Green Computing: Advantages and Disadvantages

This page covers the advantages and disadvantages of Green Computing, along with its basics. It mentions the benefits or advantages of Green Computing and the drawbacks or disadvantages.

What is Green Computing?

Introduction: The term “Green Computing” refers to environmentally sustainable computing. It is also known as Green IT (Information Technology). This branch of computing deals with computers, servers, printers, monitors, and associated networking and communication systems.

It includes the “design,” “manufacturing,” “use,” and “disposal” of Green IT systems effectively and efficiently, with minimal or no impact on environmental factors. The same is depicted in Figure 1.

Some green computing techniques include energy consumption reduction, E-waste recycling, Virtualization, and power management (including cloud computing). Using virtualization, administrators can combine several physical streams into virtual machines on a single server to run multiple OSs.

Image courtesy: www.researchgate.net

Power management of computer systems helps in saving energy and, consequently, money. Sleep and Hibernate settings are used to make computer systems environmentally friendly. These functions can be activated manually or managed by the OS (Operating System).

Some green use techniques to be followed are mentioned below:

• Shutdown the computer when not in use.
• Read the article or work before taking printouts. This will avoid unwanted printing.
• Turn off peripherals to kill the vampires (reduce standby power consumption). This will save power.
• Use power-saving modes available in the OS (Operating System).

Benefits or Advantages of Green Computing

Following are the benefits or advantages of Green Computing:

• Telecommuting techniques help increase profit margins, increase worker satisfaction, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (by avoiding the traveling requirements of employees/customers).
• Virtualization of IT helps in running two or more computer systems on a single set of physical hardware. This reduces operating costs for energy and cooling, ultimately helping save money.
• It reduces the usage of paper and other consumables in the IT industry.
• Green manufacturing makes use of materials like bamboo for computers and peripherals. Moreover, computers are constructed using recyclable plastics. Hence, it will have less impact on the environment.
• It minimizes equipment disposal requirements by adopting reuse, refurbish, and recycle methods.

Drawbacks or Disadvantages of Green Computing

Following are the drawbacks or disadvantages of Green Computing:

• Implementation of green computing requires a higher start-up cost.
• The green computing systems sometimes sacrifice performance to improve battery life.
• Adoption and success of a green computing system require years of effort by consumers and organizations.
• It is not available for everyone at an affordable cost.
• Some of the techniques or methods are at an experimental stage.