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be recycled.

Over the longer term, if you have any control over the purchasing of the equipment your company uses, heading towards more planet friendly equipment is easy and can have a dramatic effect. An Energy Star compliant PC can reduce energy consumption by up to 75%. The Energy Star system, much the same as the system used on washing machines and other household devices, also applies to office equipment. Energy Star models are available for everything from PC's, monitors, printers, fax machines, even the office coffee machine.

Switching from a desktop computer to a laptop can allow energy savings of up to 50% . Cost saving initiatives such as this can take a while before making a dramatic or noticeable impact on your usage, as technology refresh cycles tend to cover three to five years, but as with most efforts, every little helps and soon adds up to something much bigger.

Consider Telecommuting. Armed with a new laptop, many workers are now primed for telecommuting. This does require an infrastructure on the organizations part. However, most companies already have that in place to enable traveling workers or out of office support staff to connect to the office network. Some of the savings are obvious, such as the reduction in power consumption in the office or reduction in gas consumption, an even bigger benefit when prices periodically spike. There are also a number of more subtle benefits and savings for the company. Office resources can be shared, reducing overhead costs and less time is lost to sickness and family emergencies as employees are able to work despite their inability to make it into the office.

Virtualization is often overlooked but can offer great savings. If your company has a data center or even internal infrastructure, then all the same lessons learned for personal desktop equipment can be used in a server environment, plus some even more effective strategies become available for both power usage reduction and the reduction in the amount of hardware required. Massive strides continue to be made in virtualization tools and technologies that allow for running multiple logical machines, even of different flavors, on the same physical hardware. Take a fully technology inventory, look for machines that aren't fully utilized, or only fully utilized for specific periods of the day, as these are good candidates for putting onto virtual machines. This strategy saves money, power, floor space and the physical resources required to build the machines. Building hardware involves using many toxic materials and unfortunately we haven't yet developed good recycling programs for their safe disposal.

The individual technology professional can have a large impact on their own carbon footprint and overall energy consumption. Employers are in a great position to encourage corporate wide programs that when properly implemented, can bring cost savings to the company, and lessen the impact on the environment. Definitely a win, win situation.

Learn more about this author, Julie Wood.
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