Reuse and Green Your Network!
Reuse and Green Your Network!
For those of us who have been living anywhere in our world other than the proverbial community located at “under a rock”, you have probably noticed the latest trends of corporate environmental awareness. It seems like every day another large enterprise company makes a public announcement about their “new green initiative”. Just today, Steve Jobs announced that Apple no longer sells CRT monitors, which contain significant amounts of lead. He also said the company has completely eliminated hexavalent chromium and some brominated flame retardants from its products.
The fact is, not all of these efforts are motivated by pure altruism. More and more evidence is beginning to surface, indicating that a financial benefit can also be realized through socially responsible initiatives. A recent report by the IT market research firm, Gartner, shows that consumers buying everything from cell phones to network hardware are changing their buying habits. Environmental factors will become one of the top six buying criteria for information technology organizations moving forward.
Gartner’s study also produced some very sobering data for the technology community. Gartner illustrated that the energy from manufacturing, distribution and use of information and communications technology emits approximately 2 percent of total global carbon dioxide, which is equal to the emissions from the entire airline industry. These recent findings coupled with the financial benefits of reuse and recycling, create a one