I'm hardly exaggerating when I say I barely have time to breathe, so I did my ethnography on my place of employment. I'm a merchandiser at Target, and I promise they're almost as community oriented as they say, so hopefully this is okay :)

"We recognize that we have a responsibility—as team members, as a company, and as global citizens—to minimize our environmental footprint. So we've sought ways to reduce waste, use energy more efficiently, and operate more sustainably. We're proud of our accomplishments and we're continually improving, one store at a time." Target has a large collection of information on their website about their environmental philosophy and other community contributions, but the preceding quote sums it up perfectly (it even says 'sustainably,' yay!) . As an employee I can vouch for this, because although I'm not sure if it's company wide, at my store recycling properly is a big deal! For example, we have boxes we call repacks, and these boxes get used, and used, and used (and USED!) back and forth between the warehouses and stores. Also, when products are deemed "defective" (come on people, who cares if the box holding your garbage bags is dented, the product is there) they are donated to homeless shelters, unless it's perishable, of course!

Having observed a company such as this one both day and night (my hours fall between both), I've noticed quite a few ways green computing would be helpful, so I brought my suggestions to my two managers. Well, really, I decided to mess with them first. "So, guys, how do you feel Target would benefit from green computing?" I questioned, and "huh?!" was the response. I giggled and told them I had no idea what it was until I looked, either, and explained the assignment and concept of green computing. I told them my suggestions which were as follows:

1. There are computers everywhere inside of Target. It seems like I can't stop discovering new ones. The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface seemed like a great idea to help all these run more efficiently, especially because most of them don't hold much information.

2. A lot of the computers are quite old, I'm talking those big beige beasts from 1999. Replacing those will save a ton of energy, according to the green computing wiki article.

3. On a corporate scale, we have things called PDA's. My managers didn't know much about the system that runs these, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could use some green computing attention.

The interview didn't last much longer after I suggested these things. They seemed genuinely enthusiastic and said they wanted to talk to their boss about the situation (and the ridiculous amount of plastic "go green" merchandise comes wrapped in, which I complained about long ago) and I became somewhat of an interviewee instead, being bombarded with questions about the assignment, which turned into questions about school in general. I'm glad this assignment gave me a reason to think about these things, now I see how many simple opportunities there are to get a company as sustainable as possible!