The continued greening of IT

Back in April, when InfoWorld folded its print magazine in favor of our current online-all-the-time strategy, a reader noted that he didn’t buy the stated reasons for our switchover. His own theory, which I’ll paraphrase here, was something along the lines of this: “InfoWorld is based in San Francisco, the home of environmental extremists. I’m thinking the real reason you did this was to save paper.”

Fittingly, the note was an actual, physical letter, printed out and sent via USPS.

I won’t bore you afresh with the details of why we’ve ditched print, but environmentalism was not a primary (or even secondary) consideration. It was, however, a welcome side benefit. Paper production contributes greatly to greenhouse gas; all the fuel required to deliver a few hundred thousand copies of a magazine to people’s homes and offices takes a toll too.

Of course, despite our embrace of the virtual world of the Web, we can’t really claim to be greener than thou: Our beefed-up Web site — with its many servers and related technologies — draws its share of resources. But we’re doing what we can to tread more lightly on the planet, and that includes shining a light (compact fluorescent or maybe even ultra-low-power LED) on IT’s efforts to reduce power consumption.

Our Sustainable IT blogger, Ted Samson, leads off with his take on “Four reasons to go green,” which range from the highly pragmatic (it’s good PR) to the more idealistic (it’s the right thing to do for the environment). Then Contributing Editor Leon Erlanger examines e-waste and hardware recycling. The problems caused by improper asset disposal — especially the growing glut of PCs in landfills — are piling up, and legislators are taking note. U.S. companies are being forced to pay attention in a hurry.

We round out our green-tech offerings with a twofer from Senior Contributing Editor Paul Venezia. First up, a look at how companies are retrofitting datacenters to take advantage of advances in power and cooling technologies. Strategies range from upping the voltage to installing cooling units between racks. Then to illustrate his point, Paul follows up with a real-world test of APC’s InRow datacenter cooling units. These systems blow cold air directly into the front of the servers, increasing efficiency and lowering power consumption. Given how much less wasteful those solutions are than whole-room air conditioning, the modular approach to datacenter design could well be in your green future. Keep reading this week. Whether you’re doing so in a place where the air conditioner’s turned up to 80 degrees is up to you.