Green Options » cloud computing

Simple Steps Businesses Can Take Today for a Greener Future

Brenda Keener — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:00:17 +0000

Although most larger businesses are at least making an effort to greenwash their enterprises, small and medium size businesses are a bit slower to adopt this trend. Largely, this is because they view it as a big project, and just don’t yet understand that simple items can help green their operations in many ways. Greening a small or medium business can also add another element to marketing branding that has been proven to be highly successful!

Here are some ideas for moving green without any major studies or projects:

1) Switch to eFax and stop using your paper fax. This way, you have the faxed page readily accessible in your computer and are no longer wasting paper.

2) Put all desktop PCs and printers on power strips, and turn them off at night. This saves both power and money.

3) Use Webex or Go-to-Meeting for initial sales meetings to save travel costs and the carbon footprint associated with air travel.

4) Email PDF’s of brochures instead of printing and distributing them. If you must print, use recyclable materials.

5) Switch lights to CFLs or CCFLs instead of incandescents.

6) Use cloud computing to store your data instead of on-site servers or large hard drives.

7) Buy materials and supplies locally whenever possible.

Keep A/C and heat turned down to as low a level as possible to still keep a comfortable workplace.

9) Move to a virtual PBX VoIP phone system such as that offered by Ring Carrier. This means you no longer have a power burning PBX on your site, and you can also save 60% on your phone bills.

10) If at all possible, allow your employees to telecommute at least one day per week. If this is not possible, find ways to incentivize them to take public transportation or ride their bicycles to work.

Any more ideas?

[Photo Credit:www.wikipedia.com]

Give a Green PC from CherryPal for Christmas

Brenda Keener — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:43:30 +0000

Mountain View, California-based startup CherryPal announced that it is now shipping a fully green desktop PC (the C114) as of December 2nd, just in time for it to be a perfect green Christmas present. Although it is a desktop, it is about the size of a paperback book - perfect for space limited computer users. It consumes only 2 Watts of power (the company’s website tells us this is about the same as a clock radio), and uses cloud computing, so there is no need to run the constant virus and spyware checkers that consumes another valuable resource, time. As it uses 80% fewer parts than most PCs, it generates less waste in the manufacturing process. As electronics manufacturing uses many toxic and hard to eliminate chemicals, it showed great foresight on the part of the founder of CherryPal (and ingenuity) in designing it this way.

The C114 also has no moving parts, meaning it should last about 10 years. This is significant, as computer junk has become a large contributor to the size of our landfills, despite the newly emerging electronics recycling efforts I see throughout Silicon Valley.

What Cloud Computing Can Do For You

Jennifer Kaplan — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:07:42 +0000

I know that Infoworld declared cloud computing “all the rage” back in April, but it now seems to have reached a tipping point. Just last week I came across Michael Dell and Marc Benioff sounding off in Forbes.com, I received an email from The QuestionPro Blog about cloud connectors, read about “Why Private Cloud Computing Is Beginning to Get Traction” in eWeek and learned about a CloudCamp Computing Conference. And, of course, since it was the election week, the talk about cloud computing even turned to politics with techies asking” “What Does The Obama Revolution Mean to Cloud Computing?”

If I am coming across cloud computing on a daily basis, its clearly become mainstream. But, how exactly is cloud computing green? Well, Kevin Jackson mused about this on his blog and asserts that The Economist provides the perfect answer: