|
True, but they do consume electricity. In the USA, Congress is pushing the Environmental protection agency to develop energy efficiency measures for data centres, especially servers. Computerworld notes IBM has signed up Neuwing Energy Ventures, a company trading in energy efficiency certificates, in a first for "green" computing. Each megawatt-hour saved earns one certificate. Then you can sell the certificates in emerging carbon trading markets. IBM's own consolidation project (collapsing 3,900 distributed servers onto 30 mainframes) will net certificates worth between $300K and $1M, depending on carbon's market price. Wow is this a trick to get us to buy more computers?
It could be or achieve the hope that global carbon trading will discourage energy-inefficient, distributed-style infrastructure in favor of highly virtualized and I/O-savvy environments, particularly mainframes? Why should NZ businesses care?
Nothing is required for computers and energy use yet .Although beware, the New Zealand Government has signed the Kyoto protocol and is targeting the introduction of the emissions trading for energy in 2010 and electricity costs are expected to rise. Already some of the larger organizations have started. Meridian Energy has already done a carbon credit trade for the Te Apiti wind farm with the Dutch Governments Emission Reduction Tender (ERUPT). What about Australian businesses because John Howard didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol?
A research house specialising in emerging risks such as environmental and geopolitical issues, Reputex, conducted an analysis of Australia's top 200 listed companies basing its findings on issues related to climate change such as the firm's ability to handle a carbon trading scheme or higher energy prices. Reputex found companies that received a positive valuation in its research had outperformed the S&P/ASX300 index by 11.37 per cent. "It's not really a carbon trading strategy that's needed, it's a general efficiency strategy,'' Mr Grossman of Reputex said. "The more efficient you become the more money you save.'' Oh that's simple consume less leads to save money and save the planet! COGITA Digital Media Archives 2007. All rights reserved. |
| 
