“How Dirty Is Your Data?” is the first ever report on the energy choices made by IT companies including Akamai, Amazon.com (Amazon Web Services), Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo, and highlights the need for greater transparency from global IT brands on the energy and carbon footprint of their Internet infrastructure.
Information Technology (IT) is disruptive. Largely for the better, IT has disrupted the way we travel, communicate, conduct business, produce, socialise and manage our homes and lives.
This disruptive ability has the potential to reduce our dependence on dirty energy and make society cleaner, more efficient and powered renewably. But as we applaud the positive, visible impacts and measurable, game-changing potential of IT, we also need to pay attention to what’s behind the curtain.
How Dirty is Your Data?
Corrected version, 24 May 2011 [PDF]
Discussion
I have had Microsoft's Hotmail for 8 years now, since I was a teenager. Now, while I haven't deleted my account, I signed up for Gmail last year. I made this move to accomodate the Google services I use on my smartphone and was pleased to know that Google relies on eco-friendly energy services while keeping my data safe! Still, I think kids need to explore the outdoors more, away from a screen (big or small). There is so much to learn from nature: how birds fly to the textures of lichen on bark. Biology is a science!