Blog action day – the new opportunity for Intel in addressing climate change

Addressing climate change is not something new for us. But how we are now looking at the issue is.

As a company, Intel has taken steps to measure and reduce the carbon footprint of our operations for many years now. We’ve been publicly reporting our greenhouse gas emissions, both in our annual CSR report and through the Carbon Disclosure Project, which recently recognized us in their 2009 Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index. We’ve invested millions of dollars in energy efficiency and resource conservation projects throughout our global operations and we took the step in 2008 to become the largest purchaser of green power in the U.S. according to the EPA, with the goal of hopefully stimulating the market for renewable energy over the long-term.

But today, we are spending more time looking at our products as well. Over the past few years, we’ve focused on also continuing to reduce the carbon footprint of our products, committing ourselves to being the leader in energy efficient performance. We’re already seeing results of this shift – we estimate that between 2006 and 2008, products based on the Intel® Core™ microarchitecture-including desktop, notebook, and server computers-used 20 terawatt hours less electricity than products powered by our previous-generation architecture would have. What’s 20 terawatts? Roughly equivalent to the energy savings associated with averting 15 million tons of energy-related CO2 emissions or removing 3 million cars from the road.

But the second piece of this is even more interesting – how our products and technology can be applied across other sectors of the economy to reduce emissions and environmental impact. For Intel, and others in our industry, there is great potential for our technology to play a role in reducing environmental impact and addressing climate change. Think of all of the industries that have traditionally underinvested in technology – how investing in technology can make them more energy efficient and help them reduce their impact. To get a picture of the opportunity here – check out the Smart2020 report as well as a recent blog post highlighting new academic research on the potential in this space.

What goes without saying is that significant collaboration will be required in order to fully realize this opportunity – so we’ve reached out to other companies and organizations to help advance the discussion. To take part in the discussion and see what Intel and other companies doing, also check out the blog for the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign which Intel has co-sponsored to explore how new technologies can be applied to improve energy efficiency.