It's not just the family budget or business bottom lines that are at stake: The consequences of our energy policies could affect Americans' quality of life and the health of our planet for generations to come. Americans seem to have reached the tipping point in their desire for a sustainable, greener future. More than 65 percent of voters now report that energy policies will be "important to their vote" in the 2008 elections, according to the Pew Research Center. Public support for leadership, action and progress on this issue cuts across political, regional and socioeconomic boundaries.
All too often, observers perceive this challenge as someone else's failure. "Feckless" government leaders, "fat-cat" oil executives, fast-growing emerging economies and "indifferent" SUV drivers all have been blamed. As a result, solutions are too often perceived as someone else's responsibility. There ought to be a law ... "they" should be stopped ... when will "somebody" act?
The good news is there is a lot we can do together right now. The market is not waiting for any election outcome or government action. Innovators across a variety of business sectors are responding to the growing concerns about our energy and climate future by accelerating their focus on smart, green technologies and business practices. Around the world and across our nation we see significant investment in alternative and renewable energy sources that pollute less and ultimately may cost less.
Even absent new laws and without new sources of energy, there is much that can be done immediately to lessen energy demand without sacrificing economic progress. Energy efficiency is our country's greatest renewable resource. It is underappreciated, underutilized and often misunderstood, but it presents a unique opportunity to make our energy dollars go much further, while reducing adverse impacts on our climate.
Information and communications technologies (ICT) have significant experience doing more with less. And ICT is driving increased energy efficiency—fast. In its 2008 landmark study, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) found that "for every extra kilowatt-hour of electricity that has been demanded by ICT technologies, the U.S. economy increased its overall energy savings by a factor of about 10." From teleworking to traffic management, from virtualization to computer-aided design and manufacture of advanced composite materials, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman correctly observes that "you can't make a product greener—whether it's a car, a refrigerator or a traffic system—without making it smarter."
The ICT industry is investing billions of dollars to research, develop and market advanced, energy-efficiency technologies and business process solutions, creating thousands of new, high paying jobs in a fast-growing part of the industry. And the smarter systems they are creating already are yielding tremendous benefits for the environment, consumers, and the economy.
Smart technologies are the "brain power" that enable many industries—including transportation, utilities, manufacturing, health care, finance, retail and education, among many others— to reduce their energy and fuel consumption and lessen their impact on the environment. The ICT industry is not just getting smarter, it's getting greener.
This report highlights just some of the innovative uses of smart technologies and offers some basic recommendations for leaders looking to multiply their benefits. There are, of course, many more technologies already deployed, with other innovations coming online every day that contribute to America's energy efficiency.
It is time for companies that talk green to walk green. The 10 leaders of the Technology CEO Council are pioneering the creation, use and proliferation of smarter technologies and greener business practices. We are inventing the products that increase output while reducing energy needed, developing new ways of doing business that further increase ICT's multiplier impact on energy efficiency. Ideally we can arrive at a new Moore's Law, where succeeding generations of products double throughput while halving energy use.
Of course, this is not enough. We must make our own enterprises the most energy-efficient and climate-friendly in the world. We must lead the multi-sector and multi-stakeholder efforts that develop and disseminate best practices. We must lead on the issues of recycling and e-waste, mitigating any adverse environmental impacts for our products from concept to obsolescence. And ICT leaders must avoid overpromising, so-called "green washing," making climate claims their products and solutions cannot meet.
We hope this report begins a dialogue on additional ways ICT can make our world a smarter, cleaner, safer place.