There will be a lot of green at NXTcomm08, and not just in the transactions vendors hope to make on the exhibit floor. Staff members of the Telecommunications Industry Association, with USTelecom the sponsors of the NXTcomm08, will be wearing green shirts to promote the TIA’s major efforts to address environmental issues affecting its members.

Prime among those efforts is TIA’s acquisition of the EIATRACK, a subscriber service that provides real-time information on laws, rules and regulations being imposed in countries around the globe in support of environmental initiatives. The EIATRACK is being promoted within TIA’s booth at NXTcomm, where subscriptions to the new service are available.

“Information about regulations means dollars to our members,” said TIA President Grant Siefert. “It is costly to companies if they are not informed, whether they want to open a plant in Malaysia or Brazil, or keep up to date on regulations being implemented in California. This service allows our member companies to make good decisions and save themselves from regulatory costs they are not aware of.”

TIA is also engaging experts in the field – Andrew Sweatman, general manager of WSP Environmental in Australia, is an EIATRACK contributor and is speaking on three different NXTcomm panels – and recently hired its own environmental expert, Ellen Farmer, who will be in the EIATRACK booth at NXTcomm.

TIA has also taken over the ecyclingcentral.org Web site, which features a state-by-state directory of more than 2500 drop-off locations for electronic gear that needs to be specially recycled, Siefert said. “It can tell you where to take these phone or set-top boxes or event TVs, so that e-friendly companies can take these to the proper locations,” he said.

TIA is also doing its own internal initiatives and recently hosting a meeting of TR-42 committee, which is developing energy efficiency standards for data centers.

“The standards process is moving in the right direction to reduce cost from an energy perspective,” Siefert said. “We are starting to take an inventory of all our other standards committee. This isn’t new for us, we have been doing green initiatives for some time. On the wireless side, for instance, we have been looking at battery and energy efficiency.”