Facebook Joins Green Coalition

Source: PRNewsWire

Partnership to Promote Environmental Responsibility Through New Facebook Page by Sharing Best Practices and Smart Use of Information and Communications Technology

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) today announced that Facebook joined the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC). Hosted by ITI, DESC works to advance ideas, best practices and public policies that promote information and communications technology-enabled energy efficiency, clean energy innovation, and sustainable growth.

“Improving energy efficiency and protecting our planet’s resources are ongoing goals of the global ICT industry,” said Chris Hankin, Senior Director of Environment and Sustainability Policy at ITI. “Global leaders such as Facebook provide the ideal foundation for promoting environmentally-responsible business practices across all industries. We look forward to having Facebook at the table as we continue to harness and promote technological advances such as energy-efficient data centers, smart grids and next-generation facilities.”

“Our ongoing philosophy has been to improve the efficiency of our infrastructure and we continue to invest tremendous resources to improve our own operations. By creating and sharing innovative technology solutions, we hope to help raise the visibility of the importance of environmental sustainability across all industries,” said Jonathan Heiliger, Vice President of Technical Operations at Facebook. “Today, we’re proud to be joining with DESC to help make efficiency and environmental responsibility a priority for everyone.”

Facebook’s membership in DESC is part their ongoing program to develop energy efficient computing systems while also enabling public activism.  Earlier this year, Facebook engineers launched a programming language, HipHop for PHP, which allowed their servers to do the same amount of work with half the number of servers. To spread the benefit, Facebook has open sourced the programming language so that other companies can get the same energy saving benefits.

The social network is also focused on empowering Facebook users to embrace energy efficient living and environmental responsibility by launching the Facebook.com/green Page as a resource for individuals and organizations.  Facebook will be collaborating with environmental experts to administer the Page and share.  DESC will be the first co-administrator of Facebook.com/green, which will be promoted to Facebook users around the world.

DESC membership also includes access to the recently launched website, DigitalEnergySolutions.org, which features case studies, research papers, fact sheets, Q&A sessions and opportunities for ICT end-users and members of the online community to weigh in with ideas and best practices.