Up next for Climate Savers: Consumer electronics devices

With a new executive director at the helm, the next challenge for the Climate Savers Computing initiative will be a push into better power management practices for consumer electronics technology. You'll also see progress on the organization's recently announced focus on managing networking equipment.

George Goodman, the new executive director, says consumer electronics giant Sony has already signed up to  help shape Climate Savers' consumer strategy. "We will focus on making sure that the consumer electronics vendors know how to and actually adopt goals for creating efficiency power delivery as well as aggressive power management, making sure these technologies take as tiny sips as possible," Goodman said when I spoke with him last week.

Part of that will include establishing a consumer electronics working group in the first half of 2011. You can expect the usual mobile and gaming gadgets to be part of the push.

Before that, however, Climate Savers plans to publish the first set of guidelines focused on driving toward better power management strategies and procedures for networking equipment, according to Goodman. Much of its energy in the early part of next year will be on driving changes to the power supplies for these products. But the organization is focused on the larger issue of best practices that are about more than just specific features in these devices. Energy Efficient Ethernet, for example, is "just one nob" in moving toward more responsible power management for networking devices.

What else does the new executive director have in mind for the long term? It is Goodman's belief that Climate Savers needs to extend its awareness base beyond the high-tech computing and early adopters, many of whom are already convinced about the virtues of power management. So, you might see the organization team up with other non-profit agencies and groups that can help reach potential "stewards of the earth."