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.

We were critical of Apple's environmental stance a couple of years ago, saying that the company was positioned to be a leader rather than a a foot-dragger. Since then, the company has made significant strides, such as improvements to its take-back recycling programs. On the downside, issues about its Chinese contract manufacturing operations have been slow to be resolved.

The University of Illinois has had a strong focus on e-waste through its Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI). Now, researchers at the University are experimenting with a technique that would enable electronic circuits to repair themselves. This holds the promise of longer service lives and therefore less e-waste. Here are excerpts from "Autonomic Restoration of Electrical Conductivity" in Advanced Materials.

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.

UK's Waste & Resources Action Programme (WARP) conducted a study of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) content of Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs). What can we learn, besides UK greens' fondness for initials? Turns out media, not IT, gear is the largest category. Upgrades are driving this waste stream.

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.

Specialty metals recycler Umicore uses grams per tonne of gold to illustrate the potential for urban mining of e-waste.

Follow our e-devices' global journeys on Greenpeace's interactive map and MIT's tracking animation.

Click here for more recent regional posts.

LED-based lighting is touted as 'green' lighting and we have made positive note of its use in e-media facilities and other ICT applications. While it is true that Light-Emitting Diodes produce more lumens per watt that either incandescent or florescent technologies, lamp-to-lamp comparisons fall short when LEDs enable massive new energy consumption. A case in point is digital signage, where a single LED-based outdoor billboard can consume more energy than a typical US home.