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Going Green is a red hot status symbol. But when market conditions are tight
and cash flow is a daily wrestle, thinking green may not come naturally.
Awareness of green initiatives is on the upswing but not high enough. And if
going green is seen as a lot of work it is likely to be put off. That is where
the good news helps. Going green also means saving greenbacks.
For years and years, we have usedrather misusedthe planets resources,
leaving future generations precious little. To make it worse what is left would
be a polluted and messy waste with hard-to-remove hazardous ingredients. For
those who think its all baloney, heres some stuff to digest. Oil was created
by nature over thousands of years. Mankind is running through it in a matter of
decades. Technology is meant to make life efficient. It does that. It also
leaves e-waste. Old computers, monitors, cellphones, etcstuff we have no use
for anymore. According to an Assocham report, e-waste is growing at 20% annually
in India. In Delhi region alone, which includes Gurgaon, the rate is 40%! By
2012, Delhi would have produced 6 lakh metric tons of e-waste. Huge quantities
of lead, barium, phosphorus and other heavy metals, which are known to be
carcinogenic, are being released into the environment. Landfills, where e-waste
is usually dumped, cause leaching of chemicals like mercury, lead and cadmium
into the soil and groundwater sources.
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Shyam Malhotra |
According to the Go Green Initiative in the US for schools to go green,
recycling a ton of paper saves 7,000 gallons of water, 380 gallons of oil and
enough electricity to power a household for six months. USs environmental
action group, Natural Resources Defense Council, says that the
virgin-timber-based paper industry is the leading consumer as well as polluter
of freshwater in industrialized countries. It also destroys millions of acres of
forest habitat.
So if the environment can be given more years while saving costs it is
something to get excited about. NRDC reports that an Environmental Protection
Agency office made concerted efforts to cut down on printing, and went on to
save $49,000 a year and reduce paper consumption by 30%. By simply going back to
basics. Cutting down printing on paper. Switching to double-side printing in
draft mode. Doesnt sound too much to ask fordoes it?
Similarly, electricity and airconditioning costs can be brought down. When
people troop to the cafeteria, how many of them switch off monitors? A CRT
monitor uses 75W of power. Half hour of lunch multiplied by number of monitors
by 75Wcan you see savings yet? How about a rule which says that if you are
going to be away for more than one hour, switch off the PC? How about the same
for lights, printers and scanners and ACs when not in use? The idea is to make
each person in the company aware of these, so it becomes an obvious thing to do.
Cut down on air travel. Going to New York from Mumbai and back would produce
close to 7,000 pounds of CO2. How much of collective travel does your team do?
Cut down on the carbon emissions, and get huge savings. Work will continue
through webcasts, online collaborations, audio conferencing and email.
For IT companies, data centers are turning green. New approaches to data
center designs are bringing down energy costs. Suns modular approach to design
has seen some significant savings, according to their blueprint released in June
this year. In their Bangalore data center, Sun was able to reduce space
consumption by more than half, and power consumption by 17%.
So going green is not just about saving the environment. It is about saving
the wallet too. Page(s) 1
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