February 19th, 2008
Let the green tech lobbying begin, CEO-style
This is one of those posts that I’ve been meaning to put together for a couple of weeks, but I wasn’t (frankly) quite sure of what I thought about the information until just now. But the second time I read the pitch through, I decided I was suitably impressed.
The subject of this blog is the Technology CEO Council, a public advocacy group for the information technology industry that includes some very heavy hitters. I’ll have to list them all, because if I skip someone I might pay later. (This order is strictly company-alphabetical.)
Michael Splinter, President and CEO of Applied Materials
Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, Dell
Joseph Tucci, Chairman, President and CEO, IBM
Mark Hurd, Chairman, President and CEO, Hewlett-Packard
Samuel Palmisano, Chairman, President and CEO, IBM
Paul Otellini, President and CEO, Intel
Steven Appleton, Chairman and CEO, Micron Technology
Greg Brown, CEO, Motorola
William Nuti, President and CEO, NCR
Joseph McGrath, President and CEO, Unisys
(By the way, when was the last time you saw HP, IBM, EMC and Dell agree on anything?)
Mind you, this group has been around for some time. But earlier this month they took a very public stand on a subject that’s been the subject of plenty of GreenTech posts: The relationship between technology and energy efficiency. This is the subject of a new white paper from the council called “The Smarter Shade of Green: How Innovative Technologies are Saving Energy, Time and Money.”
The focus of the report is on providing some context on the very real increase in energy use that technology has occasioned and it builds off another recent report from The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. That study found that it takes less than half the energy to produce a dollar of economic output today than it did in 1970.
Here are some other high-level findings:
- For every extra kilowatt-hour of electricity that is required by information and communications technologies, the U.S. economy has saved overall energy by a factor of 10.
- Energy-efficiency from technology is increasing.
You can see where this is going.
“Smarter Shade” specifically points to three innovations of recent years that have greatly aided the energy-efficiency cause: virtualization, advanced cooling technologies and techniques, and power management systems. There are also plugs for telecommuting and other advances in mobility.
The final call to action challenges private-sector businesses to invest in the technologies outlined to set new benchmarks for their own efficiency efforts. It also directly challenges the government to act in three different ways.
- Lead by example by investing more heavily in “green” technologies
- Encourage research and education efforts that will influence future innovation and drive awareness
- Adopt policies that discourage inefficiency and provide incentives for green technology investment and/or adoption
Next up: An update on the agenda of the Information Technology Industry Council.
Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist in the New York area with more than 20 years experience covering the high-tech industry. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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