cultural inertia
Fantastic to see the consistency with which this issue is sustaining headlines with. Hopefully this is a reflection of it's criticality as well as a groundswell of public interest.
More importantly, I think we are finally homing in on the real opportunity for change here - that is, an opportunity for cultural shift.
Many aspects are discussed above which are by no means new - increased use and scope of remote collaborative working, reduction of the hardware demand itself through approaches such as thin client and consolidation (nowadays pushed further within the realms of virtualisation). It has not be technical or commercial issues that have held back innovation on these fronts, it has been cultural ones.
The simple truth is, the real opportunity for reducing environment impact is from changing our behaviours, reducing our cultural intertia … 'if it aint broke' - it can probably be improved!
The day we see CxOs more willing to adapt and embrace change more as opportunity rather than risk - is the day the tide will really turn on this issue.