Green Touch, a global consortium charged with increasing the energy efficiency of communications networks, is calling on the channel for support.

The consortium, spearheaded by Bell Labs – the research and development arm of Alcatel-Lucent – is made up of 15 members including AT&T and Telefónica.

Over the next five years, the consortium will focus on increasing the energy efficiency of data networks 1,000-fold and would like input from vendors, resellers and distributors to help it reach its target.

Bell Labs vice president Gee Rittenhouse said: “It is an open invitation to any organisation looking to work towards similar goals within the IT industry that is happy to embrace open collaboration.”

Melvyn Wray, senior vice president product marketing at networking vendor Allied Telesis, welcomed the initiative, but was unsure how many vendors would get involved.

“If it was an industry standard such as Energy Star, then I could see the value but I’m not sure why any other vendor would want to sign up,” he said.

Clive Longbottom, service director at market watcher Quocirca, added that the consortium should also open its doors to end users.

“It has been shown time and time again that coming up with the next great thing is a complete waste of time if the end user won’t go for it, so users have to be a big part of the equation,” he said.