WASHINGTON, DC — The EPA today unveiled its new and long-awaited Energy Star certification for buildings that house data centers and stand-alone facilities, marking a big step forward for energy efficiency in high-tech environments.

The new certification relies on PUE, or power usage effectiveness, to gauge the efficiency of a computing facility. PUE is a metric developed by the Green Grid consortium, and measures how much of total energy going into a data center is used for computing compared to lighting and cooling. To read the full article click here

ARLINGTON, VA — With global creation of e-waste projected to rise exponentially as more individuals and businesses spend more time online, the illegal trade of discarded electronics will also become big business.
 
To help address it, and stem the flow of illegal e-waste around the world, the international police organization Interpol created in 2009 Global E-Waste Crime group, and last week gathered experts at a three-day conference in Virginia to develop and share strategies for managing e-waste. To read the full article, click here

At an event convened by the company in New York yesterday, UPS highlighted just how deeply IT is incorporated into its daily operations, and how UPS uses that information to move itself and its customers toward greener pastures.  Dave Barnes, UPS's Senior Vice President and CIO, told attendees at its event yesterday that it spends $1 billion a year on technology. Green tech figures into UPS's practices in a number of ways, primarily in waste reduction and improved efficiency. To read the full article click here

SAN JOSE, CA—Cisco today is announcing a slew of hardware and software additions to its year-old "Borderless Networks" platform, focused on energy management, network security, and video streaming capabilities across a company. The new EnergyWise Orchestrator platform, an energy management platform that lets the IT department manage the energy used by any device connected to the network -- from servers to PCs to wireless routers. And, according to Inbar Lasser-Raab, Cisco's senior director of network solutions, that platform is available to almost any company that bought a Cisco switch in the last five years. There benefits to the EnergyWise Orchestrator are significant; by enabling centralized, policy-based control over both power-over-ethernet (PoE) as well as PCs, companies can save as much as 30 percent on their energy bills right away. To read the full article, click here