A Step Towards Green Future: Green Computing

Over 850 million PCs are turned on every day and they consume immense amount of electricity. Most of it is provided by burning fossil fuels. This process emits pollutants, sulfur, and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These emissions cause respiratory disease, smog, acid rain, and global climate change.

The explosive growth of the Internet, digital computing and global IT infrastructures leads a growing electronic waste problem throughout the world.

Green Computing or Green IT is an effective approach to protect our environment from the hazardous material and its effects that comes from the computers and associated subsystems- such as monitors, printers, storage devices, networking and communications system.

Green computing can be anything from efficient algorithms, proper utilization of resources, abstraction of computer resources, power management, energy efficient display options to electronic waste recycling, computer reuse, online storage of data (replacing hard disks), energy efficient LED monitors, telecommuting etc.

We need to look where we can contribute to a green environment. There are many ways to do the same:

1.  Checking product information for energy-efficiency before buying.

2.  Buying only those products with specifications that suit your needs – for example, someone who uses  mostly office software may not need high power graphic cards that are more suited for games.

3.       Reduce Power Consumption: By managing your computer resources effectively, you can save the power. Some of the power saving techniques are:

·                 Turn OFF computers including peripherals like printers, when not using for long periods.

·                 Put laptops in "sleep" mode when not in use. This mode allows you to save a lot of power, Automate this option to save power. It will turn off your monitor, hard drive, sound card, graphics and video cards and almost everything. The current state of the system will be saved in RAM. If you want to use it again, you can move the mouse or touch the keyboard to make everything turn on.

4.     Find an optimum display setting for monitors that will conserve energy. Use LED, LCD monitors instead of CRTs it will reduce a lot of power.

5.     Periodically perform thorough maintenance checks on devices.

6.     Try to share additional storage such as hard-disks with others.

7.             Use of Cloud Computing: with cloud computing you can avoid setting up your own hardware/software infrastructure. HaaS means hardware as a service allows you to use hardware from remote location through visualization.

8.     Print smarter!!

·        While purchasing printer, ensure that it supports duplex printing and that it is networkable, so one printer can serve all the computers in home or office.

·        Don’t leave printer on when you’re not printing.

·        Print double-sided.

·        Print draft copies when appropriate; these use less ink, and are still readable.

·        Re-cycle paper, as opposed to throwing it out.

9.     Recycle your old Computing devices: When you are no longer able to find a use for your computer, dispose responsibly by handing them over to e-waste disposal centres.

To make ourselves and our surroundings healthy, keep the environment cleaner. As computer users we let start with Green Computing. It is not only a new trend; it is a technology of itself. ‘Being Green’ should be understood as a long-term commitment that solves the purpose of creating a greener and sustainable infrastructure. There are broad fields to work on, and the results will surely be worth it. But proper awareness is needed along with stricter regulations. So, let’s buckle up, and do our bit to make the planet greener.