This claim spurred a global awareness campaign that brought to the table a debate on whether or not human actions can gravely affect the planet on such a massive scale, forcing an inevitable climate change that affected most regions of the world.

The information technology industry was not left out of this equation, with data centers and equipment manufacturers being one of the major contributors to carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, spurring a need for "green computing" practices.

A Mere Hype?

The threat to natural degradation is arguably clear and present. However, knee-jerk responses from IT vendors have been more of latching on to the "green" hype than actually addressing the problem head-on.

According to Bettina Tratz-Ryan, vice president and lead of research agenda for environmental sustainability at Gartner, the current state of green computing worldwide has been more of hype than actual initiatives towards sustainability, thanks to current events that spurred widespread awareness of the problem.