Business needs to get greener, and IT should be leading the way, according to the developer of a recently launched online media portal devoted to sustainable business.
Officially launched just over a month ago by National Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, businessclimate.com.au provides current news, information and exclusive research about sustainable business and climate change.
Business Climate International also organises sustainability events, runs national awards and hosts a professional consultancy service on how to 'green up' businesses.
Developers Peter Charlton and Sandy Kaye hope Business Climate International will help companies to find the least-cost way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They plan to add a blog function to the website in November to further - facilitate information sharing among organisations.
Charlton believes that IT companies, and those who work in IT, can do a lot to become greener.
"IT must be at the leading edge of doing more with less and particularly finding ways for industry to be responsible in discovering, through IT, better ways of using all resources," he said.
"The imagination created by IT can lead to great discoveries, which is what must be done to reduce emissions."
Several sponsors, including Telstra have contributed over $20 000 to help get the site started. In addition to sponsorship, the site will fund itself through business consulting, hosting events and running national awards.
The PHP-based website, designed by Sally Ryan, was built with a Joomla Content Management System. The back end is a Unix server-hosted MySQL database. The look of the site was drawn up in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. Without any promotion, the site has so far recorded 328, 000 hits.