ReadWriteWeb

This week the report Cloud Computing - The IT Solution for the 21st Century from the Carbon Disclosure Project has been making rounds in cloud computing circles. The report concludes that large businesses could use cloud computing to cut CO2 emissions by 85.7 million metric tons annually by 2020.

But GreenMonk analyst Tom Raftery says the report has some serious flaws, including the assumption that energy savings necessarily equate to reduced carbon emissions.

A talk by Tom Raftery of GreenMonk at a conference earlier this month in Dublin, Ireland poses our title question. And the answer isn't as clear-cut, or as green, as you may think.

The problem is doing the math and figuring out exactly what you are replacing with any cloud-based provider, where that provider's data center is, and what kind of efficiency and fuels profile is being used by the provider - and your own data center - to make the calculation meaningful.

The green movement is without a doubt affecting companies both large and small. Telecommuting, the virtual office and Web conferencing are all ways that companies can keep energy costs down while at the same time finding better ways to communicate and optimize business functions. This brief from Qwest Business explores the ways that businesses can leverage environmentally sound practices and technologies to build environmentally sustainable business architectures that save money through enhanced productivity and business efficiencies.

JouleX is a company founded by four former executives of Internet Security Systems, according to GreenMonk's Tom Raftery. But instead of hunting for security vulnerabilities, Joulex hunts for energy inefficiencies. It can monitor anything with an IP address - PCs, servers, even IP-enabled HVAC units, etc. - all without clients or hardware. It's priced according to the number of devices managed.

This week the company released a new version of the application and added a new mobile one that can adjust power consumption - dim lights, turn off devices etc. - based on a users location. JouleX also expanded its out-of-the-box IT infrastructure support, added support for Linux and Macintosh operating systems and added new reporting capabilities, such as the ability to automatically identify the biggest power hogs in an enterprise.

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend the Augmented Reality Event in Santa Clara, California, and it was there that I discovered some amazing uses being developed using AR technology. I've already highlighted how it is being used to help doctors save lives, and more recently how it could be used to level the battlefield for soldiers in the middle east. Another example has an even loftier goal: helping to fight the climate and energy crises and save the planet.

Shopping "green" is the latest big trend in retail, and online auction giant eBay didn't want to miss out on it. To attract the new breed of "green"shopper, eBay has just launched a brand-new marketplace called "World of Good." On this new site, shoppers will find environmentally friendly and fair trade goods as well as other products that will appeal to the socially conscious.