My new favorite t-shirt says “design can change the world”. I got it from a cool little not-for-profit whose cunning designs have a disproportionate impact in solving problems in developing countries.
Their current flagship project, the hippo roller, though not much more than a tough plastic barrel and pulling handle, is beginning to have an immense impact on the role of women in developing societies.
With Google measuring the efficiency of their code in the amount of gigawatts required to serve it to millions of people, optimizing applications can actually have a positive impact on the world.
Logicalis have put together some advice on how to reduce the impact of IT on the environment. The suggestions range from reducing hardware requirements through virtualization and other consolidation techniques to old favorites like double-sided printing, video-conferencing, electronic forms and turning off your desktop at night.