Blogger Jay Yarrow, from the Business Insider Green Sheet, described the launch of the Cool IT Challenge with the following sentence: "Greenpeace pees all over the IT sector today, saying companies aren't doing their part to save the world." Believe it or not, this was not a direct quote from our press release. We're not peeing on them Jay, we're endorsing them. Very different.
The Cool IT Challenge isn't mean to be a stream of piss falling on the heads of all the major IT companies. It is actually what it says it is - a challenge. A challenge to companies that claim to be doing their part environmentally, as well as to companies that have the potential to be doing more, to really step up and provide the kind of innovative solutions we all know they're capable of. There is a huge opportunity for IT to lead on climate solutions. We need them to lead.
'ICT’s largest influence will be by enabling energy efficiencies in other sectors, an opportunity that could deliver carbon savings five times larger than the total emissions from the entire ICT sector in 2020.' - Smart2020 Report from The Climate Group.
Living up to their potential and taking advantage of this huge opportunity is the challenge for IT. The method? Online betting - naturally.
Cool IT ranks the CEOs of top IT companies on their climate leadership (see scoring criteria) and then allows you to place bets on the companies most likely to improve. (Currently in the ranking: IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Sharp, Fujitsu, Nokia, Sony, Toshiba, Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, and HP.) Getting the attention of the CEOs you bet on and applying pressure can be as easy as blogging their name with a link back to their Cool IT scorecard. The next time the CEO of Fujitsu, Kuniaki Nozoe (or his mom), Googles his name they will find his Cool IT scorecard in the top results. Same goes for Katsuhiko Machida, the CEO of Sharp.
We're not taking the piss out of IT and we're definitely not pissing on them. We love IT - they're smart, they're innovative, they make other industries more smart and innovative. IT solutions is what the climate needs - and IT shall provide.