Green carbon trade market could mean billions for telecom, IT

Telecom and IT companies are well-positioned to tap the potentially $700-billion market for lowering carbon dioxide emissions, according to Bill St. Arnaud, chief research officer at CANARIE, the Canadian research house. The House approved the Waxman-Markey environmental bill that would create a cap-and-trade market for carbon emissions, forcing companies who put out too much CO2 to pay for green initiatives that offset their pollution. Today much of those offsetting initiatives are focused on planting trees and reducing methane in garbage dumps. But those offset dollars could go to telecom and IT, Arnaud said. "We have several studies, like the Smart 2020 report and others, showing that using [information communication technologies (ICT)] - networks and computers, we can reduce the carbon footprint of a business or consumer by at least 20%," Arnaud said. "So [ICT] can have a bigger impact on reducing the carbon footprint than planting trees."