Apple's 2012 Facilities Report provided detail on on the sustainability features, ranging from 'free air' cooling to real-time power monitoring, in Apple's Maiden (NC-USA) data center. A more recent report commits to 100% renewable energy.

A Pike Research report says that the trend to greener data centers will yield a significant GHG slowdown as well as drive a substantial market opportunity. Here are some of the top-line numbers from Pike.

Visits to the 2011 and 2012 National Associations of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show and conference yielded a pointed lesson in the importance of green innovators telling their stories early and vigorously.

Measuring the carbon or greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of an organization is a sophisticated undertaking. Traditional audit methodologies allow participants to "reduce" their footprints through externally-hosted IT and through "cloud" (SaaS) applications. This needs to change as more organizations become ICT-intensive.

The ecoATM is "...an automated self-serve kiosk system that uses patented, advanced machine vision, electronic diagnostics, and artificial intelligence to evaluate and buy-back used electronics directly from consumers for cash or store credit." What happens to the collected e-waste?

Samsung's transparent LCD panel "utilizes ambient light such as sunlight, which consequently reduces the power required since there is no backlight...The transparent LCD panels have a high transmittance rate, which enables a person to look right through the panel like glass, and it consumes 90% less electricity compared with a conventional LCD panel using back light unit." Samsug's panels won a Eco-Design and Sustainable Technologies award at CES 2012.

Two technology advances point to the promise of more more energy-efficient memory. One is described as "nanoscale", the other "atomic scale". The latter comes with a video.

Interest in energy-efficient computing has sparked a Vertatique discussion of energy-sensitive benchmarks beginning in 2007. We originally saw pages per kilowatt hour, "MIPS / Watt" or "Flops / Watt" and Peter Kooge's "performance / joule". More have since been proposed, including one from focused on CO2e, but none have emerged as definitive.

Japan's 2011 earthquake and tsunami had a huge impact on the country's ICT infrastructure, much of which is still being felt by businesses and consumers. Here information and insights we have collected over the past year about data centers, communications networks, e-devices, and other ICT topics.

Japan Trends noted a year later, "On the back of electricity concerns in Japan last summer as a result of the Fukushima disaster, we have seen a growing amount of innovation in the energy sector appealing to a much more energy conscious consumer." It cites Sony's demonstration of a wireless communication and authentication systems for connecting e-device users with power supplies. Sony's video suggests the ability of consumers to purchase renewable energy for their e-gear. Japan Trends wryly observes that the system could "discourage those who nurse a single small cup of coffee for hours on end whilst sucking on the electricity taking up the space and working away in a busy coffee shop."

Chemical batteries have a host of life-cycle sustainability issues, so ICT manufacturers and practitioners are constantly looking to innovate in this area. I've previously taken a look at alternatives to chemical batteries in ICT facilities and infrastructures. What about e-gear? Mitigate, more than eliminate, is the current state of practice.