Microsoft goes green: data centers, offices to be carbon neutral come July

The Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington.

Source.

Originally Posted by Ars

This summer, Microsoft is launching a new green energy initiative in which all of the company's direct operations, "including data centers, software development labs, air travel, and office buildings," will go carbon neutral. The program will begin in July, at the start of Microsoft's 2013 fiscal year, and includes a company-wide carbon fee, whereby various divisions will be held accountable for their own energy usage. "We recognize that we are not the first company to commit to carbon neutrality," said Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner in a blog post early this morning, "but we are hopeful that our decision will encourage other companies large and small to look at what they can do to address this important issue."

Read more: http://arstechnica.com/information-t...tral-come-july

[noone_particular]

That's little more than a symbolic gesture from a company whose entire business model is as anti-green as it can get.

As anti-green as it can get? That's a big exaggeration:

This internal carbon fee will go into a central fund that Microsoft says it will use to transition the company away from non-renewable energy sources. For example, it is considering investments in wind farms and methane-capture projects to reduce the amount of so-called dirty energy it must purchase from the existing commercial electrical grid.

[Hungry Man]

Originally Posted by noone_particular

That's little more than a symbolic gesture from a company whose entire business model is as anti-green as it can get.

Software development is the epitome of anti-green? Interesting. I would have figured Exxon would be somewhere over on that side as well or perhaps Mansanto.

[Daveski17]

Well, at least Microsoft are trying, very trying some would say.

Amazingly they do not show all the anti-green manufacturing processes of the packaging, the oil used to generate the electric to run those factories etc. that fancy green courtyard plaza is nothing more then Window dressing.

[Hungry Man]

The garden is just a picture. Moving to carbon neutral data centers is actually a big deal and something Google and Facebook did a while ago because having thousands of servers eats up quite a lot of energy.

[funkydude]

Originally Posted by Hungry Man

Software development is the epitome of anti-green? Interesting. I would have figured Exxon would be somewhere over on that side as well or perhaps Mansanto.

Was wondering the same lol

[noone_particular]

Amazingly they do not show all the anti-green manufacturing processes of the packaging, the oil used to generate the electric to run those factories etc. that fancy green courtyard plaza is nothing more then Window dressing.

That's a start. By this standard, if Exxon put solar panels on their office buildings, they'd be a green company.

Microsofts business model is the complete opposite of anything that could be called green. Electronics can easily be durable or semi-durable goods, but with their planned obsolescence business model, it all becomes waste after a few years. That waste, much of which is perfectly functional contains, arsenic, lead, many kinds of plastic, and other toxic materials. Recycling these waste electronics is expensive, dirty, and energy intensive. Much of it isn't recycled at all. Microsoft deliberately chose a business model that creates toxic waste by the ton for which recycling facilities are insufficient. They knew that from the start but didn't care. They could easily create modular operating systems that could run on existing hardware and allow people to upgrade the hardware when they needed or wanted to or could afford to. Instead they chose the most environmentally irresponsible business model, planned obsolescence. All the waste created by that policy became everyone elses problem. That business model is poisoning the environment by design. Making some of their infrastructure more environmentally friendly is nothing but a symbolic show. It's pure hypocrisy from a corporation whose policies should be treated as crimes against the planet. They are no different that Exxon or Monsanto.

[Hungry Man]

That's a start. By this standard, if Exxon put solar panels on their office buildings, they'd be a green company.

The difference being that the energy it takes to run massive data centers is quite a lot larger than the energy it takes to run an office building, which has significant downtime and just generally far less power usage.

Another difference being that data centers are at the core of MS whereas an office building is not the central product of Exxon.

Microsofts business model is the complete opposite of anything that could be called green. Electronics can easily be durable or semi-durable goods, but with their planned obsolescence business model, it all becomes waste after a few years.

1) This is based on the concept that there is a planned obsolescence business model, which is at best heresay
2) SOFTWARE

They're not pumping out batteries or LCDs or whatever. MS is a software company. Typing on a keyboard is very ecofriendly.

Making some of their infrastructure more environmentally friendly is nothing but a symbolic show.

So it's all or nothing. Either they change very part or why even bother changing anything?

Data centers take up tons of energy. Actively working to reduce that footprint is a good thing.

