14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is in no way getting tired of preaching that technology can better all aspects of life, including the impact on the environment. Information technology can be the key resource behind achieving the goal of capping temperature change at 2 degrees. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that in order to limit the global average temperature rise to under two degrees Celsius will require worldwide efforts resulting in a 50% to 85% greenhouse gas emissions cut in the next 40 years.
However, Microsoft is stressing that despite the fact that resources are available, including the necessary technology, to drive the needed reduction in terms of environmental impact, governments have to take additional actions. The Redmond company underlines that it is absolutely necessary for countries worldwide to set and ensure implementation of policies designed to make members of public and private markets tailor their actions to benefit environmental sustainability.
In concert with the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen, Microsoft revealed its own three pillars strategy designed to help reach climate and environmental goals. Of course, for the Redmond company, it’s first and foremost about software. The software giant argued that moves such as migrating to Windows 7 as well as swapping physical servers for virtualized environments are both measures that will drive environmental sustainability.
“As an operator of many of the world’s largest datacenters, we also are working to significantly improve energy efficiency and drive significant gains in the number of transactions that can be performed for each unit of energy. For example, new datacenters in Dublin and Chicago are 50 percent more efficient than their predecessors. In Dublin, the 5.4-megawatt datacenter needs no chillers for cooling. Instead it relies on careful placement of its servers and software control so that outside air alone keeps the datacenter working without requiring high-energy traditional air conditioning systems. This enables significant energy savings over traditional cooler-intensive datacenters,” Microsoft explained.
In addition, the Redmond company is producing telepresence solutions, set up to make travel unnecessary. Of course, along with saving the carbon emissions otherwise released into the atmosphere, Microsoft’s Unified Communication technology wins customers time and slashes costs. Unified Communications technology “enables virtual meetings to be conducted with high quality, over great distances, and at incredibly low costs. These are the types of changes in the way society does business that IT is singularly situated to enable. Absent a change in our traditional practices, society will fail to meet the goals that many nations, companies and organizations are setting.”