Impacts of Green Computing on the
Global Economy
Abstract: Green computing concept is to improve environmental
condition. The main aim of green computing is to reduce toxic
materials. We systematically analyze its energy consumption
which is based on types of services and obtain the conditions
to facilitate green cloud computing to save overall energy
consumption in this system. Today it is the major issue to prepare
such equipments by which we achieve efficient energy and to
minimize of e-waste and use of non toxic chemicals/materials in
preparation of e-equipments. We can implement green computing
in computer’s fields as CPU servers and other peripheral devices
(mobile devices). By using green computing we can reduce
resources consumption and disposal of electric waste (e-waste).
In this paper, we will elaborate comprehensively survey the
concepts and architecture of green computing, as well as its heat
and energy consumption issues. Their pros and cons are
discussed for each green computing strategy with its friendly
approach towards atmosphere. Green computing can facilitate us
to safe, secure place and healthy environment all over in the
world.
Keywords: Green Computing, toxic material, e-waste,
virtualization
I. INTRODUCTION
Green computing is the study and practice of using
computing resources efficiently. The primary objective of
green computing is an expanded spectrum of values and
criteria for measuring organizational and societal success.
“Green” in the industry of Information Technology means
the more efficient use of computing resources while
minimizing the negative impacts on the environment. This
campaign started because of the undeniable state of the
environment which does not only affect a portion of the
world but the entire planet as well.
The goals are similar to green chemistry; reduce the use of
hazardous materials, maximize energy efficiency during the
product’s lifetime, and promote recyclability or
biodegradability of defunct products and factory waste.
This initiative focuses on the study and practice of
designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of
computers and other peripherals which are the associated
subsystems efficiently and effectively with negligible or no
impact on the environment. High performance and energy
conservation are conflicting goals in green computing. The
impact of the toxic wastes that are produced by us through
throwing our old computers and peripherals lead to land
pollution. The computers have the power hogs that generate
pollution by the energy they consume for their processes.
Green computing addresses many problems. To be in
precise, the goals are ( which are collected from various
literatures as mentioned in reference )
• To reduce the power consumption of the products
• To reduce the harmful effects to the environments
through the use of hazardous materials
• To increase the life time of the product
• To maximize energy efficiency during the product's
lifetime
• To promote recyclability of defunct products and
factory waste
II. Why Green Computing
Green Computing is motivating us to rethink on current trends
of hardware, software and people who are obstacle in the way
of the mission 'Saving Earth'. This can be achieved by
manufacturing of eco friendly hardware, design &
development of power saving optimized software &
information system for energy saving, eco friendly process &
practices adapted by IT stack holders. There is need of
techniques & methods to design and manufacture
environmental friendly devices, optimization of coding in such
a way to reduce energy consumption & reduce heat
dissipation, education to create best IT practitioner supporting
mission 'Green Earth' and enforcement of National and
International Standards for Green IT. Intelligent distributed
computing for sharing information on the network may also
reduce energy for flow of data. Unwanted flow of data through
the web application is also one of the big issue responsible for
energy consumption.
To endorse green computing at all feasible levels, the
following approaches came into existence.
• Green use: Use computer and peripheral
devices in an eco-friendly mode.
• Green disposal: Recycling or disposal of
e-waste in proper manner.
• Green design: Try to design equipment
with low emission power and heating.
• Green manufacturing: Try to use more
easily disposal elements at the time of manufacturing.
• Material recycling: Parts from outdated
systems can be recycled to make its green.
• Telecommunication- Teleconferencing
and telepresence technologies are also innovative methods
used for discussing and data transfer, which is also a green
computing initiatives.
There are various important reasons to adopt green computing
-
o It promotes usage of disposable products.
o Adopting green can also reduce cost and
therefore, beneficiary for an enterprise.
o It also reduces risk of using chemical
which may cause danger for the human being.
o It also reduces noise pollution
o Energy conservation save energy for
future use.
III. Holistic Approach of Green
 Computing
Various electronics equipments and IT business have
environmental impact which is one of the reason of global
warming and improper management of energy consumption.
Green computing is the proven solution for this problem and
can be achieved by various holistic approaches as given in
the Figure 1. There are basically four approaches namely
hardware manufacturer, software developers, enforcement
policy and people which directly impact the green
computing.
