Successful Green ICT projects require effective stakeholder engagement before, during, and after each phase of a project. Rich Cotton, Director of Data Centers at Arnold and O'Sheridan consulting engineers, will be reinforcing this point at Datacenter World next week. Rich made some important points when I sat down to talk about this.

A lot has changed since we wrote three years ago: "Yahoo plans to go carbon neutral by the end of 2007. Part of this will be achieved through carbon offsets, including hydroelectric and sustainable agriculture projects in Brazil." Co-founder and Chief Yahoo David Filo now says, "Reducing our carbon footprint has always been a priority and we’ve decided to focus all our energy and investment on that philosophy. We will no longer purchase carbon offsets as announced in 2007. Instead, we’ll focus our resources on reducing our carbon impact while helping the rest of the industry do the same. We believe creating highly-efficient data centers will have a greater long-term, direct impact on the environment and gives us the best opportunity to play a leadership role in addressing climate change."

Another focus appears to be reducing the amount of water typically consumed by a data center. Here is Yahoo's report about its newest data center, the Lockport, NY "Chicken Coop":

We've been investigating exactly how the new ENERGY STAR for Data Centers works and sharing what we've learned. A look the first ENERGY STAR data centers reveals an interesting pattern: a foucs on reducing energy by tackling cooling, not ICT equipment and use.

Recent posts about "green" cloud computing generated lots of response. The issue: what is "green" and "clean" energy?

The key element of EPA ENERGY STAR® for data center buildings is the mapping by the Portfolio Manager of industry-standard metric PUE to ENERGY STAR's 1-100 building rating. Exactly how does this work?

Vertatique and RIA partnered to run a series of tests with Portfolio Manager. We used total and IT energy loads such that each hypothetical data center building had the same PUE and energy intensity. Even so, the ratings varied among the buildings.

We're pleased to be working with the RIA folks to enhance their Energy Stewards™ online platform for building portfolios that contain data centers and other ICT facilities. Here's the press release and links to more information.

I've reported on data centers that have been built to LEED standards. The more I learn about LEED in practice, the more I am convinced that organizations need to carefully weigh the costs/benefits of LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC) as a Green ICT tactic. Key to the issue is that LEED 3.0 NC (LEED 2009) neither requires Energy Measurement and Verification (M&V) nor requires sustained achievement of energy benchmarks after a building is commissioned.

The 7 June release by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its building Portfolio Manager will include new features for data centers, both as standalone buildings and as 'spaces' within larger buildings. One of the features is a new ENERGY STAR® rating systems for data center buildings, but not for data center spaces. (A data center space will contribute to the overall ENERGY STAR rating of its building.) Here is how the EPA explains its rating methodology:

I wrote last year about Verne Global's selection of Iceland as a location for a green data center based on the country's location-specific attributes. Recent news about the large ash emissions from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano prompted me to check back with the company. Lisa Rhodes, VP of Marketing and Sales at Verne Global, offered insight on both siting and operational issues.

Iceland appeared on our Green ICT radar last year when Verne Global cited the "Icelandic Advantage" for its its data center there. Another local company, GreenQloud, is now promoting Iceland's advantages as the basis for a more sustainable cloud computing service.