Inspite of the hiring being slowed down by recession, green-collar jobs are growing double than that of traditional jobs. Clean Energy Economy study which is billed as the U.S.’s first state-by-state survey of green-collar jobs states that Green-collar hiring took a hit during the current recession and may accelerate beyond its 1998-2007 growth rate of about 9% a year which is more than double the 3.7% growth rate for traditional jobs.

As a fact more than 68,200 jobs across 50 states and the District of Columbia accounted for about 770,000 jobs relating to clean energy. California led the U.S. with about 124,000 green-collar jobs in 2007, followed by Texas with 56,000 and policymakers are coming up with fresh legislation which includes the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, along with upcoming renewable electricity standards and possible measures to limit carbon-dioxide emissions. There is more hope for job creation in the near future even as the economy struggles.

Besides government stimulus, venture capitalists have invested about $12.6 billion into this category during the last three years.
An excerpt from the Carbon Salary Survey

* The average salary in the booming climate sector was $76,000.
* The big green guns, upper-level managers, etc., earn six figures easily.
* Half of the survey respondents reported scoring a yearly bonus to the tune of $11,000.
* Monster.com is out .Greenjobsearch.org is in.

President Barack Obama said that he wants to create millions of “green collar” jobs. His stimulus bill includes more than $60 billion for clean energy including $11 billion to modernize the power grid to move energy from renewable energy projects to the cities and $2 billion in grants to develop better batteries for cars. He also supports a comprehensive federal energy plan that would launch a “cap and trade” market on greenhouse gases and national mandates forcing power companies to generate a part of their electricity from renewable sources.

So, we can conclude that Green-collar jobs are far more pink-slip proof than the other jobs.

Viridity as in dictionary means green color or pigment; the quality or condition of being green and the company justifies the meaning. The company was founded in the year 2007. It’s main aim was to make the datacenters more eco-friendly and effective.

Since datacenters are the integral part of any organisation so it needs the most attention. Viridity maintains an equilibrium  between power, utilization and cooling to increase the life of datacenter and hence it works more , is more reliable , more responsive and all of it comes with a reduced cost.

Few of the benefits of the Company are:

• It is completely transparent towards the stepwise action plans.
• Datacenter life cycle is increased by 2-3 years.
• Improved services such as reliability, responsiveness and efficiency.
• Reduction in the cost of power and cooling.
• Staff productivity is enhanced by letting the less skilled employees do the  everyday(less important) job.

Viridity is a software start-up which is growing very fast and will soon be a leading company in managing datacenters in a greener way.

BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) is the leading and most widely used environmental assessment method for buildings around the world, with over 110,000 buildings certified and over half a million registered.These Buildings can be used to assess the environmental performance of any type of building (new and existing).It sets the standard for best practice in sustainable design and has become the de facto measure used to describe a building’s environmental performance. Credits are awarded in eight categories according to performance. These credits are then added together to produce a single overall score on a scale of Pass, Good, Very Good, Excellent and Outstanding which is also reflected in a star rating from 1 to 5 stars.

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. owns, acquires and manages technology related real estate. The company focuses on providing Powered Base Buildings. Over 50 Fortune 500 companies rely on it to provide solutions for their data center requirements. Due to many benefits of turning a building green, Digital Realty Trust on March, 31, 2009 adopted the newly announced BREEAM(Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) standards.

Jim Smith, Chief Technology Officer for Digital Realty Trust, said, “Adopting the BREEAM standards right at the beginning of the initial design stages will not only build in reduced running costs because the building’s insulation and cooling will be optimised, but in the longer term the value of the building can be expected to be higher than a comparable building which is not BREEAM accredited”.

BREEAM provides to its clients, developers, designers and others with market recognition, assurance of best environmental practice incorporated into a building, a benchmark that is higher than regulation, a tool to help reduce running costs, improve working and living environments and a standard that demonstrates progress towards corporate and organisational environmental objectives.It addresses wide-ranging environmental and sustainability issues and uses a scoring system which is transparent, easy to understand. It also maintains a robust technical standard with rigorous quality assurance and certification.

According to Paul Gibbon, Director of Sustainability, BRE Global “The advantage of scheme development using the framework of BREEAM Bespoke is that it reduces the cost of assessments and provides a ready made set of criteria against which developers, designers and clients can assess their buildings”.

Early BREEAM assessment standards for datacentres were carried out as part of Digital Realty Trust developing a facility for a major financial institute which was completed late in 2008 which achieved an Excellent rating. The datacentre uses a unique heat recovery system which results in energy savings of up to 83 percent compared to conventional gas fired boilers. It also uses a building automation system which responds to changing atmospheric conditions making the most of when the ambient temperature is low.

