The Green movement was first advocated by supporters of the Green movement, which has been active through Green parties in many nations since the early 1980s. Anita Roddick, founder of Body Shop, was among several entrepreneurs who discovered a middle road between good business profits and ethical consumerism, and this is no different with green computers.

By taking a triple bottom line approach of people, planet and profit, green computers attempt to break away from traditional business practices that focus mainly on the economic viability of a computing solution.

One fine example was the setting up of Energy Star, a voluntary labelling programme, designed to promote and recognise energy-efficiency in monitors, climate control equipment and other technologies in 1992 by the US Environmental Protection Agency. This resulted in the widespread adoption of sleep mode among consumer electronics which help to reduce electricity consumption during time of inactivity.

While the green idea was gaining momentum, it met obstacles among the majority of millions of consumers who were more interested in getting more computing power at an affordable price. Considering the time when MS-DOS was introduced, many users were focused on getting more work done and spending more quality time with their personal pursuits or family life.

The power of a computer was good for single task but we wanted more. And we got more. Fast forward to 2008, the level of computing power has gone into successful multi-tasking and the functions of the computer have expanded beyond an electronic typewriter to one that draws three-dimensional graphics, make millions of calculation per second, computer action games and other endless possibilities.

While they appear relatively the same size as in the 1990s, today’s computers are generally considered the server class of the year 2000. These computers take less footprint and lesser hardware peripherals. For instance, drives for storing data have moved from traditional spindle motor or data plates to spin to solid-state in either flash memory or dynamic random access memory. This new generation drive consumes less power and possesses greater reliability and gives more comfort and reliability to its users.

Also, I work in a 10 feet-by-10 feet room fitted with a ceiling fan and two desktop computers and generally in the afternoon, the room conditions get really hot with heat emitted from the desktop computers and monitors.

Desktop computer power supplies are usually between 70 and 75 per cent efficient and the balance of the heat or energy is dissipated as heat. You will be nice and warm if you are living in a cold country but bad if you work in a tropical and Sahara environment.

Since July 2007, all Energy Star 4.0-certified desktop power supply units must be at least 80 per cent efficient and with the slighted reduced size of liquid crystal display monitors compared to cathode ray tube monitors, the heat stays less in the monitors.

A special mention has to be given to Apple Computers in particular whose design in the iMacs and future Apple computers really revolutionised the design approach for computers. An Apple iCube, for example, whose dimensions are approximately six inch-by-six inch, did not include a built-in fan and rely instead on the theory of hot air rising to dissipate heat from the computer.

All in all, it is possible to successfully adopt the triple bottom line approach to green computers and its effective adoption depends on a change of mindset on computer manufacturers and consumers alike to embrace powerful and reliable computer equipment without compromising on nature and the environment. It’s all up to us, really.