Global Mobile Awards' Green Mobile Awards are for "mobile industry organisations that are focused on the reduction of environmental impacts through eco-friendly, innovative policies, products, programmes or initiatives, as well as organisations outside of the industry that utilise the mobile platform to communicate, innovate or drive eco-friendly programmes, services and initiatives." Past winners include

There appears to be little consistent information for evaluating manufacturer claims about green phones and other mobile devices and much of that is dated. We've added newer rankings, but left the original ones here for those looking at older phones.

As we learn that most ICT impact occurs outside of the data center, understanding the the impact of "CT" becomes as important as that of "IT". GÉANT, the multi-gigabit pan-European research and education (R&E) network, has completed an GHG audit of its network backbone using the ISO 14063 standard. Its report both offers insights and raises questions.

Vertatique includes GreenICT progress and issues from outside the United States. Here are some updates from this region. Click here for more Green ICT news and analysis from this and all the regions around the world.

German software giant SAP announced continued progress toward its goal "to reduce its total carbon emissions to the year-2000 emissions level". Key is "significant progress in improving energy efficiencies in data centers through the use of data center design, virtualization technology and efficient hardware. The company’s largest data centers have been certified as “energy efficient” by the German standards organization TÜV Rheinland."

The European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics' October 2009 issue of ERCIM News has a Green ICT theme. It contains articles on energy-efficient networking and storage, data center operations, and other Green ICT topics.

Most Green ICT attention focuses on the data center, but there is growing evidence that the data center represents a minority of total ICT energy consumption and carbon emissions. The latest supporting data comes from Australia .

How much gear is attached to the edges of our global ICT infrastructure? Our latest estimate yields over 14 billion items, driven by mobile devices.

Vertatique includes GreenICT progress and issues from outside the United States. Here are some updates from the Asia/Pacific region. Click here for more GreenICT news and analysis from this and all regions of the world.

The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) notes that "Taiwan is ranked as the world number 6 and Asia's number 2 country by IMD's 2010 World Competitiveness Yearbook in terms of the potential in utilizing green ICT to create competitive advantages." TAITRA has launched Green ICT, Taiwan Lets You See! to showcase its Green Tech products.

It appears that Victoria (AU) is working to establish a Green ICT leadership position with its "Green IT CLuster", its "Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET)", and its "Green ICT Initiatives" to enable government ICT facilities to be more environmentally sustainable. (There are 132 EPEAT Gold computer products registered for Australia, more than for Japan but less than for China.)

I just received an email from the Sierra Club about a "special offer from our friends at CREDO Mobile." The email continues "Not only are they are the first mobile phone company to be certified by CarbonFund.org for offsets that cover the shipping and lifetime electricity use of their phones, but they give back to non-profit organizations like us and have worked with the Sierra Club in our efforts…" The Credo Mobile promotion in the Club email criticizes AT&T, exclusive US voice and data carrier for Apple's iPhone/iPad devices, for its contributions to anti-environmental politicians:

Google's Bill Weihl gave an update on ICT sustainability at Green:Net 2010 iin April. Livestream has posted the video; here the items I found useful. (Time location in video for each item is in parentheses in mm:ss format.)

Vertatique has been covering the Green ICT implications of America's conversion to digital television (DTV) for the past three years: consumer e-waste, broadcaster e-waste, and consumer energy consumption*. We noted in 2008 the EPA estimate of 99.1 million (analog) TVs in storage at the end of 2007. This number is likely to have been significantly altered by the DTV conversion completed in June 2009.