| Home | 1. Introduction | 3. Methodologies and Benefits | 4. Barriers to Implementation | 5. Conclusion | 6. References |
The widespread deployment of IT has had inadvertent side effects, such as increased energy consumption and pollution. Technology-related power consumption is rising rapidly. According a recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report, “the IT industry consumed approximately 61 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2006. That’s 1.5% of the total electricity consumed in the United States. The power bill is roughly $4.5 billion. Servers and data centers deployed by the U.S. Federal Government account for about 10%, or 6 billion kWh, of the total consumption” (“Green computing and D-Link,” 2009).
Accordingly, awareness of these effects has brought about a practice called “the greening of IT.” The concept of green computing got its start in 1992 when the EPA created its Energy Star program, which labeled electric products, such as refrigerators and air conditioners that minimized energy consumption while maximizing efficiency. This was revised in October 2006 to include more stringent requirements for computer equipment efficiency (“ENERGY STAR Program requirements for computers,” 2006). In 1997, the United Nations’ Kyoto Protocol mandated the reduction of carbon emissions and required manufacturers to calculate the electricity used by the computers. Next, in 2003, the European Union adopted a Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) which restricted the use of specific toxic materials in the manufacture of electronic equipment. In 2006, the United States passed Public Law 109-431 to study and promote the use of energy-efficient computer servers. Subsequently, in 2007, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13423, which required all United States Federal agencies to use the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), a set of standards aimed at increasing the efficiency and life of electronic products, when purchasing computer systems (Bush, 2007).