Sony was one of a few vendors who covered green initiatives in their NAB 2010 show booth. It responded to my post-NAB query by telling me about a program that is a good example how just about any business can find an industry-specific contribution to make to Green ICT.

There is increased focus on eliminated PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) and BFR (Brominated Flame Retardants) from e-gear. Why is this important?

Lithium batteries are showing up in everything from personal e-gear to communications backup systems to next-gen electric cars. Will they become the next e-waste? And do you know the important distinction between recycling Li and Li-ion technology?

The DTV conversion is gaining momentum worldwide, along with e-waste problems and solutions.

The greenest purchase is often no purchase at all. Many items will have made much of their life-cycle energy/carbon impact by the time they hit our loading docks. "Sweating our assets" refers to getting more productivity and longer lifecycles out of what we already have, an even more critical skill now that access to cheap capital has diminished. There are two GreenICT reasons for doing this.

Check out IEEE Spectrum columnist Paul McFedries' "E-cycling E-waste" to extend your mastery of the topic with terms like "upcycling" vs. "downcycling", "technical nutrients", "historic scrap" vs. "orphan scrap", "precycle", and others. Here's are some examples:

The previous post about the new EPEAT international product registry noted the disparity in product availability among registry countries. Why is a product registered as EPEAT-compliant in one country not automatically compliant in all? The answer lies in the fact that EPEAT includes life-cycle criteria. EPEAT Communications Director Sarah O'Brien explained to me:

Unsettling images of third world e-waste processing are powerful reminders to tend to the life-cycles of our own gear. I've featured the work of Edward Burtynsky and National Geographic; now I continue to learn about new bodies of work.

@geekygreen, a rich source of information on Twitter about UK Green ICT, quotes a speaker at BSIGreenIT, "I would venture that 'Green IT' is actually 'Energy Efficient IT'." This references a reoccurring misconception well worth challenging.

European Community Directives are being increasingly used by manufacturers to label their more sustainable products. Here's a quick review of 3 key directives and 5 codes of conduct: