Updates from Asia-Pacific. Click here for regional Green ICT updates from around the globe. Click on 'Asia-Pac' tag above for all news about the region. (Information about the ICT implications of Japan's earthquake and tsunami have been moved to its own post.)

2012

The deadline for entries in Hong Kong's 2012 Best Green ICT Award. The deadline for entry into the four categories is 6 February 2012. This is the first Green ICT award in China of which I am aware.

I wrote of the launch of Canada's GreenStar Network over two years ago. The announcement of an Asian node late last year in this "zero-carbon" network is a measure of the project's progress since then.

Excerpts from an address at the International Telecommunications Union's 2011 Green Standards Week sheds light on on Green ICT initiatives within China's communications industry.

This is solar-powered base station on top of a mountain in Lapland (Finland).

Remote ICT infrastructures are embracing renewable energy for everything from earthquake mitigation in Japan to CO2e reduction in India to military microgrids in Afghanistan. Africa is now participating, as well.

Email and email attachments have less environmental impact than physical delivery. But email is not without its own costs, both in terms of energy/carbon footprints and organizational productivity. A French company has taken a hard look at this and announced that it will move toward "zero email". At the same time, a German company has stopped its servers from routing some email after hours.

Apple's iPad, e-readers like Kindle, and smart phones lack the storage capacity and I/O options of even a netbook, necessitating connection to a cloud of data and applications. iPhone users began placing unprecedented demands on the cloud two years ago; it is likely that users of the tablets and other new devices and services are accelerating the trend. New statistics now reveal the the amazing scope and speed of this demand.

2011

French energy company Dalkia is developing a business park whose data center heat "will be transmitted via a heat exchanger to a new heating network that will eventually supply green energy to buildings with a surface area of 600,000 sq. m. (6,458,350 sq. ft.). " Dalkia projects that "More than 5,400 metric tons of CO2 emissions will be saved each year." Some media outlets have focused on EuroDisney's ownership stake in the business park near its amusement park, but there appear to be no plans to use the heat from the former in the latter. Click the "reuse-heat" tag at the top of this post for more examples.

Fujitsu announced that it has established a consolidated green product development standard based on the IEC 62075 framework covering the environmentally conscious design of AV and ICT equipment. The standard will encourage product designs which "promote resource efficiency and recycling", "reduce power consumption during…use", "reduce noise levels", and "avoid…use of hazardous materials".

Communications is another area where we pay an energy/heat/carbon price for speed. IEEE Spectrum reported in 2008 that network interface controllers in computers and switching gear consume over 5 terawatt-hours per year in the United States alone. 1/Gb/s links consume 4W more than their 100 Mb/s counterparts and the upcoming 10 Gb/s link could consume 10-20W more. Fortunately, energy-efficient networking is receiving more attention as Green ICT expands beyond the data center.

UK telecom provider BT is working on broadband delivery technology that varies its power in response to demand.
The "latest generation of Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) line cards - which allow up to 20Mbit/s broadband speeds on the last mile of the network - [operates] in an 'always available' rather than 'always fully on' mode…BT’s network infrastructure currently accounts for more than 60 per cent of its carbon footprint and the access network represents a large part." BT reports this new tech - called "cool broadband" - is still under development, but has already been used in a small customer trial.