PC power management software: IT's Low-Hanging Fruit

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If you’re reading this, you probably own a computer. Your company might own a hundred or a hundred thousand. Aggregating all our humming little buddies, we produce a lot of emissions, and we squander two valuable resources: energy and money.

Speaking of money, venture capitalists are opening their minds (and checkbooks) to the opportunities presented by energy efficiency. The New York Times reported last week, “Venture capital is starting to move away from its infatuation with alternative energy… [towards] applying information technology to improve the efficiency of energy consumption.”

Where your computer is concerned, the early birds are already in flight. Companies like 1E, Verdiem and, yes, the U.S. EPA are offering you, me and the world’s biggest institutions easy access to these energy savings. Their PC power management software can conveniently control entire networks, so routine power-downs take less effort – because who’s feeling energetic at the end of the day anyway? Another software feature sidesteps pesky patching problems by enabling remote access to turned-off machines. Verizon found that installing this type of software on 63,000 of its computers saved the company 7,700 tons of carbon, or in a more plausible metric, about $1.3 million.

According to an independent report commissioned by 1E, powering down PCs at night and during weekends could save $2.8 billion a year in the U.S., about £300 million in the U.K. and about €920million in Germany. Supplementing global public access to such technology, the EPA offers two open-source programs: EZ Wizard and EX GPO.

PC power management software is one of 15 green business innovations highlighted in Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) Innovations Review 2009. These represent some of the most promising practices and technologies for driving efficiency and creating new business opportunities – while protecting the planet.

With the help of the global Just Means community, we will be hosting a dialogue on one innovation per week over the next 15 weeks. We thank you in advance for granting life to these ideas by exploring them here and exporting them to work. Who knows? If your boss is smart, you’ll get a promotion.