Green computing is being supported by many vendors by
designed and manufacturing power efficient hardware
devices like CPU, display devices, network switches, storage
devices etc. Recycling old devices and replacement of
existing power consuming electronics parts also play an
important for green revolution. Green storage also used for
making the computing green. Green efficient devices should
be designed well and tested before manufacture in mass level
with power metrics measurement. Another approach of green
computing is software approach which is helpful to make
computing green through use of virtualization, load
balancing, green search engine, power efficient algorithm
and various computing techniques like cloud computing, bio
computing and nano computing etc. Standard and policies are
imposed by government and corporate sectors of various
country to make computing green. WEEE,ROHS, EPEAT
and Energy star are some of them effectively being used to
enhance and implement green practices among hardware
manufacturer and software developers. People should be
aware about the need of green computing for survival of their
descendants. Performing best green practices in day to day
life will also help everyone to support Green Computing.
IV. Green Hardware & Software
Techniques
Hardware Design & Manufacturing
Computer and peripherals emit significant amount of energy
in sleep and standby modes. A single PC release more heat
than a 100 watt light bulb. With careless use of electrical
devices, we are also contributing for CO2 emission.
Manufactures do not provide proper power off in many
devices like DVD players, DVD recorder, printer etc.
Many companies take initiative to design hardware, which
not only consumes less energy but also reduce overall cost of
hardware.
Display – LCD uses cathode fluorescent bulb for light
display. A 21” CRT requires 120W more than double the
power of 22” LCD. Modern LED devices uses an array of
light emitting diodes which actually minimize the electricity
consumption.
Fit PC– Fit PC can draw only 5 watts which is less as
compared to normal PC which consumes 5 watts in 1 hour
only. This device support windows and linux operating
system.
Zonbu Computers- This computer consumes only one third
powers as consumed by a light bulb. It also support linux
operating system.
Sunray Thin Client- Sunray thin client are designed to
consume less electricity than frequently used desktops. It only
consumes 4 to 8 watts of power, it cannot do heavy
computation, because that types of computation can be done
by server.
Asus Eee PC- These are small size of PC with compact screen
as compared to other conventional desktop. It only used flash
memory for storage purpose.
Uninterruptible Power Supplies- To provide emergency power
to many devices Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) is
used. It temporarily provides megawatt of power for the
proper functioning of the equipment in the data centres.
Energy star certified UPS need less energy as compared to
other UPS.
Terminal Servers - Terminal servers are used in virtual labs
where actual computing is done on the server, but users have
an illusion that operating system is on the terminal. So
terminal computers are also used in green computing which
support Linux as well as windows operating system.
Energy Star Small Network Equipment- ENERGY STAR
certified small network equipment (SNE) is also available in
the market which is used to reduce energy consumption. A
large variety of products are available as per the SNE
specification:
• Cable and DSL modems
• Optical Network Devices
• Cable and DSL integrated access devices
• Routers
• Switches
• Access points
It also promotes recycling of disposal product and electronic
waste (e-waste). After recycling computing equipments some
harmful material like lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium are
keeping out of landfills. Computer parts are also a major
source of toxins and carcinogens. During recycling lead from
CRTs, mercury from fluorescent, cadmium from rechargeable
batteries are also harmful for us.
Software Techniques
Green computing has become compulsory for various
embedded devices and large data centres. There is need of
energy efficient software that allows the programmer to write
the energy efficient code. There should be QoS parameters
guarantee for development of the green code which will force
the system to use minimum energy while executing the
instructions. Special compilers which will generate the code
for optimisation of loops and functions according to the
requirement of the system under quality of services. These
compilers must verify and test for the green parameters
functions and prepare the program code for the target
environment observable under green code monitor. Green
simulators must be used to record the impact of the function
and the loops for the performance of energy consumption of
the data centres. Service level agreement for the power
consumption has to be included in cloud platform. only on requirement thus not engaging the resources at idle
Measurement of the software application for power time. Energy saving schedulers, CPU utilization & scaling,
management must be independent and runtime behaviour workload migration, VMs activation/deactivation, intelligent
must be measured. Resource usage of optimised code not power management system, dynamic configuration of VMs
only reduces energy consumption but also help managers to for power saving, data power usage effectiveness, carbon
control data centre cost. Software architect must consider usage effectiveness, green SLA etc. are some important
various issues like composition, factorization, functionality, measures to develop cloud computing more energy efficient
dependency and scalability in designing new software to use than existing one. Multi-core processors can also help to
resources more efficiently. Green applications must be increase computing per watt and saving energy. Green
designed in such a way where components are independent. Software as a Service (GSaaS) can be a good initiatives by the
There is dynamic power management layer in software designers to promote green coding practices among the cloud
architecture which is responsible for scaling up and scaling programmers. Green software and hardware can help us to
