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Verdiem Softens Growing Global Warming Impact of Personal Computers
August 9, 2005
Seattle Software Company Targets CO2 Emissions Caused by PCs
Seattle, WA—As the world prepares to observe International Air Quality Day this Friday, Verdiem,
the leading developer of power management software for PC networks, announced today that it expects
emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, will be cut
by 50 million pounds this year due to reduced energy use by personal computers running Verdiem’s
energy-saving software. Over the next five years, at current rates of adoption of its software,
Verdiem expects its software could cut the energy use of non-residential PCs by about 2,000 gigawatt
hours (enough electricity to power 185,000 homes for one year). Since CO2 is a by-product of
electricity generation, the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere will be reduced by about
3.2 billion pounds over the same period.
Both public and private sector organizations across the U.S., ranging from the City University of New
York to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Labs in Colorado, are adopting Verdiem’s SURVEYOR, not only because it reduces their energy costs but because it is environmentally responsible. The City University of New York is installing SURVEYOR on 28,000 PCs on 14 campuses. According to Ron Spalter, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, “CUNY is always looking for innovative ways to operate more efficiently
and reduce our ‘environmental footprint.’ With SURVEYOR, we can achieve both goals at the same time.
The software saves money while reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.”
Verdiem’s software solves a growing problem in the digital age – the rapidly increasing energy
consumption of PC networks. PCs are voracious consumers of electricity, and their energy use is
increasing as faster processors, more memory, and more power-hungry peripherals become commonplace.
Much of this energy is wasted: according to the Department of Energy, the average PC wastes up to 400
kilowatt-hours of electricity a year simply by running at full power when no user is present. While
most PCs support energy-saving standby, hibernate and shut-down settings, over 80% of users disable
their power settings within 90 days, according to research by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
SURVEYOR, Verdiem’s signature software product, solves this problem by enabling network-level control
over PC and monitor power settings. SURVEYOR is an easy-to-use application that measures, manages,
and reduces PC energy consumption. SURVEYOR allows network managers to easily configure and maintain
PC power settings across large, distributed networks, while giving users the flexibility they need.
“SURVEYOR was developed because every year organizations in the U.S. waste $2 billion of energy by
leaving PCs on when no one is using them,” said Steven Sperry, Verdiem’s president and CEO.
Most computer users don’t think of their PCs as producers of carbon dioxide, and in fact the PC itself
does not emit CO2. However, CO2 is produced while generating the electricity that PCs use, and an
average PC is responsible for almost 1,000 pounds of CO2 emissions annually. To put this in perspective,
it takes only 15 PCs to generate the equivalent CO2 that a typical mid-size car produces in a year.
An organization with 10,000 PCs can reduce its CO2 emissions by 3.2 million lbs yearly, equivalent to
permanently removing over 225 cars from America’s roads.
In a recently released study, the U.S. Department of Energy reviewed 60 technologies that have the
potential to reduce energy use of office and telecommunications equipment, and identified the type
of software that Verdiem makes as the technology with the greatest potential to save energy. If half
of the estimated 224 million personal computers in the U.S. were to adopt Verdiem’s energy-saving
software, the annual energy savings could exceed 22 terawatt hours, enough electricity to power 2.1
million U.S. homes. The reduction in CO2 emissions associated with saving this amount of energy would
be almost 36 billion pounds annually; equivalent to permanently removing 2.5 million mid-size cars
from America’s roads.
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