The European market for Green ICT products has many local standards with few certified products. This does not appear to best serve sustainability-oriented computer buyers, consumer or enterprise, who need to make practical purchasing decisions today.

While much of the green computer focus worldwide is on laptops, UK companies are doing interesting things with desktops.

Aleutia offers low-power units that "are designed to easily connect to solar power and work in remote places." Case studies include Africa and Central Asia.

VeryPC's new Broadleaf is advertised as "super energy efficient…PVC Free, BFR Free, Halogen Free…Low Mileage, Low Carbon End-to-End Design…Fully Ethically Carbon Offset [for] embedded, transportation and 5 years of operation..."

The Green Electronics Council now offers an international EPEAT purchasing registry, "a major development that enables the world’s leading electronics manufacturers to list ‘green’ computers and monitors in over 41 countries across the globe." The registry is revealing about the distribution of EPEAT product availability.

Understanding the energy consumption of a particular piece of software, such as a web site like Vertatique running in a virtualized environment, has been a difficult undertaking. Now, Microsoft Research is introducing Joulemeter, "a software based mechanism to measure the energy usage of virtual machines (VMs), servers, desktops, laptops, and even individual softwares running on a computer…Joulemeter can be used for gaining visibility into energy use and for making several power management and provisioning decisions in data centers, client computing, and software design."

A number of sustainability rankings in the US and Europe let us take a look at how telecom providers perform compared to each other and to broader tech sectors. France Telecom, Sprint-Nextel, and Vodafone perform consistently well across the table, below.

Sustainability in ICT product manufacturer is an important element of Green ICT. Apple, like many US companies, use many overseas contract factories and component and subassembly suppliers. Apple audits these facilities for compliance to its standards in five categories, including Environmental Impact. What does Apple's latest audit reveal?

The Bloom Energy Server is a "distributed power generator" that is getting considerable attention. It is already being used by ICT companies, but it is not clear if the product is yet deployed for mission-critical ICT applications.

Desktops and workstations are still widely-used in enterprise computing, particularly for demanding applications, although some of these models are targeted to the consumer. Nine manufacturers are offering over 90 models. Apple, Dell, HP, and Lenovo offer the most choices; AUSUTek, BenQ, and MDG are the latest to register offerings.

Vertatique includes GreenICT progress and issues from outside the United States. Here are some updates from this region. Click here for more GreenICT news and analysis from this and all the regions around the world.

Gartner Finalists for inaugural Green Data Centre Award in Asia Pacific: CLP Power Hong Kong Limited, Insurance Australia Group Limited, Reliance Communications (India).

Wipro Infotech launched its "100% recyclable" Greenware desktops in India, giving "India its very first PVC & BFR free product.” Never missing an opportunity to put pressure on the global players, Greenpeace notes, "Wipro has beaten giants like Dell, Samsung and Lenovo to the finish line in producing a computer free of the worst toxic chemicals."

HP on Avatar's New Zealand render farm: "The HP team worked extensively with Weta Digital to run the system at optimum power efficiency, resulting in dramatic power and cooling savings. Through water-cooled radiators, closed rack space, and passive rooftop heat exchangers, the data center stayed cool while running full time and often at full capacity, with no air conditioning. The cooling cost was equivalent to that of turning on a few electric water pumps."

Vertatique includes GreenICT progress and issues from outside the United States. Here are some updates from this region. Click here for more GreenICT news and analysis from this and all the regions around the world.

The Quest for Canada's Smartest IT contest includes a "Greenest IT Award". Award applicants need to make a compelling case in three areas: "Maturity, Green IT & Business, and the WOW! factor."

Canadian precious metals company Teck is supplying the Royal Canadian Mint with gold, silver, and bronze that includes recycled e-waste for the Olympic and Paraolympic medals. Bloomberg reports that Sony and Zenith TVs are included. The details begin about 2:15 into Teck's video.

Canadian Green Tech describers itself as "your comprehensive source of information for Canada’s green technology space. The website provides timely news and information as well as in-depth analysis of the rapidly evolving green sector in Canada."