IDG Connect – Roel Castelein writes in Getting Green IT ... here is an excerpt...... good things are happening, green glimmers of hope that change the system. In August 2012, Facebook disclosed its 2011 carbon footprint, energy mix and energy use for the company's data centers and global offices. The total annual carbon footprint per month of an active Facebook user is 269 grams (carbon equivalent of 3 bananas). With 425 million active users that is a lot of carbon. Facebook at least sets an example with their open book, and FB opens its third largest data center in Lulea, Sweden in 2014, powered by renewable energy. Google also makes great strides in disclosing carbon footprint and they claim their data centers use only 50% of energy compared to other data centers (a Google search accounts for 0.2 grams of CO2-emissions and 10,000 searches equal an 8 km trip in an average automobile, and according to Nielsen, in March 2010 6.38 billion searches were performed with Google in the US, amounting to 1,276 tons of CO2, or roughly a 5 million km long car ride.) Again, this is a question of ‘measurement' and the challenge of standards' credibility. Other companies follow their lead, but in my view not enough.
Then there companies like Greenqloud, in Iceland, offering cloud computing services powered by 100% renewable energy resources; Fjord.it, in Norway, offering wholesale computer infrastructure-as-a-service to Telco providers, also powered by renewable energy; or Ecosia.org a green search engine, which offsets its carbon emissions and donates proceeds to save rain forest.
