Summary of each Chapter found in the book.
Chapter One – Overview and Issues
This chapter sets the stage to explain why IT departments are having such a deleterious effect on the environment. We examine computers – from cradle to grave – and show you how they impact the environment, from poor use to their ultimate end.
This is a new perspective on IT buying. Before we thought about purchasing in terms of receiving dock to dumpster. Now we must consider the full lifecycle from production through recycling. We also talk about your organization, how to determine what sort of impact you’re having on the environment. In the end, we’ll show how you can save money by going green.
Chapter Two – Current Initiatives and Standards
Although it’s early in the process of governing bodies creating standards and laws about e-waste, the world knows well enough that electronics make an impact. It wasn’t as much of a deal 20 or 30 years ago – before there was a computer on every horizontal surface. But now it is a big deal. To ameliorate those problems, governments and organizations around the world have initiatives in place that will help reduce the impact of electronic waste. This chapter talks about some of the initiatives that mean to lessen IT impact.
Chapter Three – Minimizing Power Usage
You probably don’t see your datacenter’s power bill. If you did, it might shock you (no pun intended) to see how much power you consume. Datacenters and IT departments use a lot of energy. This chapter shows how you can lessen the amount of power you use. If you are looking at a place to pay for your Green IT initiatives, this is likely it.
Chapter Four – Cooling
You could probably hang meat in any datacenter you walked into. Datacenters generate a lot of heat (largely from inefficient power supplies), and we tend to crank up the air conditioning to cool things down. Here again is a huge expense. Chapter four talks about alternatives to cooling your datacenter, and how you can do it without using more than you need.
Chapter Five – Changing the Way We Work
While this book focuses mainly on technology and its environmental impacts, there are some other measures you can take – either on the part of your whole company in general, or your IT department in particular – that can lessen your organization’s impact on the planet.
This chapter shows you what sorts of things you can do to change your business processes for the better. If you think change is easy when a compelling an obvious path to do the right thing is presented, then you might not remember the metric system adopting challenges the US faced (and lost) in the early ‘80’s.
Chapter Six – Going Paperless
We generate a lot of paper, and we don’t need to. True, we like holding paper in our hands, but – again – you will save money if you reduce the amount of paper you use – you’ll also save trees. It’s been estimated that the cost of handling and processing paper is 31x that of the paper itself. We’re clear-cutting forests at a breathtaking rate, largely so we can hold the fourth quarter report in our hands. This chapter shows how you can transition your office into a paperless environment.
Chapter Seven - Recycling
We’re not talking about sorting your different types of glass before pickup. In this chapter we talk about how you can responsibly get rid of old computers and toner cartridges. It’s a huge problem in China and Africa, and by making some extra efforts, you can ensure your computers are disposed of ethically. We feel that legislation will catch up soon to where many are ethically, so recycling will not only be the right choice; it’ll be the law. You may also consider repurposing old equipment for your organization or donating to charity. This chapter will show you how to do that.
Chapter Eight – Hardware Considerations
You have a lot of options when it comes time to equip for your company’s IT needs. You can do it cheaply, initially, or you can do it responsibly (and less expensively in the long run). This chapter will show you how to equip your organization while making as little environmental impact as possible.
Chapter Nine – Tech Companies Case Studies
Think you can’t possibly revamp your IT department with eco-friendliness in mind? This chapter shows two companies – Dell and Hewlett Packard – who are not only being environmentally responsible, but they are also getting their customers involved.
Chapter Ten – Other Organizations
Others are making efforts to be environmentally responsible, and we talk about them here. First, the University of Wisconsin – River Falls is going green, and for altruistic reasons. Naturally, they save money from their efforts, but their impetus for going green stemmed from a desire to be responsible. The world’s largest retailer – Wal Mart – is also making huge strides to be green. It is thought that other retailers will follow their example. This chapter talks about both these organizations and what they’re doing to be green.
Chapter Eleven – Datacenter Design
The bulk of your power consumption will be in your datacenter. There are steps you can take to ensure you use the best equipment and use the least amount of power. This chapter shows you how to design your datacenter – whether totally redesigning or replacing old equipment.
Chapter Twelve – Virtualization
A huge trend in green computing is virtualizing your servers and storage. That is, it is now possible to put multiple logical servers onto a handful of physical servers. This obviously saves money in hardware acquisition, but in the power spent to run them. The case is also the same for storage. You needn’t spend thousands of dollars on data storage – through intelligent SANs, you can save money. This chapter shows you how to do both things.
Chapter Thirteen – Greening Your Information Systems
This chapter brings everything we’ve talked about together. It shows how the changes we talked about in preceding chapters can be applied to your company. We’ll talk about not only swapping over your hardware, but also the sorts of initiatives you can make in your organization.
Chapter Fourteen – Staying Green
It’s great if you make changes, but you don’t want to slip into bad habits, and you also want to stay on top of any trends and changes. In the last chapter, we’ll show you how you can keep your IT department and your company in the green – both environmentally and monetarily.