down resources based on resource demands and resource reduce the cost due to which the vendor may offer less price of
availability cloud services
It has become the popular technique for energy efficient data Green Servers & Big Data Centres
centres where designer and architect to deploy the Because of increasing data, day by day exponentially, it has
applications which will use the resources more efficiently. become compulsory to develop data centres to serve people
Smart traffic routing algorithm will also help us to reduce therequired information on demand without delay. Green data
power consumption. Micro-metrics like energy per centres term coined in the modern IT to support green
instruction, performance per watt, MIPS/watt and IPS/watt computing. These centres are developed in such a way that
can be used to determine the amount of consumed energy minimizes the CO2 emissions, reduces heat dissipation,
services run by a CPU. Energy aware layer is responsible for energy efficient and uses environmental friendly devices and
locating the best site where service can be done with respect components. Data centres include many computing devices
to consume energy efficiently. Mobile agent can also play an connecting through network cables which produces heat and
important role when the small program has to be transferred hence cooling is required in these data centres to reduce
from the server to client because of huge amount of data heating impact on computing devices. Data centres can be
available with client. Good migration policy can also help the supported by green techniques in two ways-
software engineers to develop the energy efficient software. (a) Using green electronic devices & components
Proper use of the loops and functions will also help the (b) Using software techniques to optimize the power
software engineers to develop the energy efficient code. consumption
Proper utilisation of the global and local variables garbage Devices being used in data centres must be measured for
collections will generate the energy efficient code. energy consumption and intelligent provisioning of
distribution of energy to such component as per their
V. Computing Techniques for requirement must be maintained. Components like CPU,
Green Computing switches, ports, RAID(redundant array of inexpensive disks)
The computing techniques which can assist for development etc should be observed and effectiveness parameters like
of Green Computing are explain as given below- power usages, carbon usages, energy usages etc must be
Green Cloud Computing observed. Power management and intelligent power supply
Cloud computing is a new computing model to provide should be helpful to solve the problem of energy consumption
services and data dynamically as per need of the users under during sleeping mode. CPU frequency can also be
SLA between cloud provider and end users. The concept dynamically set as per requirement of computing instructions.
'Green' is also being attached to cloud computing which Sending hardware components like CPU, switches etc to zero
indicates that cloud is also becoming ready to support power mode also reduce unnecessary power consumption
mission of the Green IT. There is strong belief that cloud is during sleeping mode. Inside switches particular part can be
going to replace existing web architecture hence designers powered off using usage metrics. Line card can also be turned
are required to establish the new platform of future off in inactive mode. Software techniques like power
computing with the support of green computing. Study of optimisation coding for data searching and virtualization
energy consumption patterns in cloud centres will help us to promotes green solution. Application can be developed to
reduce deployment & operational cost. Virtualization is an support multiple platform to reduce number of computing
important feature of cloud computing which is already platform. Earlier we used to install different server based on
supporting people to use single hardware machine for operating system by installing and fixing server to support
running different operating system to support variety of different operating system but because of virtualization it can
applications thus eliminating the need of multiple hardware be reduced. Dynamic memory allocation of virtual machine
machines to support multiple operating systems. leading to utilisation of CPU properly also provides high
As computers and peripherals are also drawing significant energy saving as compared to static allocation policy. Cooling
amount of energy in sleep and standby modes in the cloud is a big issue of data centres but distributed architecture of
environment which is responsible for CO2 emissions so, cloud application can help us to develop geographically
there is need for green environment for us to survive. Cloud distributed nano data centres which may reduce the energy
computing with eco-friendly energy efficient flavour is called consumed for cooling
Green Cloud Computing[2].
Pay per basis concept is also important for the users' Optimized Information System
perspective to use the cloud system whenever needed which The amount of information being flown through the internet if
may lead the computing environment towards green cloud significantly reduced may cause the less power consumption
computing. In this type of system, users consume resources at each and every stage of data communication links. The data
to be provided to client must be as per the need of users.
Customization of web pages per user will help servers to
provide specific information not general information.
Removal of unwanted hyperlinks and images can also reduce
total amount of bits being transmitted over the internet.
Green Data Storage
Data and information storage volume is increasing drastically
day by day because of the social media and digitization of
everything (Internet of Things). Many approaches being used
for data storage like RAID, tiered storage and solid state
disks for improving energy efficiency and cutting the cost for
storing the data at system level . Thin provisioning will help
us to reduce required storage space and thus use available
space smartly. De-duplication process of data is also a good
approach of steeling storage resource management to reduce
the power consumption buy storage devices.
