IBM has launched anenergy efficiencycertificate
programme for IT departments.
In conjunction with third-party certification body
Neuwing
Energy, the IBM programme will provide clients with
documentation and verification of the energy saving results of
their green projects.
The certificates earned will provide a way for businesses to
attain a certified measurement of their energy use reduction, a key
emerging business metric, said Big Blue.
The certificates can be traded for cash on the growing energy
efficiency certificate market, or retained to demonstrate
reductions in energy use and associated CO2 emissions.
The IBM Efficiency Certificates initiative uses Neuwing Energy
Ventures, a leading verifier of energy efficiency projects and
marketer of energy efficiency certificates, to document and verify
the energy savings a client achieves through implementing energy
efficiency projects.
Energy efficiency projects can be identified using IBM's
datacentre evaluation offerings. An evaluation will result in
recommendations clients can adopt, including implementing
virtualisation technologies to reduce the number of physical
systems needed, and fixing data centre design flaws to reduce
unnecessary power consumption.
Energy efficiency certificates are a recognised form of
documenting energy conservation, and also provide financial
incentive and recognition for businesses and electricity providers
that increase their efficiency.
Energy efficiency certificate values are determined by the
number of certificates available and the demand for those
certificates on each trading market.
For its assessments, Neuwing Energy will keep a portion of each
customer's earned certificates or charge a fee in relation to the
energy saved from the process.
Customers can trade earned IBM Energy Efficiency Certificates on
the energy efficiency certificate market or they can retain their
certificates to demonstrate reductions in energy use.
IBM intends to make the Efficiency Certificates programme
available across its entire line of systems and storage offerings,
beginning with
System z and
System p in 2007.
IBM Efficiency Certificates will first be available in the US,
with Europe to follow in 2008.