Environmentally effective policy directions for computers

One must confess that the present policies are not sufficient enough to manage the environmental impacts of computers in a sustainable way. Promising developments such as the new directives in the European Union will require further political incentives to accomplish any real innovation. Policies are still dominated by curative countermeasures that uncouple development and social satisfaction, instead of a holistic, preventive strategy towards the dematerialisation of products and services. The often expressed political will towards this aim must be backed-up by efficient and constructive cooperation with all other major actor groups, which is a new form of an old challenge to politics in a globalizing world. It will require a reorganization of political decision-making processes, but also offers opportunities for more influence on a transnational level, towards green PCs and thus to mainly benefit from computers and their opportunities and to minimise the shadows through their short life cycles and the growing mountains of waste left behind.