In November 2007, Accenture officially opened its Accenture Technology Labs Silicon Valley. The new facility places a strong focus on environment-friendly technologies and practices through its R&D; around Green IT. The Green Calculator that Labs' researchers are developing will determine how much a company would save if it took actions like reducing travel and investing in collaboration technologies, improving energy use at data centers or changing temperature settings. The calculator also compares the cost of carbon advantages to help clients choose the most effective environment-friendly technologies.
On 1 February 2008, Accenture will launch the beta of the Green Data Centre Calculator The service will produce a tailored plan of the best way to improve environmental efficiency in datacenters, together with cost reduction predictions, based on case studies of previous company savings.
With a typical datacentre consuming a watt in cooling for each watt used in computation, Accenture estimates companies could recoup the money from green calculator initiatives within a year.
There are currently some 20 companies included in the calculator's database but more expected to be included when the full service goes live in the coming months.