This post was written by Sahra Bean

Hewlett Packard Inc. has launched new research initiatives aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the technology sector. The company’s newly redesigned labs will focus sustainability research on three major areas: an industry-leading initiative to reduce the carbon footprint of data centers by 75%; efforts to replace copper wiring in servers with laser beams; and tools for measuring and managing the amount of energy used to develop products.
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This post was written by Sahra Bean

On ChannelWeb, Jennifer Hagendorf Follett questioned whether networking vendors’ rapid move to green technology is translating into greenbacks for the channel. Some Cisco Systems Inc.’s partners say that, in fact, it does, even though the reason for customers buying into the idea of green networking might be other than helping Mother Earth. Cisco channel partners say that the green phenomenon is more than hype: some customers are demanding it. Brett Shockley, CEO of Spanlink Communications, Minneapolis said
“Regardless of what you think about global warming, the reality is that everybody is buying into the fact that travel is expensive and time consuming, and that commonality is getting people believing this way of thinking. We see large corporate initiatives around green, and we see IT and department initiatives around more specifically the benefits of green — cutting travel costs, working more efficiently. They are two points of view that get you to the same place.”
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This post was written by Sahra Bean

Rackspace® Hosting, a leading hosting services provider, is known to promote energy conservation through customer offerings, company conservation and employee education on green living. Rackspace believes that environmental responsibility is still a growing concern for hosting customers, but that customers may not be willing to be exposed to higher costs to address them; this according to the second annual “Green” survey conducted by the company. According to this most recent green survey, only 41% of respondents are willing to pay more for green products and services this year; down significantly from the 52% of respondents that were willing to pay more last year. Also this year, only 28% are willing to trade server performance for lower carbon emissions. One significant increase in responses this year showed that 69% of respondents are still concerned and either looking for ways to reduce the impact their company has on the environment or actively addressing the issue; this up 7% from last year.
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This post was written by Sahra Bean

According to a new Office Depot survey, “green” has gone mainstream in the small business community. Half of all respondents are interested in making their offices “greener,” according to a survey of 2,500 business professionals commissioned by Office Depot. The survey also found that cost and understanding are the two primary factors preventing businesses from going greener at the office. Yalmaz Siddiqui, Director of Environmental Strategy for Office Depot said
“It is encouraging to see such strong interest in going green among small businesses. The good news is that creating a greener office is simpler than ever. Not only are there more high-quality, low-cost greener products available than ever before, but the range of solutions to help reduce waste and energy has also grown significantly.”
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This post was written by Sahra Bean

According to surveys conducted on 3,000 customers by the hosting provider Rackspace Inc. this year and the last, businesses are losing interest in green technology. While last year only 41% of Rackspace customers were unwilling to sacrifice performance to reduce global warming emissions, the percentage number has increased to 62%, which is shocking. The survey also indicated that the percentage number of people unwilling to pay a premium for green products and services, such as renewable energy, recycling, conservation or carbon offsets, have risen from 8% to 30%.
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This post was written by Sahra Bean

Amid concerns of planet warming, the market for clean, green technology is also beginning to show signs of overheating. With 930 energy start-ups worldwide counted in Lux Research’s Cleantech Report last year and just 10% rise in corporate spending on clean-tech research and development from 2005 to 2006, there can be no doubt that many idealistic companies promising to change the world will flop. A senior analyst at Lux Research, Ted Sullivan, said that the influx of money and the interest in renewable energies isn’t creating one big unsustainable bubble, but rather “boomlets” - citing biofuels and the solar industry as recent examples.

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