Bio-Computing
Bio-computers are computing system which are based on
characteristics of molecules structure and behavior which can
help for computation. Bio-chemical, bio-mechanical and bio-
electronic computers are some buzzwords of the future
computing. Bio-chemical computers works on changes on
structure of chemical bonds and structure to represent a state
of data. Bio-mechanical computers are like bio-chemical
computers in which the information can be processed by
making and breaking chemical bonds by interpreting
mechanical shapes of molecules as information. This
computing system already exists in nature in nonliving things
but the systems are not controlled by humans. Bio-electronics
system measures electricity in bio-molecules to represent the
state of information. It is clear from above facts that bio
computers made of natural elements which can play very
important role for developing environmental friendly
computing.
Nano Computing
Nano computing is the computing system which uses the
extremely small or nano devices which can be measured in
nanometres. The size of these device could be as small as a
biological virus. Integrated circuit technologies are working
on the nano devices which is the smallest electronic devices
with the possible limits. It will help the people to develop
smallest devices operating on less power per
function/instruction and increase the battery life. These have
potential impact on revolutionizing the green computing
sustaining the computing capacity.
VI. Characteristics
As most computer system drain more power than they
actually need for a normal operation to perform. Green
computing can be tried to achieve through various techniques
and one of them is virtualization. Desktop virtualization and
server virtualization are initiative taken in this field.
In computer virtualization two or more logical computer
system can work as one physical system. It is helpful to
reduce cooling equipments and power consumption. Some
companies like Intel Corporation and AMD have enhanced
virtualization instruction set into CPU product line to support
virtualized computing. Server virtualization enhances
network utilization and minimizes network equipment need
which is also helpful in reducing heating power.
Some programs also permit users to adjust manually supplies
in CPU to reduce electricity consumptions. The process is
called undervolting. Some CPUs have automatically
undervolting system as workload fluctuates which is called as
Speedstep.
Green computing can be achieved with the following ways:
• Use software that manage PC and
monitor energy settings
• Use operating system that controls the
power saving aspects of hardware.
• Use computer system that can be
hibernating at idle time.
• Use and buy only energy star certified
devices monitors, desktops, laptops and printers.
• Laptops should put in "sleep" mode if it
idles
VII. MAIN PROBLEM AND ISSUES
As we know that today the main issue is that the
manufactures are preparing such devices which are
however more efficient and accurate but they use more
energy and evolve very toxics, dangerous gases and
chemicals. Many electronics companies especially in
computer use lead, mercury, cadmium and other toxics
chemicals. It has been calculated that during
manufacturing of computers can 4 to 8 pounds of lead
alone.
According to a new research it is estimated that computers
and other electronics devices make up two-fifth of all lead
in land-fills on the earth. The results were quite surprising.
The companies found out that only 40% out of the energy
consumed is being actually used for the devices. The rest of
the energy is used for cooling systems, air handlers and
power supplies that could not be interrupted. Due to these
findings, these companies are now making small changes.
Some companies have undergone studies in which they
wanted to measure how much energy is used and how
much is being wasted. This environmental impact
management decision specifically wanted to know the
power consumed by the servers, networking devices and
other IT devices in the data center. They used a metric
system developed by a certain vendor consortium
VIII. STRATEGIC
INITIATIVE
Green computing is an initiative that cropped out due to
recent environmental concerns. Everybody must make an
effort to contribute may it be a big or small company, home
or university. Moreover, green computing is not just
beneficial for the environment, it is also cost efficient.
Here are a few strategic initiatives that can be done to save
energy but still maintain productivity:
1. Using screensavers means that energy is not saved. If a
person has a screen saver in his monitor for more than
5 minutes, then there is wasted energy. If a screen saver
shows some moving images, this is consuming as much
energy as when you are using it. A black screen saver is
better but this still consumes energy.
2. A person can enable power management features in his
personal computer systems. There are computers and
monitors that can be programmed to use lower energy
especially if they are not being utilized. Putting
computers in sleep mode could reduce as much as 60%.
This is a lot of money when converted into cash bills.
The good thing is that productivity here is not affected
at all.
A person can also turn off his computer when not in use.
There is no worry that the computer will be harmed when it
is continuously turned on and off. If a person is going out
on a weekend, he can also turn the power plug off.
These are small strategic initiatives that anybody can do in
their work or in their home. Small things could also mean
big things when put together.
IX. CURRENT TRENDS
The industry is the major consumer of the computing
devices. The industry relies too heavily with computing
devices in their industrial activities. When the computing
industry becomes incapable in sustaining the industrial
needs in computers and other computing devices, the global
market and industry shall surely suffer. Since the resources
in computing industry is losing control in the use of the
computing resources, the experts in the field have thought
about how they can combat the continuing saga in battling
the problem of scarcity in computing resources. This
movement led to the development of the Green Computing
practice.
