Green Technology Implementations and Green IT in Asia

Green technology, also called environmental or clean technology, is technology that is directed towards preserving our environment and natural resources to ensure sustainable development. It minimizes elements that cause harm to our surroundings and it includes innovative and efficient ways to produce energy, recycle products, and build structures.

Some of the types of green technology include renewable energy, applying chemical products to eradicate any harmful effects from the environment, and removing pollutants that harm our environment.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has stated the need for quick implementation of environmentally friendly technologies and one of the key places where the need for such implementation is felt is Asia. This has been addressed by climate negotiation by including transfer of "green technology" from industrialized to developing countries as part of its steps for wider green technology implementation.

Green Technology Implementation in Asia

With the growing warning signs coming from global warming, it is not surprising to see organizations doing research into the many ways in which green technology can be implemented so that they can contribute their part in helping the environment an in doing so, also reduce unwanted cost of operations. Implementation of Green Technology in Asia is happening in various sectors. A example of how Asia is adopting Green technology is seen by the hosting of the China Green Business Summit in Beijing in May. China has so far been the biggest user of carbon power, but now it is slowly implementing waterpower, wind power, biomass power, solar and other renewable energy for powering its various systems and industries. It is expecting such reviewable sources of energy to take up 15 percent of power supply by the year 2020.

Interestingly South Korea, has now adopted a "low-carbon green growth" policy wherein it will spend more than $40 billion in the next four years to introduce Green technology concepts and solutions. The country hopes this policy will result in less energy consumption and an environmental friendly technology will be used in every industrial sector. South Korea’s Prime Minister Han Seung Soo is highly motivated about this policy and hopes to show results of green technology implementation through this policy, in the years to come.

Using Green Technology in Information Technology

The IT Industry is the biggest employer across Asia and that’s why it is so important to introduce green technology in this sector. In fact IT products cost about $3.3bn every year in wasted electricity, according to Springboard Research analysts.

According to scientists in Hewlett Packard: data centers and computer closets take up more than 1% of the world’s electricity, and they estimate that business technology take up more than 415 million tons of coal per year, which results in 864 million tons of CO2 greenhouse emissions. This in turn is environmentally damaging and hence the need for Green IT is felt to be all the more important.

IT Companies across Asia are looking towards solutions that implement Green Technology because of the many benefits that it provides. Here is a look at some of the different arenas where Green technology is being implemented:

Data Storage Solutions

This is an interesting software arena in which green technology is being implemented. With the Asian data storage market growing, data storage solutions are being implemented in a wide scale and in this aspect prominent companies dealing in data storage solutions such as Data Domain, NetApp and EMC are making their presence felt with their green technology. These technologies are cost effective and robust and help to implement the concept of clean and green IT infrastructure.  According to Hu Yoshida, Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi Data Systems, a green and clean data centre is very important and such data centres use less energy, generate less CO2 and consume less power.

According to Shailesh Agarwal, VP-STG, IBM India/South Asia, even though there is an economic slowdown, the number of organizations purchasing cost-effective green storage technologies will continue to grow. With the increase in demand for data storage solutions, and the emphasis being placed in using green technology, organizations are more likely to adopt solutions with this technology on a wider scale now to meet the demand for such technology and also to implement an environmentally safe work environment.

Virtualization

This is a process by which two or more logical computer systems can be run on one set of physical hardware. The more the number of computers, the more is the consumption of energy and power. To reduce this, virtualization is sought after. Virtualization is a part of Green technology concepts as it enables organization to use less of actually physical hardware and this in turn cuts down on energy consumption, which actually affects the environment in so many different ways.

Many organizations in Asia are offering software packages that will help enable a transition to virtual computing. Companies like Microsoft are working with other hardware manufacturers to avail this technology on specific servers. VMware, a fully-owned subsidiary of EMC is a supplier of virtualization software and according to Koh Eng Kheng, VMware's Asia South regional director, the implementation of virtualization in the Asia-Pacific region has been "extreme". Republic Polytechnic, India's Bharat Petroleum, and Abacus are some companies that use VMware’s virtualization software.

Telecommuting

In Asia, teleconferencing is being largely and increasingly adopted by companies as part of their initiatives to ‘go green’, to adopt green technology. By doing so, there is reduction in greenhouse gas emissions due to travel, reduction of energy consumption etc. VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol is another green technology that reduces telephony wiring infrastructure.

A PWC report by Thyag Venkatesan, advisory manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers Singapore. included a related survey gauging businesses' attitudes toward climate change and going green In Asia and showed there are plentiful opportunities to implement green technology. Above 30% of growth in energy demand comes from the Asia-Pacific region, thereby presenting enhanced opportunities for clean energy development, also states the director of corporate risk at Climate Risk, Gareth Johnston.

Summary

Asian countries have realized the value of Green Technology and are slowly implementing for its various benefits. In the years to come, we can be sure that this technology will be more widely implemented and contribute towards creating a sustainable environment.