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.

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.

This year’s survey had companies scoring higher and more competitively than last year. We found that fewer products on the market contain PVC plastic and that fewer hazardous chemicals are being used in products in general. LED displays, which save energy and avoid the use of mercury in backlights, can be found in more products today and manufacturers are using more post-consumer recycled plastic in TVs and monitors. Most companies have established better voluntary take-back and recycling programs and adapted quickly to the new requirements of Energy Star. But not everyone was happy to have their products evaluated. Companies that were asked but declined to submit products were: Apple, Asus, Microsoft, Nintendo, Palm and Philips.

The Lenovo L2440x wide computer monitor scored highest with 6.9 points (on a 10-point scale) and is far ahead of the competition in the monitor category. Other product category leaders include the Sharp LC-52GX5 television (5.92), the Samsung F268 mobile phone (5.45), the Nokia 6210 Smart phone (5.2) the Toshiba Portege R600 Notebook (5.57) and the Lenovo ThinkCentre M58 Desktop (5.88).

However no product scored high enough across all areas to deserve the accolade of a truly ‘green product’. Unfortunately, if you are in the market for a new electronics product it’s still a choice between a product that is green in one area but not in another. To show we is possible right now if all current green innovations were combined we took the top scores of each product category to make a composite score for the industry. These ‘best practice’ scores, ranging as high as 8.6, demonstrate that there is environmental know-how available now to produce electronics that are significantly greener than anything on the shelves today.

There were few notable absentees from this research. Apple, always an attractive target for green champions, refused to participate in this survey.

Industry needs to be consistent in ensuring that there is a uniform green strategy for all product lines. Current model of optimizing in one product line and changing composition mix in another for cost reasons will not buy them many converts.

Green Electronics Survey – Free Legal Forms

That led to lot of soul searching, resulting in shocking revelation that we don’t know much about our energy usage. What better way to learn than by blogging our current events, analysis and generally keeping ourselves ‘honest’ about our data center practices.

We hope to join and contribute to the wider community built around green computing. Please visit us again. If you feel you have something to contribute do get in touch with us.