No IT company is greener than Cisco

Greenpeace evaluation finds company doubled score from previous measure

By Cisco Subnet on Fri, 04/30/10 - 2:34am.

Cisco is the greenest IT company out there, according to the latest "Cool IT Leaderboard" from environmental activist and awareness group Greenpeace. Cisco doubled its score from the previous Greenpeace Leaderboard "by demonstrating the effectiveness of its greenhouse emissions-saving solutions," the group said.

Ericsson came in second; Google was sixth; Panasonic was last.

The latest version of the Leaderboard is Greenpeace's third evaluation of the climate leadership demonstrated by the global IT sector. It measures a company's overall green solutions - like smart grid, smart meters, home energy management, and carbon tracking software - carbon footprint and advocacy.

Greenpeace wants evidence that IT company's are "walking the talk" by not only developing solutions for their customers, but measuring and reporting their own carbon and energy savings potential.

"The sector is ramping up technological solutions to fight climate change," Greenpeace states. Some still have a ways to go, however.

"(Leaders are) demonstrating the potential of IT solutions to help reduce energy wastage and greenhouse gas emissions, while others seem unable to decide if IT climate solutions are a significant business opportunity or a mere marketing strategy," the group states. It notes that cloud computing, a major IT industry initiative, poses "a major challenge" to IT's positive contributions to climate control by centralizing compute power and resources in energy-hungry data centers.