The most recent update on global e-waste from a consortium of international organizations gives us new data about the problem's scope and grow. Per-capita e-waste growth is slowing, the overall amount is growing with the world's population.

ICT companies show less dominence of the top slots than they did five years ago. This is true in both US and Global rankings.

We have counted ~25 billion devices attached to our global ICT infrastructure. Many of these are Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. IoT has all the Green ICT issues of any tech segment. How many IoT devices will we see deployed in the next coming years? It is instructive to see how forecasts have been becoming more conservative.

Our latest update looks at the potential value of the e-waste recycling market and at the challenges nanoscale ICT poses to realizing that potential.

Location is becoming increasingly important to the sustainability of ICT facilities. We've been tracking activities which try to leverage geographic features for greener operations. This article focuses on Europe and Asia. (Another focuses on North America.) Our latest update highlights the relationship between renewable energy availability and overall desirability for siting data centers.

Updates from Europe. Click on "Europe" tag above for all news about the region. Click here for regional Green ICT updates from around the globe.

2017

TCO Developement offers A Guide to Sustainable IT Purchasing with TCO Certified. The TCO Certified program is Euro-centric, but anyone seeking to improve their Green ICT purchasing can use this comprehensive approach. The Guide offers thirteen "Leading Edge Sustainability Criteria", eight points of verification, and a three-phase purchasing process.

Electronic media infrastructures and gear are important components of global ICT as movies, television, music, and books all go digital. This post offers a global sampling of sustainability in e-media. We just added albert - a UK entertainment industry initiative.

After you have finished with this post, see more by clicking on the "Green media" tag, above.

Government entities have an important role to play in encouraging sustainable ICT across all industries. Effective leadership requires internal implementation, as well. The tag at the top of this post - 'government' - helps you easily locate posts containing opportunities for and applications of Green ICT in government operations. (Green ICT in public education is found through the 'education' tag.) We note briefer items in this post, but haven't updated it recently. An email from TCO Certified reminded us that municipalities continue to pursue Green ICT purchasing.

Most Green ICT efforts focus on hardware. That make sense, because hardware lifecycles encompass everything from environmentally responsible sourcing of its raw materials through energy efficiency of its use to sustainable disposal at its end-of-life. Special utility software such as desktop power-saving plays a significant role in Green ICT, but less attention has been given to the application and system software within the gear. The most recent update is a tool anyone can use to evaluate a website's environmental performance.

We found back in 2010 that the European market for Green ICT products had many local standards with few certified products. That did not appear to best serve sustainability-oriented computer buyers - consumer or enterprise - who need to make practical purchasing decisions incorporating sustainability. The situation has not improved in recent years.

Our recent update of Finding the Greenest Tablets illustrates the continuing challenges for conscientious buyers trying to sort through standards.