Intel campus in Hillsboro, Oreg. Photo by Bruce Forster. Image courtesy of Photography Inc.

Processor maker Intel says it has reduced its overall corporate carbon footprint by about 24 percent and energy use by about nine percent in 2009. Major part of the reduction was achieved by optimization of data center energy use, according to the company's newly released corporate responsibility report for 2009.

Intel's IT organization reduced power costs by $4 million in 2009. By 2012, the company hopes to achieve savings of $650 million as a result of its data center optimization, including servers, storage, network and facilities infrastructure.

Total global carbon footprint of Intel factories and data centers was reduced by 16 percent as a result of year-long campaign that encouraged employees to use power management settings on computers and turning off lights and other devices when not in use. Office energy use was down by six percent.

Intel consumed about 5.1 million MWh of energy, including electricity, gas and diesel. This was a reduction from about 5.6 million MWh the company consumed in 2008. Its total CO2-equivalent emissions for the year were 1.9 million metric tons, a drop from 2.49 million metric tons reported in 2008.

Intel's net revenue in 2009 was $35.1 billion and its net income was $4.4 billion.

In April, the chipmaker's campus in Haifa, Israel, received LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council. The campus, which includes a data center, became the first LEED-certified building in the country. It is scheduled to launch in June.