Stop crying because MS updates their software. Vista -> 7 -> 8 requires no new hardware, where's the force obsolescence there? Where's the "anti-green" business model?

There are no new hardware requirements the only "waste" product is the DVD you buy and the box it comes in, which you can easily forgo by simply downloading the product.

Originally Posted by Hungry Man

The difference being that the energy it takes to run massive data centers is quite a lot larger than the energy it takes to run an office building, which has significant downtime and just generally far less power usage.

Another difference being that data centers are at the core of MS whereas an office building is not the central product of Exxon.


1) This is based on the concept that there is a planned obsolescence business model, which is at best heresay
2) SOFTWARE

They're not pumping out batteries or LCDs or whatever. MS is a software company. Typing on a keyboard is very ecofriendly.


So it's all or nothing. Either they change very part or why even bother changing anything?

Data centers take up tons of energy. Actively working to reduce that footprint is a good thing.

Stop crying because MS updates their software. Vista -> 7 -> 8 requires no new hardware, where's the force obsolescence there? Where's the "anti-green" business model?

There are no new hardware requirements the only "waste" product is the DVD you buy and the box it comes in, which you can easily forgo by simply downloading the product.

the flip side of foregoing the packaging is more unemployment fallout, budget cuts in payroll at those factories along with the delivery drivers in the trucking industry. Either way the public pays the price.

[funkydude]

Originally Posted by general_zerohour

the flip side of foregoing the packaging is more unemployment fallout, budget cuts in payroll at those factories along with the delivery drivers in the trucking industry. Either way the public pays the price.

The flip side of that is new jobs for people managing the servers hosting said content...

[noone_particular]

This is based on the concept that there is a planned obsolescence business model, which is at best heresay

Oh really? No, they don't make the hardware. They make the operating systems that the hardware has to power, operating systems that dominate the market. They control the market and the livelihoods of vendors who make hardware or sofware that works on Windows. They're the ones who use licensing requirements to force hardware vendors to remove drivers for older systems from their websites, making it harder for people to keep using them.

Your using Vista to support "no upgrade needed" is quite a joke when Vista was the most bloated monstrosity they've released. What about the millions of PCs from before Vista that can't run their new stuff, like how many million XP units? Unless the user knows how to convert them to Linux (which most of them can run just fine), they're all toxic waste, created by their business model. If M$ wants to pretend to be "green", let them create proper recycling facilities for all these obsolete Windows units, facilities that don't just dump the waste on 3rd world countries. Better yet, let's see them release a modular system that runs decently on that hardware so it doesn't become waste until it physically dies. There is no good reason an OS should need a dozen or more gigabytes of hard drive space and gigabytes of RAM just to run, other than to make it run badly on older hardware.

Computers themselves might be eco-friendly. Disposable electronics are not.

[Hungry Man]

Since Vista came out there has been only a decrease in necessary hardware.

There is no good reason an OS should need a dozen or more gigabytes of hard drive space and gigabytes of RAM just to run, other than to make it run badly on older hardware.

Except you are not even slightly qualified to say anything what the resources an OS (or any program for that matter) uses.

XP to Vista was a massive jump. It used more RAM but it still runs on a P4 just fine (the most common processor for a while now) and 7 and 8 have only reduced resource usage.

So... how is Microsoft forcing users to increase hardware when their latest operating systems (7, have brought down resource usage? When their Vista service packs brought down resource usage?

Originally Posted by funkydude

The flip side of that is new jobs for people managing the servers hosting said content...

yeah better to put thousands out and replace them with about 20 - 30 people . I just hope the future is better for as many people as possible no matter the outcome

[funkydude]

Originally Posted by general_zerohour

yeah better to put thousands out and replace them with about 20 - 30 people . I just hope the future is better for as many people as possible no matter the outcome

Sorry, but that's nothing other that failure of imagination on your part. You're not thinking of the thousands of jobs created in the creation of the building, the planning & architecture of the building, the placement of it for maximum cooling efficiency. The design of the internals, ordering all the hardware and the jobs created by the increased hardware requirements on a 3rd party company. Then you need hundreds for monitoring the servers, creating the networks, security, anti-earthquake/floods/disaster etc... I really don't feel like going on about how much better it is than the jobs lost in a simple factory.