Energy efficiency has been all the rage recently, as companies look to reduce CO2 emissions from energy use and save money at the same time. Buildings and vehicles have been the big focus to date, but a new group called the Climate Savers Computing Initiative is targeting the high tech sector.

The membership currently consists of 40 companies, including a lot of the major players in the internet community. Hardware (Dell, IBM, HP, EMC), OEMs, (Intel, Delta Electronics), Software (Red Hat, Microsoft, Linux Foundation), Internet (eBay), and NGOs (NRDC, WWF, WRI) are all part of the mix. Other non tech-sector members include the EPA, California’s major power utility (PG&E), the University of Michigan and Starbucks.

Climate Savers members have set a goal that will reduce CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year. That’s the equivalent of taking 2 million cars off the road permanently, or the annual output of 10-20 coal plants. The savings come from reductions in energy use with Climate Savers estimating that their initiative will save 62 billion kilowatt hours (KwH) per year and $5.5 billion.

The heart of the Climate Savers plan is improving the energy efficiency of basic components, such as processors, monitors, and power supplies. Many components waste energy in the form of heat, requiring heat sinks and fans (which use more energy) to disperse heat away from the sensitive circuits. Think of how hot your lap gets from your laptop computer. Additional efficiency gains can come from better use of automatic “low power-consuming state” functions like sleep and hibernate. The Initiative estimates that 90% of current systems have these features disabled.

In fact, Climate Savers says that the efficiency of a typical computer these days is only 50%, and 60-70% for the typical server. Their goal is for power supply units (PSUs) to achieve 90% efficiency by 2010. (The standard for the EPA’s Energy Star program is about 80%).

The focus on technology efficiency fits squarely into strategies to improve energy use in buildings. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, buildings – both residential and commercial – account for 39% of U.S. energy use, more than 70% of which is in the form of electricity. While many factors can reduce a building’s energy use, including more efficient lighting, HVAC and appliances, computer and server efficiency often is overlooked. With our dependence on computers firmly cemented, improving the efficiency of these critical technologies is an important part of climate saving activities.