Greening The Planet Through IT Infrastructure Purchases

Sponsored Post There's no getting around it, running the large scale IT infrastructure needed to operate modern businesses inevitably uses a lot of power, and that requirement can render organizational sustainability ambitions and policies harder to meet.

So what if you could help to offset your organization's carbon emissions when you first buy servers or PCs? That's the thinking behind Lenovo's CO2 Offset Service, designed to help businesses counteract the carbon emissions associated with each Lenovo Think product they buy to compensate for the environmental impact of their own operations.

Lenovo calculates the value of carbon emissions for eligible Think products over an average lifecycle including manufacture, shipping and usage. It then works with an environmental partner to compensate the CO2 emissions associated with your hardware, which you can track through its serial number, and gives you the opportunity to confirm which one of several environmental projects the purchase has supported.

And the Lenovo Carbon Compensated Program spans multiple countries. A wind farm in Chile for example not only promotes increased participation in renewable technology which significantly diversifies the country's energy sources and helps tackle climate change, but also improves local infrastructure, creates jobs, and improves pay rates and working conditions.

A similar program does the same in Mexico. The construction and operation of a 90 megawatt wind farm in Union Hidalgo reduces the greenhouse gas emissions usually produced by electricity previously delivered with the aid of fossil fuels in Oaxaca State, simultaneously cleansing the air by cutting down on pollutants such as CO2, NOx and SO2. Phase two of this project will expand power generation to 137 megawatts.

Lenovo is also supporting a biomass utilization project in China that uses waste materials such as rice straw, wheat straw and wood residues to produce power, again reducing the CO2 emissions from electricity generated by traditional fossil-fuel fired facilities. Plans for forestation and forest conservation initiatives are also being formulated.

We all have a role to play in reducing carbon emissions and reversing climate change. With innovative thinking like carbon offsets, the impact of the sacrifices can be mitigated, while maximizing the impact on our environment.

Sponsored by Lenovo.