IT majors shut down 1 hour for Earth

IT majors shut down 1 hour for Earth
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: Tech giants Infosys and Wipro, along with Microsoft and Intel, did not forget to do their bit to fight global warming on Saturday night as part of the worldwide Earth Hour campaign.
While Infosys led the pack by shutting off workstations across the country, a few divisions within Wipro and a few individuals from Microsoft and Intel did the same to cut power consumption between 8 and 9 pm. Professionals got together at their divisions and relaxed for an hour.
T V Mohandas Pai of Infosys, an eco-enthusiast, was part of the campaign: “We’ve an Earth Club, which conducts programmes to save energy and power. We collectively participated in the Earth Hour. We did the programme at all our 13 facilities across the country.”
Pai explained that Infosys uses 8 million units of power a month over an average of 20 workdays a month. “We use 400,000 units a day and 40,000 units an hour. While key systems and servers cannot be put off, net to net we will save 20,000 units in an hour. That’s a huge saving for a single company.’’
A Wipro spokesperson said Earth Hour was being observed in sections. “Special groups and individuals interested in saving energy and in green issues participated in Earth Hour. Many employees saved electricity doing it from their homes as well.’’
A few professionals from Microsoft and Intel, too, switched off their workstations. “Microsoft observed Earth Hour at all its offices across the world. In India, we did it as individuals,” an employee said.
Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy, who appreciated the effort to cut electricity consumption, said there was a need to go beyond the onehour saving. “Unfortunately, we find people not switching off their computers after work. The machines are on 24 hours which is a terrible wastage. We can also save electricity by reducing AC loads, which are heavy in all companies. Saving electricity, though, shouldn’t affect or cut into work. We should reduce electricity consumption without reducing productivity. Switching off computers on time could just be one major way of doing that. And then it wouldn’t be one hour, but hours together of saving.”
ABOUT EARTH HOUR
Earth Hour is the act of turning off the lights for one hour to drive home the dangers of global warming.
On March 31, 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming - coal - by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city. What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the world’s attention.
In 2008, 24 global cities were expected to participate in Earth Hour at 8 pm on March 29.