energy consumption and heating costs.
4. Group your activities to limit computer use—If you are not tied to your computer for work all day, try to do certain tasks that require computer time during a few designated parts of the day, leaving the computer off at other times.
5. Avoid using a power strip to turn on your device.
6. Only turn on your printer when you are ready to print.
7. Explore ways to turn off your server at night if possible.
8. Reduce paper waste—This is a no brainer. Only print when absolutely necessary. With the age of 100 percent computer utilization in business (think emailing constantly, hosting all documents on an intranet and so on), it is often inefficient to print documents to share internally. Take a cue from MoPR and host your documents in an online intranet or Wiki, saving paper and time (no more searching through files for documents!). Recycle waste paper, use recycled paper for printing, save email messages in your inbox, use smaller font sizes, save scraps and print on both sides.
9. Recycle your print cartridges and other recyclable items.
10. Reduce purchasing—Do you really need that upgrade? Will it allow you to do magical new things that your current PC or laptop will not? Try using your old system for a little longer. Buy smaller monitors, ink jet printers (which use almost 90 percent less energy), consider leasing equipment (which is typically refurbished or recycled and comes with less packaging) and share printers and other office items when possible.
11. Recycle your equipment—Information Week reports that 20 million to 50 million TONS of computer gear and cell phones are dumped into landfills each year—making technology-related waste the fastest growing segment of garbage. Only about 12 percent of these goods are actually recycled, putting chemicals such as mercury and PVC into the environment.
12. When it’s time to buy new equipment, opt for greener computers—Only buy PCs and laptops with Energy Star options ratings.
13. Telecommute whenever possible—This step makes obvious sense. If you’re not driving back and forth to the office, you are reducing CO2 emissions and energy costs to operate office equipment and electricity. Learn a lesson from MoPR, which provides all employees with the necessary equipment to work from home.

How does green computing help me?

In addition to the environmental benefit, companies can save loads of money by implementing green IT practices. Power companies often offer rebates when companies implement green standards along with the reduction of energy costs that will come with more environmentally conscious computing. In addition, recycling equipment (while this does require a small fee) can provide a return of up to 60 percent of the resale value.

Don’t believe me yet?

Princeton University’s physics lab cut 75 percent of its annual energy costs (that’s down to $27,000 from a staggering $105,000 a few years back). Not only did this reduce operating costs, but their efforts improved processing power by 4 times and used 28 fewer TONS of CO2.

Additional Resources

• Check this site for the latest green computing news.
• See this recent report from Forrester Research for more information on IT professionals jumping on the green bandwagon.