Environmental Leader

Ted Samson of InfoWorld looks at some of this year’s green tech trends that he predicts will spill over in 2009, PCWorld reports.

1. Modular datacenters evolved
IBM, Google, Sun, Rackable Systems and Microsoft all have modular datacenters. They don’t all come in storage containers. Microsoft, for example has touted its Model T methods to datacenters.

2. Companies cashed in on free cooling
Instead of relying on power-guzzling CRAC systems, Google preached the benefits of free cooling, which either uses water from a natural source or uses outside air to cool machines in the datacenter. Samson says one of the most interesting experiments in free cooling was conducted by Intel, where the company exposed part of a working datacenter to outside temperatures as high as 90 degrees. In November, Data Center Knowledge reported on the “heat wheel,” which improves the use of outside air to cool servers in the data center.

3. IT helped tackle rising energy costs
The U.S. Postal Service announced that it managed to cut more than $5 million in transportation costs through the use of a new transportation-optimization system. Deloitte LLP invested in videoconferencing to reduce business trips.

4. Telecommuting gained momentum
The Consumer Electronics Association commissioned a study which found that one day of telecommuting saves the equivalent of up to 12 hours of an average household’s electricity use. Sun also shared the results of its telecommuting program and found that it not only saved employees money on gas but also helped the company save nearly $68 million in real estate costs.

5. IT products grew greener
Apple revealed a greener MacBook family that meets Energy Star 4.0 requirements and contains no brominated flame retardants and uses internal cables and components that are PVC-free. iLinc introduced a Green Meter. The meter is an embedded feature that comes with iLinc Web conferencing software which automatically measures carbon emissions, fuel costs and mileage saved per participant, per meeting and provides metrics for the organization as a whole.

Here are some IT Leaders’ Green-Tech Predictions for 2009.