IBM Project Big Green

Announced in May 2007, Project Big Green is a $1 billion initiative to dramatically reduce energy use by IBM and its clients. The initiative includes new energy efficient IBM products and services and a five step approach to energy efficiency in the data center. If followed, this approach can sharply reduce data center energy consumption, transforming clients' technology infrastructure into "green" data centers and provide energy savings of up to 42 percent for an average data center. The initiative also includes a new global "green team" of more than 850 energy efficiency architects from across IBM.

Just thing a minute about the following fact : "The six million servers in America's data centers today consume more energy than the 300+ million televisions in the United States".

IBM clients around the world are increasingly expressing concern over their growing need for energy and the associated costs, but the issue is becoming particularly acute for media and entertainment companies because they rely so heavily on high performance technologies to deliver their content," said Jim Gargan, Vice President, Brand Management, IBM BladeCenter and System x. "IBM as a company has made strides in addressing this need, but Project Big Green will allow IBM to further help the media and entertainment industry support sustained business growth with zero increase in consumption and environmental impact."

"Being 'green' is not just saying you're conscious about the environment and its challenges. In today's business world, it's about efficiency, power consumption and applying those green principles to smart business decision making," said Don Tennant, editorial director, Computerworld. "IBM, has taken a serious look at how they impact the environment and how they can address those challenges with good business sense, through their Project Big Green initiative and a company-wide focus on energy efficient technology and services."

As a result to the strong commitment for a more efficient business world, IBM has been named as the top Green IT company for 2008 by IDG and ComputerWorld in Armonk (NY) last month.

Steve Sams, vice president of IBM Global Site and Facilities Services said that "this is reflective of IBM's long-term commitment to the environment, and of the global success with clients that we've seen with our cross-company Project Big Green initiative, as we assess and implement strategies for our clients to be able to double their computing capacity without increasing energy use."

We all hope that this is just the beginning...