Started by Google and Intel in 2007, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative is a nonprofit group of eco-conscious consumers, businesses and conservation organizations. The Initiative was started in the spirit of the World Wildlife Fund’s Climate Savers program that was created to cut carbon dioxide emissions and demonstrate that reducing emissions by saving energy is good business. Our goal is to promote the development, deployment and adoption of smart technologies that can both improve the overall energy efficiency of a computer as well as reduce the energy consumed when the computer not in use through effective power management.

As participants in the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, computer and component manufacturers commit to producing products that meet specified power-efficiency targets, and corporate participants commit to purchasing power-efficient computing products and activating computer power management.

Individual participants commit to activating computer power management settings on their home computers and agree for future PC purchases to consider buying an energy-efficient PC or laptop.

Mission: Possible

By 2010, we seek to reduce global CO2 emissions from the operation of computers by 54 million tons per year, equivalent to the annual output of 11 million cars or 10–20 coal-fired power plants. With your help, this effort will lead to a 50% reduction in power consumption by computers by 2010 that could collectively save $5.5 billion in energy costs.

¹ Based on U.S. EPA estimate of average energy saved annually by enabling power management on a desktop computer that is left on 24 hours a day, U.S. EPA estimate of average tons of CO2 produced per car, and an average energy cost of $0.10559/kWH.