AT&T has a simple six step check for green computing

• Use an LCD instead of a CRT;
• Consider a laptop;
• Kill the screen saver;
• Use your computer’s sleep function;
• Buy Energy Star compliant machines;
• Recycle your old system.

Note: Windows Vista use can be detrimental to your productivity. Stick to Windows XP

- Apple revamped Mini product line with greener core - Apple claims the computer is super-efficient, using 45 percent less power at idle than its predecessor.

- Recently concluded DataWorld conference effectively replaced Green IT with Energy Efficiency. All about cost savings!

- Green Grid - companies are working to develop metric to measure datacenter efficiency. Green Grid developed two metrics - One for facilities (the PuE - Power usage effectiveness - and DCiE -datacentr infrastructure efficiency) and the other for the IT. This is DCP – data center productivity. (The Green Grid is a global consortium of companies dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and computing ecosystems)

- Forrestor online tool for energy efficiency modeling. Also new tool for calculating online energy savings - NightWatchman

- IDC Directions Conference relegates Green IT to the corner and favors new favorites - Cloud Computing and Virtualization.

While we are talking about numbers. Here is a random sprinkling of numbers I collected from different surveys.

The Association of Energy Engineers (AEE), a nonprofit professional society of over 9,500 members, issued a survey to its members to determine the need for Green Jobs.

Survey Results:

* 41% of the energy professionals who were surveyed plan to retire in the next ten years.

* 72% of energy professionals indicate a heightened shortage of qualified professionals in the energy   efficiency and renewable energy fields in the next five years.

* 70% of energy professionals indicate a need for national and state training for “Green Jobs” to address job shortages that are impairing growth in green industries, such as energy efficient buildings and construction, renewables, electric power, smart grid, energy efficient vehicles and biofuels development.

A different survey, conducted recently by Prasanto Kumar Roy, President, ICT Group, CyberMedia India Ltd. to see how green is corporate sector of the nation today and these are the results

* 43.5% of MNCs ,39.6% of Indian private limited companies and 52% of the PSUs feel Green IT is a reality.

On the definition of Green IT

* 33.2% :Configure desktops to enter the sleep mode when not in use.
* 30.2% :E-waste/computer waste recycling.
* 29.2% :Server consolidation.

On Green standards awareness -

* 51.5% of the respondents knew about the Energy Star.
* 39.9% knew about the ISO14000/ISO14001.
* 32.8% knew about the Climate Saver Computing Initiative.

On rationale for Green IT -

* 78% feel it was to reduce costs.
* 54% felt that it is related to environmental issues.
* 29% said it was for compliance and corporate image building.

* 26.3% had already implemented upgrading or reconfiguring the data center cooling infrastructure for improved efficiency.
* 31.4% had already implemented reduction of server power consumption using thin client architecture.
* 35% said that less than 5 percent of the IT budgets had been provisioned for green.

According to a yet another Green consumer survey by Yahoo-

* 77% of consumers believed themselves to be “green” and
* 57% stated they made a green purchase decision in the past six months.

* Around 23% of consumers were tagged as “deeply committed” greenies by Yahoo and
* Nearly 24% found green to be “trendy”.

Analyzing the above survey results it can be said that “Green IT” is no more just a hype but it sure is happening.

Christopher Mines, senior vice president, Forrester, said that “The early read indicates that a slow macro economy will not slow Green IT efforts and there is a significant opportunity for IT organizations to implement Green IT, which can increase from a worldwide size of half billion dollars to about 5 billion dollars in 2013″.

Forrestor Research, Inc. has introduced green IT baseline calculator , online tool to help IT professionals calculate their green IT baseline.

Doug Washburn explains how this baseline calculator can help in quantifying Green IT implementation practice:

* Guide your greening efforts with solid data. Avoid guessing about what to green first by referencing concrete statistics on energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and cost per IT asset.
* Create realistic goals. Measuring IT’s energy consumption will help you estimate the possible environmental and economic benefits of going green, ensuring your green-related goals are realistic.
* Quantify the benefits over time. Once you have implemented green upgrades to your IT assets, compare your new energy consumption to your baseline, highlighting both environmental and economic savings.

Here is a calculator tool. Give it a test drive and share your feedback.

Do Dell’s products rightfully deserved to be called green? And are they the only champion of computer industry whose mantra once used to be build more powerful computers/servers and gorge up hordes of power. So let’s see.