This Green Computing study reveals that there is a way
that can suppress the worsening problem about misuse and
abuse in the use of the computing resources. Some of the
formidable methods where researchers are putting lots of
efforts to achieve desired results:
a. Virtualization . Virtualization is a technology that can
help you save both hardware and software resources by
creating a “similar environment” like an operating
system or a peripheral device using your present
resources. When the need for that virtualized
application is over, then you can put back your
original resource into its original state.
b. Power Management. The life of your physical devices
relies on how effective and efficient you manage
them. One of the classic examples is the efficient use
of the portable system battery. By using the power
management feature of your system, you can actually
disable some features of your system that consumes
too much battery usage. Not only will this save
electric charging fee but also saving your battery from
easily being worn out.
c. Energy Consumption
Organizations are realizing that the source and
amount of their energy consumption significantly
contributes to Greenhouse Gas (GhG) emissions. In
response to this finding, organizations are currently
using the following equation:
Reduced energy consumption = Reduced greenhouse gas
emissions = Reduced operational costs for the data
center
X. CHALLENGES
According to researchers in the past the focus was on
computing efficiency and cost associated to IT equipments
and infrastructure services were considered low cost and
available. According to researchers of Green Computing
following are few prominent challenges that Green
computing is facing today:
• Equipment power density / Power and cooling
capacities;
• Increase in energy requirements for Data Centers
and growing energy cost;
• Control on increasing requirements of heat
removing equipment, which increases because of
increase in total power consumption by IT
equipments;
• Equipment Life cycle management – Cradle to
Grave; and
• Disposal of Electronic Wastes
XI. BEST PRACTICES
ORGANIZATION IN GREEN
COMPUTING
The idea behind best practice is that there is someone that
implements a technique or a method that is more effective
than others. Best practices organizations are those that set
standards for others to copy or emulate. Currently, there are
communities that aim to draw information from best
practice organizations. These organizations could help
other businesses and homes. The end goal is to be able to
reduce information technology related carbon emissions.
It was found out that IT is one of the significant
contributors of carbon emissions. This is said to be almost
the same as the aviation industry. It was also found out that
the two principal generators of carbon emissions from IT
are PCs and datacenters.
Organizations from the IT industry are now doing
something to reduce carbon emissions by using energy
efficient hardware. One of the best practice organizations is
Google who is now giving a good example of using servers
and cooling systems that reduces negative environmental
impact. There are also other best practice organizations that
use software that manages and measures their power
consumption. To give motivation and encouragement to
the best practice organizations, there are communities now
that give special awards. The awards are for those
organizations that implement the use of hardware and
software to reduce power consumption and others.
XII. FUTURE TRENDS
For many years now, responsible environmentalism and
energy conservationalism were not normally associated
with computer systems and technology. But with “going
green” currently advocated, there are various ways of
practicing Green computing with technology, which are as
follows.
1. Maintaining easily managed network systems can save a
lot of time and resources . Apparently, an organized
network system reduces network maintenance server
requirements hence saving use of resources, such as
electricity, hardware, and other more.
2. Cutting down on paper, electricity, hardware, and
toner . Color settings of printers should constantly be
checked. By calibrating printer settings, an individual
can eventually save substantial amount of money while
producing high -quality printed documents. A floor
lamp with an energy efficient bulb is preferable than
overhead ones, saves time and energy, and non-
stressing to the eyes.
3. Virtualizing the actual work setting offers the
employees the capability to work from the comforts of
their home without compromising productivity. Such
work set-up allows employees to even save money from
daily use of gasoline and exposure to various pollutions.
Preferring a remote, electronic management system . This
system provides a more efficient printing resolution
enabling favorable productivity thus, ensuring both
customer and employee contentment

XIII. CONCLUSION
The increasing power costs have forced individuals
and firms to develop newer methods and technologies
to more efficient and lower power consumption. This
paper analyzed the role of green computing
towards reducing power costs. IT industry is putting
efforts in all its sectors to achieve Green computing.
Equipment recycling, reduction of paper usage,
virtualization, cloud computing, power management,
Green manufacturing are the key initiatives towards
Green computing. Current challenges to achieve Green
Computing are enormous and the impact is on
computing performance.

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Computing Saves Green
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Computing
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Reach Your Enviromental Goals With Green Computing
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[10]
http://www.ijarcsse.com/docs/papers/Volume_3/6_June2013/V
3I6-0500 .pdf by Ms Manisha Patil Green Computing:
Somewhat Solution to Drough