Whether it is through public outcries or through software monitoring, pressure on data centers, organizations, and other entities to reduce their carbon emissions is increasing.

Whether it is through public outcries or through software monitoring, pressure on data centers, organizations, and other entities to reduce their carbon emissions is increasing. Perhaps one of the most formidable voices in this anti-carbon movement is that of Greenpeace and several environmental watchdogs.

In April this year, Greenpeace released its yearly Cool IT Leaderboard, which measures what actions companies are taking to reduce their impact on the environment. Cisco was the leader of the pack this year with its plans to use smart-grid technologies and to develop energy-management technologies. This year’s list saw Google falling in the ratings.

Facebook has received much flak from Greenpeace. In a public face-off, Greenpeace castigated the social networking site for being a huge consumer of power in its data centers. Ironically, Greenpeace has used Facebook to mount its campaign called “help get facebook.com off coal.” In February of this year, Greenpeace and Facebook got into a squabble over the latter’s Oregon data center. Greenpeace stated that Facebook should be focusing on running its data center on renewable energy rather than choosing coal as an energy source. Facebook replied stating that its data center in Oregon uses state-of-the-art innovative evaporative cooling systems.

According to Greenpeace, the IT industry needs to be at the forefront of environmental protection because it makes sense to join the company’s bottom line and the environmental bottom line. Ironically, however, Greenpeace keeps some of its servers in the carbon-emitting companies’ data centers.

Companies like IBM have done extensive work in promoting a green approach. Consider, for instance, IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative. With the use of smart grids, massive computing power, and other technologies in public utilities, IBM has managed to yield significant benefits like a lowering of power bills by 10%, a more holistic database for the health-care industry, smarter public services like transportation and education, and so on.

Organizations like the Green Grid and LEED are also doing work to standardize and promote metrics designed to regulate use of power. Sometimes, companies and individuals may not be prepared to pay or continue to pay the cost of being green, and therefore, the resilience of these schemes and commitments may be questionable.

Companies like Google, Amazon, and CLP Power, along with many others, have made strong commitments to building and sustaining green data centers. Consider some staggering data: according to Gartner, data centers contribute 23% of global information and communications technology (ICT) carbon dioxide emissions. The ICT industry is equivalent to the aviation industry in producing 2% of the world’s carbon emissions. Although we all use the Internet and hail it as a green medium, its carbon footprint is a whopping 300 million tons annually. Having said this, the Internet will continue to play a critical role in shifting the world to a low-carbon economy. The “smart grid,” for instance, is the direct result of the Internet’s ability to transmit energy data all over the world.

Companies like IBM are well on their way to exploring new technologies like Aquasar in Switzerland. Aquasar is a system that uses the heat generated by computers to warm up buildings. Eventually, it hopes to reduce carbon emissions by 85%.

There are also plans like the CRCEES (Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficient Scheme). The CRCEES was started by the U.K. government and is a long-term plan that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by the year 2050. The one major source of resistance is the difficulty of actually measuring and managing data related to carbon emissions. Many are also claiming that this scheme has many loopholes. According to industry pundits, companies can simply locate their data centers offshore.

There is also an EU Code of Conduct on Data Center’s Energy Efficiency, which is run on a voluntary basis and aims at reducing the environmental and energy impact of data centers. The code focuses on IT and facilities loads in a data center and encourages data center managers to adopt energy-efficient practices.