One of Dell’s big pushes was to build laptops whose displays used LED backlights. LEDs make a laptop more power efficient, and they contain no mercury. Other manufactureres have also taken notice and as of date, Toshiba, Apple, Acer and others have either already started using LED backlights or plan to introduce soon.

Another green campaign that been highly publicized is that Dell is officially, 100% carbon neutral. Some critics question this title, pointing to the fact that a large part of that “carbon neutral” tag comes from carbon offsets. Dell says that Austin headquarters is entirely run on renewable energy, as are the offices in Oklahoma City.

Ok, agreed! But what about the ever more important factor of overall power consumption per facility? You can continue to use renewable energy but if you are not reducing overall power consumption then you are missing something.

What I do like is the set of concerted efforts Dell has been taking to consider the overall lifetime of the computer. Dell offers the ONLY (YES ONLY) free consumer recycling and takeback program across the globe, and they also have developed a program called Reconnect with Goodwill Industries. This program not only allows people to donate their old computers rather than throw them away, but also provides jobs for people in the recycling industry.

Did somebody say ‘jobs’? You bet I did! I wish Obama (ok I went too far perhaps someone from Obama’s team would do as well) was reading this article and say “Geez! Why can’t other computer companies start this recycling program and create some jobs?” (This research report says computer reuse can potentially generate 296 jobs per 1000 TPY. Where TPY means tons per year, and this report is decade old)

Let’s all hope this happens! I for sure want free recycling on my laptop and if the economy doesn’t start to do well then perhaps I will need a job too!

I was reading HP CEO Michael Hurd’s biographical piece on Fortune magazine and it struck me how cost conscious HP management is. Article attributes this culture to Hurd’s mid-western background.

In that context I read this announcement by HP that the two leading visual effects companies have gone with HP blade server to drive down data center cost. This is significant as it shows companies are not only  buying advanced gears but also buying with intention to reduce cost.

HP today announced that two world-leading visual effects companies have selected HP blade server technology to increase production of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and drive cost-saving data center initiatives.

CGI is used as visual effects in films, television programs and video games. With CGI, development of a typical 90-minute film often requires the production and storage of more than 2 million hours of digitally created content.

These extreme performance and storage requirements, coupled with the rising demand for visual effects, have put competitive pressure on companies to increase production. At the same time, they must drive operational costs out of the business. With high-performance computing blade solutions from HP, visual effects companies are now able to produce larger volumes of digital content much faster and more cost-effectively.

Customers realize cost and space savings with HP high-performance computing solutions

Australia-based Animal Logic is the visual effects creator for the motion pictures “Happy Feet,” “300” and “Australia.” As the company approached maximum capacity in its data center, it turned to HP for servers that would be more energy- and space-efficient without sacrificing system performance.

Animal Logic’s upcoming animated film, “Guardians of Ga’Hoole,” will be created using 1,000 HP ProLiant BL2×220c server blades housed within HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosures. The film is expected to be released in the summer of 2010.

Also worth highlighting that space optimization is part and parcel of efficient energy management:

“Creating award-winning digital imagery requires incredibly powerful, efficient computing technology,“ said Alex Timbs, head of information technology at Animal Logic. “The HP BL2×220c delivers the same peak performance of our previous system, but utilizes only a fraction of the power and physical space. HP’s two-in-one blade packs double the compute power in our existing space, allowing us to keep up with the demands of our business without physically building out our data center. We are achieving significant advantages in terms of cost benefits – both capital and operational – by moving to HP blade servers.”

Another interesting aspect is the global awareness of this value. Bangalore based - DreamWorks partner - Paprikaas is another company mentioned in HP press release.

Paprikaas is part of the global Technicolor business and a strategic partner of DreamWorks Animation. When its Bangalore, India, data center was out of available power and nearly out of physical space, the company turned to HP for energy-saving server technologies.

Paprikaas chose HP ProLiant BL460c G5 servers to increase performance and establish an energy-efficiency standard in its data center. With its low-power module and the latest low-watt quad-core processor from Intel, the HP ProLiant BL460c is optimized for power-constrained environments.

In case you are wondering why this matters then check this number from IDC (pdf - refers to IBM Cool Blue product line):

IDC estimates that it would cost almost $400,000 annually to power a 1000-volume server-unit data center.1 At the current industry pace, it could be cheaper to build a new data center rather than try to accommodate existing servers for power and cooling.

There is a huge opportunity to reduce cost and still be environmentally right. We will follow up this topic to understand cost savings promised by Sun Microsystems and IBM blade servers.

Interesting statistics in these slides. Enjoy: