Our Very Own Green Queen

Wanted to share this blog post today from SmartPlanet - an interview with my colleague Lorie Wigle who heads up Intel’s Eco Tech Program Office. Lorie’s been a good sport about her nickname – “the Green Queen” – but in my mind, her leadership both within Intel and out in the industry to drive sustainability initiatives and look for innovative ways to push for greater energy efficiency, certainly has earned her that title. In addition to her day job, Lorie also serves as president of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) – which has a lot of ideas for how you can help to reduce your own emissions associated with computer use. Lorie knows – as many of us do – that it’s not enough to just get your own house in order, you need to also look at the big picture opportunities and partner with others to get to real solutions.

You may already know a bit about what Intel’s been doing in the environment. But some of the things Laurie touches on in her interview that you may not have heard about:

- Intel is the largest voluntary purchaser of green power in the US, per the EPA – representing approximately half of our US energy use.

- When we looked at the first billion connected PCs vs. our projections for the “second billion” connected PCs, we estimate that the second billion (targeted by 2014) will be much more energy efficient; the second billion will have 17x the computing power, but will require about half of the energy use of the first.

- Use of power management features on computers is still relatively low (an estimated 18% of all desktop computers use them) – that’s why Intel and CSCI are encouraging more people to make sure they use these features. By improving the efficiency of power delivery and power management, CSCI is targeting the elimination of 54 million tons of CO2 from IT equipment by June 2011 – to date the IT sector has collectively saved an estimated 32 million tons of CO2 associated with computing equipment.

Click here to read the full article or learn more about Intel’s climate and energy efficiency initiatives in our newest corporate responsibility report.