By Anne-France White - 31st January 2007
IT business leaders have called for global standards on energy efficiency.
During an ICT event organised as part of the European commission’s sustainable energy week, executives for HP, Intel and Sun Microsystems agreed that there should be global standards.
“HP wants standards to drive energy efficiency,” said HP’s vice-president Bernard Meric.
The executives all said their companies have been doing a lot to improve energy efficiency – with several of the companies setting ambitious goals for the next few years.
“I would like to see Sun Microsystems reach a 60 per cent rise in efficiency by 2015,” said Sun’s head of corporate affairs Richard Barrington as he referred to the EU target of achieving 20 per cent savings by 2020.
But Barrington was also critical of the ICT sector, saying it “must put its own house in order” in terms of energy efficiency.
“In our society, we continue to produce technology which is very rapidly becoming obsolete,” he said, pointing out that 6.5 million tonnes of e-waste are produced in the EU every year.
Barrington argued that much more R&D should go into developing innovation to create ICT products that use less material, and that bad behaviour on energy efficiency should be punished.
“Policymakers have a tremendous opportunity to challenge technology providers and also to challenge other industries – like the banking sector – to embrace ICT and make their businesses more efficient,” said Intel’s Don Whiteside.
Energy efficiency is a core theme of the commission’s “energy package” tabled in January, which aims to develop a common EU-wide energy policy.
“I think we need to add to the energy package, but I think it’s a good start,” commented MEP Anders Wijkman, who chaired the meeting.
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