Green News & Articles

We're already moving in the direction of a paperless world, but with the explosion of information, it's becoming more imperative than ever to speed up the process. AIIM (news, site) is doing its part by organizing events worldwide in support of tomorrow's new, and very considerate, holiday. 

With increasing competition to provide the most services in the best space in the cloud, IBM (news, site) continues to up the ante. They have opened a new data center in North Carolina to support new computing models, and in particular cloud computing.

With all the fuss about document management and the great things that document management software can do for the environment, it’s a bit surprising that more companies haven’t launched ‘green’ manifestos to accompany their new releases.

That could be about to change with Knowledge Tree’s (news, site) announcement that it has launched a green IT promotion that will see the company planting a tree in Africa for every new sale over US $4500.

Each planted tree will be documented with a certificate issued to customers outlining the details of their contribution.

That is not to say that you may wake up some morning to find KnowledgeTree CEO Daniel Chalef digging holes in your back yard to plant trees personally. It just means that the company will be sponsoring the climate change and sustainable development organization Food & Trees for Africa (FTFA) to do it for them.

While some cynics will have, no doubt, already written this off as pure PR, there’s really no need to as KnowledgeTree has already acknowledged that it is PR, but also conforms with their concept of paperless and sustainable offices.

Keep in mind that PR it may be, but it will still see KnowledgeTree responsible for planting more trees in Africa and other developing regions. And that is a good thing.

And speaking of KnowledgeTree, while version 3.7 of KnowledgeTree’s on-the-premise commercial edition is due to land between now and the end of the year, there is still no official touchdown date.

Kentico (news, site) is either really into supporting the environment, or they are just that sure their web content management system is relatively bug free.

For every bug found in the latest version of the Kentico web content management system -- that's Kentico 4.1 -- Kentico has said it will plant a tree.

Now this only applies to bugs found by you, the users of the Web CMS. You can report your bugs on this website.

Kentico Trees For Bugs
 

The tree planting will take place until October 1, 2009 and Kentico has promised to plant at least 100 trees. They think the list of bugs will be much lower -- you can keep track on the Trees For Bugs website.

Just where are these trees being planted? Kentico say somewhere within 150km from Brno, Czech Republic, close to their headquarters.

And guess what? The tree planted for the bug you report will have your name on it. You will be emailed a picture of your tree and the location it is planted, in case you want to visit it.

This is a nice, environmentally friendly way to celebrate their 5th anniversary. So what do you say? Go find a bug and adopt a tree.

Going green seems an integral part of content management systems, but when you stop to consider all the documents and information being archived, analyzed and managed there's bound to be a fair amount of paper along the way.

But there will be a little less paper thanks to Informative Graphics Corporation (news, site), a provider of viewing, collaboration and redaction technology. They've announced a partnership with The Paperless Project Coalition and its Go Green Initiative.

The goal is to create a "paperless office" by transforming the relationship organizations have with paper. By identifying paper intensive processes within an organization and replacing them with e-solutions, The Paperless Project Coalition, sponsored by Square 9 Softworks, will help to eliminate the overwhelming need for paper. As well, it makes things a bit more efficient and hopefully less expensive.

IGC joins a group of organizations committed to providing all that is necessary in making document management more green. With IGC's suite of annotation and redaction software, it and other solutions like front-end capture, core repository and image conversion, help to "supplant old paper-based processes" with e-management.

Going green is not just limited to saving paper, it's also an initiative to save energy, time and money.

ColumbiaSoft™, a provider of document management software for a variety of customers, announced approval of Document Locator® for listing in the Construction Specification Institute’s (CSI’s) GreenFormat. Greenformat is a search engine firms can use to find green-certified products for construction. It also charges a thousand dollars a year for this listing. Apparently, it takes some green to certify a product as green. It is unclear whether any product backed by the thousand dollar payment is rejected for inclusion by Greenformat.

Ever think about global warming, air pollution and dying out populations of polar bears? Or whether your grandchildren will be able to leave the house without an oxygen mask?

Yes, we are back onto the environment-friendly, green track. There’s a lot that can be done both at home (think recycling) and at work (not surprisingly, think content management).

We're running out of kinder, more creative ways to say this, so this time we're just going to go with: If we don't all go as green as possible, we won't be able to save the world! And that's the honest truth.

Joining several other companies in league to save trees is eDocXL software. eDocXL products are designed to eliminate paper from the workplace entirely and promote "putting the humble scanner to excellent use as an environmentally friendly, time-saving tool."

Going green isn’t just environmentally considerate anymore. In fact, these days, it’s downright trendy. Businesses of all sizes are joining in on the trend, and IBM is no exception.

Earlier this week the computer technology superstar released several new software applications and services targeted to help businesses cut energy consumption by more than 35%.

With so much talk about semantic search, another company emerges to show the rest of us, just how green semantic search can be.

Truevert, a project of OrcaTec LLC, based in Ojai, CA, has released what they call a “scalable, accurate, and powerful search technology” aimed at providing users with information that is focused on their interest.

Still in the beta testing phase, Truevert, as the name suggests, is a green search engine — a reference to its development. All searches are done from the point of view of environmental and social concern.