JFS Newsletter No.77 (January 2009)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/028756.html

Does the term "green IT" sound familiar? Reportedly, it was first used by the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States, initially in reference to reducing the amount of hazardous compounds used in information technology (IT) devices or the practice of recycling them at the end of their life.

Nowadays, the term is increasingly being seen in media reports and advertisements, while the number of symposiums and publications on green IT continues to grow, with it being linked to the issue of global warming.

In recent years, as the use of IT devices has skyrocketed so have the related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, particularly because of the large amounts of energy consumed by data centers, places where large numbers of computers and related hardware are housed. This increase of IT-related CO2 emissions is getting recognized as a problem that could contribute to the acceleration of global warming.

From another perspective, IT holds the potential to reduce humanity's overall CO2 emissions. For instance, applying IT to business in areas such as video conferencing, telecommuting, and paperless systems can result in lower CO2 emissions from reduced travel and paper use.

The point here is that green IT has two different aspects. On one hand, the use of IT will continue to expand more broadly and rapidly because of its convenience, which then presents the challenge of reducing IT-related CO2 emissions. This is defined as the "greening of IT." On the other hand, there is opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions in society by taking advantage of IT, which can be called "greening with IT."

In fact, IT's consumption of electricity is rising steeply. According to a report about green IT prospects released in 2008 by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), if IT energy use continues to grow at the current pace, by 2025 the amount of electricity it consumes will be 5.2 times the level in 2006, equivalent to one-fifth of predicted total electricity generation in Japan. Besides this, it is estimated that worldwide consumption will be 9.4 times higher in 2025 compared to the 2006 level, equivalent to 15 percent of total electricity generation worldwide.

Green IT Initiative in Japan (METI: October 2008)
http://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/GreenITInitiativeInJapan.pdf

At the same time, the METI said that promoting greater use of green IT can contribute to energy conservation in society, as the total energy saved through employing greener IT in the future could amount to more than that consumed by IT devices. Effective use of green IT would increase the energy efficiency of home appliances, industrial processes, and transportation, besides other areas of energy saving, such as deploying widespread automatic lighting and temperature control devices.

IT can also help make transportation more energy efficient and avoid traffic congestion through the use of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). METI estimated that the reduction of CO2 emissions by employing green IT by 2025 would amount to 10 percent of total energy consumption in Japan and 15 percent worldwide, and emphasized the importance of promoting green IT globally.

At the same time, it is important to improve the energy efficiency of IT devices themselves. To this end, the Japanese government set the goal of reducing the electricity consumption of IT devices by 40 percent, to about 2 percent of total power consumption in Japan, by 2025.

Now, let's look back at how green IT has been developed by Japan. The country's first initiative was in 1995, when it joined the International Energy Star Program launched by the United States. Then, in 2001, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) created the PC Green Label System to indicate environment-friendly personal computers that meet standards set under the labeling system, a voluntary effort organized by Japanese industry groups.

PC Green Label System
http://www.pc3r.jp/dl/gl2008_e.pdf

The PC Green Label Standards are divided into the following four areas:
1. Company system to design and manufacture personal computers following environmentally conscious principles
2. Environmental information
3. Environmentally conscious product design and manufacturing processes
4. Design and manufacture of products while conscious of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle)

In March 2006, the Japan Forum on Eco-efficiency released its "Guideline for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Eco-Efficiency Evaluation." Until then, companies interpreted and communicated the environmental efficiency of their products independently because there were no objective integrated standards. The forum's guideline offers uniform standards for developing methods to quantitatively assess how much introducing any IT system would contribute to curbing global warming.

Guideline for Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
Eco-Efficiency Evaluation
http://www.jemai.or.jp/JEMAI_DYNAMIC/data/current/detailobj-2687-attachment.pdf

In December 2007, METI launched the Green IT Initiative together with five IT-related industry groups and two government-affiliated organizations. Their aim is to achieve environmentally sustainable economic growth through green IT, by developing and promoting IT and electronics technologies that can contribute to the reduction of environmental burdens. The Green IT Initiative addresses energy conservation through the application of IT and improvement of energy efficiency of IT equipment under the three principles of (1) enhancing collaboration between industry, academia, and government; (2) implementing governmental initiatives; and (3) leading international cooperation.

Green IT Initiative in Japan (METI: October 2008)
http://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/GreenITInitiativeInJapan.pdf

The Green IT Promotion Council was established in January 2008 as an organization to support partnerships between industry, government, and academia. Already by May 2008, 170 companies were participating. In providing opportunities for IT vendors, research institutions, and universities to work together, the council is engaged in activities such as (1) roadmap creation for IT and electronics technologies that would be highly effective in saving energy, (2) long-term forecasting and evaluation of the contribution of IT utilization to reducing environmental burdens, (3) introduction of new technologies into society and public-awareness raising, and (4) exercise of global leadership through international partnership and various information-sharing initiatives.

Green IT Promotion Council
http://www.greenit-pc.jp/e/

Industry Council Established in Japan to Promote Green Information Technology
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/027063.html

Meanwhile, as a government initiative, METI promotes developments of innovative technologies to reduce the energy consumption of entire IT systems, in addition to initiatives to encourage energy saving using IT devices. In fiscal 2008, the Green IT Project, with a first-year budget of three billion yen ($33.3 million), was launched by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), an independent administrative agency under METI. The Green IT Project is designed with the aim of reducing the electricity consumption of data centers (servers and storage hardware) by more than 30 percent, networks (routers) by 30 percent, and display monitors by more than 50 percent.

Under such a trend, client companies have been raising concerns and awareness about global warming and countermeasures. In response, IT companies are facing intense competition in developing green IT products and offering green IT solutions. That's why a growing number of articles and advertisements on green IT can be found in newspapers recently in Japan.

IT companies are competing against one another over more power-efficient IT devices. This is a quantitative approach to reducing energy consumption, but in order to basically reduce the amount of CO2 emissions, switching energy production from fossil fuels to renewable sources is also needed.

In this regard, there are some interesting efforts emerging. For example, Hokkaido Green Energy Data Center Research Group, established in June 2008, plans to construct a data center in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. While the number of data centers has been increasing nationwide, the group is planning to make use of Hokkaido's cool climate to contribute to a drastic reduction of electricity consumption. Ten companies and organizations such as Fujitsu Limited, Ricoh Co., and Muroran Institute of Technology are participating in this research group as observers.

As 44 percent of a data center's electricity is typically consumed by air-conditioning systems needed to keep computer servers cool, the group is aiming to reduce electricity consumption by taking advantage of lower outside temperatures in winter and using snow/ice energy stocked during the winter to cool IT devices in the summer. It is also considering using the heat from the exhaust of data centers for other heating purposes in winter. In the case of large-scale data centers holding tens of thousands of servers, the group estimates that it's possible to reduce the amount of electricity used for cooling by more than 50 percent.

In the various scenarios of people's social and private lives, the opportunities to use IT will continue to increase. Green IT can contribute to substantial reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions throughout society, instead of adding to larger consumption and emissions, although this depends on how both the "greening of IT" and "greening with IT" are promoted. Due to this fact, green IT is one of the most notable areas of influence in emerging energy and global warming issues.