IBM offers firms tradeable IT energy saving certificates

IBM has launched an energy efficiency  certificate 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.