Green Gauge September 2007

From Lauraibm

Contents

Climate Change

Full article: Scientist Unveils Plan on Climate Change (20-Aug-07)

A scientist believes he has found a way to head off dangerous climate change. The idea is simple — fertilize the ocean so that more plankton can grow. Plankton growing in the ocean emits a gas known as dimethyl sulfide that, once in the atmosphere, helps spur cloud formation. That, in turn, would cool the planet and offset some of the global warming caused by human emitted greenhouse gases, he said. "It might be relatively benign," he said. "It might not. We just don't know."

In pursuing his idea, he is entering a scientific political minefield known as geo-engineering.

  • The most widely discussed geo-engineering proposal involves a fleet of jets spewing aerosols that would deflect the sun's rays, cooling the planet in the process.
  • Other suggestions include launching giant mirrors into space to block some of the sun's light.

The Green Imperative

Full article: Amory Lovins: How to Face Today's Greatest Energy Challenges (14-Aug-07)

No one has done more to change the world of energy, both its intellectual underpinnings and its real-world practice, than Lovins. Beginning with a seminal Foreign Affairs article in 1976 -- "Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?" which introduced the "soft path" to energy -- Lovins shifted the focus from bigger to smarter, from more to more-with-less. He's consulted with businesses, governments, and militaries on how to achieve organizational goals using less energy and less money. His books and articles are legion.

We see this now in the electricity business. A sixth of the world's electricity and a third of the world's new electricity comes from micropower* -- that is, combined heat and power (also called cogeneration) and distributed renewables.

Micropower provides anywhere from a sixth to over half of all electricity in most of the industrial countries. This is not a minor activity anymore; it's well over $100 billion a year in assets. And it's essentially all private risk capital.

So in 2005, micropower added 11 times as much capacity and four times as much output as nuclear worldwide, and not a single new nuclear project on the planet is funded by private risk capital. What does this tell you? I think it tells you that nuclear, and indeed other central power stations, have associated costs and financial risks that make them unattractive to private investors.

There are much smarter and much dumber approaches to biofuels, and biofuels do not need to have the problems you refer to.

Full article: Corporate US Goes Green (3-Sep-07)

Doing good for the environment while doing good business is a trend that is gaining momentum in corporate America. 73% of U.S. workers say they want their employers to be more environmentally responsible. Being green is very powerful from a cultural point of view in the office.

Full article: Energy Insights: Top 10 Predictions for the Energy Industry in 2007

  1. Focus on climate change will spawn investment in energy and information technologies
  2. Venture capital investment in energy sector will continue to expand
  3. Geological, technical, and economic factors will drive innovation in reserves management
  4. Change to daylight savings time in the U.S. will disrupt business as usual
  5. Aging workforce will continue to be a major challenge for energy industry US
  6. Aging assets and associated reliability concerns will drive intelligent grid technology investments
  7. Sensing technologies will drive a shift to real-time sense-and-respond paradigm
  8. Energy trading focus will shift to intra-day visibility, liquidity, and market behavior
  9. Web self-service and on-line communication for utility customers will increase
  10. Growth in IT spending for oil and gas companies will exceed that for utilities

Full article: The Problems and Solutions to Climate Change: Greenpeace UK

The article is a manifesto from Greenpeace outlining the multiple problems we face:

The world is warming up. Already 150,000 people are dying every year because of climate change and, within 50 years, one-third of all land-based species could face extinction. If we carry on the way we are now, by 2100 the planet will likely be hotter than it's been at any point in the past two million years.

But catastrophic climate change isn't inevitable. We know that climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels. The technologies that could dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels – decentralised energy, renewables and efficiency, hybrid cars, efficient buildings – already exist and have been proven to work. If we start cutting our emissions now, using these ready-to-go technologies, then there is still a chance to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.

What we’re lacking is real action. The government needs to put in place meaningful policies to urgently reduce emissions – and to act on them immediately. Under New Labour, carbon emissions have risen. The government is set to miss its own emissions targets. Whether through political cowardice or industry lobbying, the government is failing to put their words into action.

We're the last generation that can stop this global catastrophe, and we need your help.

Combined Heat and Power (CHP)

Combined Heat and Power (CHP), also known as cogeneration, involves the use of a heat engine or a power station to generate both electricity and useful heat simultaneously. This enables CHP to use the heat that would be wasted in a conventional power plant, allowing for about 30% more efficiency. This means that less fuel needs to be consumed to produce the same amount of useful energy and consequently pollution is also reduced.

There are two different types of plants, the topping cycle plant produces electricity first, and then the exhausted steam is used for heating. Conversely, bottoming cycling plants produce high heats for an industrial process and then a waste heat recovery boiler feeds an electrical plant.

Full article: Go Green Nippon Style: Turn Your Server Off at Night (14-Aug-07)

In Japan it is common for production servers to be turned off at night, the incentive to do this is that the Japanese insurance industry offers much cheaper cover for companies that turn off power after dark. This poses the question whether we should all be acting in such a manner and turning servers and appliances off over night.

Yahoo goes green and Google goes black (13-Aug-07)

Many have started to use Blackle, the Google search engine with a black background, claiming that this saves energy. However Google has researched this and say that this isn’t the case.

Yahoo has also made attempts to go green with the title “Green Yahoo”, where it provides the opportunity to find out facts about the environment. It appears that a number of companies are using the site to promote their own green products.

Full article: The greening of IT: Why less is more (13-Aug-07)

Vendors with newly discovered green credentials will often say: 'If you buy our new servers, in three years the energy savings from reducing cooling will provide payback' and so on. But do these account for the full environmental impact cost in the ROI calculation?

There is also a danger that green IT simply equates to reducing carbon dioxide emissions in order to slow climate change. Our fragile ecology is under much more of a threat than that. Green technology must also mean a responsibility towards the extraction and dumping of hazardous chemicals, destroying natural habitats to make way for acre after acre of bio-fuel crops and preventing civil wars in under-developed economies where essential raw minerals for batteries and processors can be found.

There is much we can do as individuals: e.g. lengthen upgrade cycles, and that includes software as this is frequently used as justification for upgrading hardware. A green PC isn't green when it's left switched on, when it's upgraded every 18 months and when it finds its way into a landfill, even if it now contains less toxic chemicals.

Full article: "My Boss Isn't Green," Says Londoners (20-Aug-07)

A recent survey by zipcar has revealed that one in five businesses are not doing enough to protect the environment. It was found that almost two thirds of firms believe that recycling paper and plastics is doing enough for the environment. However, 84% of employees believe that their businesses are not doing as much as they can to help, with many workers feeling that their employers should spend more money on initiatives to help the environment.

Full article: 94% of Supply Chain Professionals Rate Green Issues As Business Priority (20-Aug-07)

With up to 75% of a company’s carbon footprint coming from transportation and logistics, the focus of supply chain greening is beginning to shift towards this area.

A recent survey revealed that 69% of respondents believe that green issues will become more important to their transport and logistic processes over the next three years, and a further 9% identified green issues as their number one priority over this period.

Environmental initiatives are often thought to be detrimental to supply chain efficiency. However the survey response has challenged this with 66% or respondents stating that their green transport and logistics are not affecting efficiency. Furthermore, 27% reported that green initiatives actually make their supply chain more efficient.

Full article: Brighter outlook for managers with green ambitions (29-Aug-07)

In the future we may see electricity bill rebates for companies that adopt energy saving technologies. Such schemes currently exist in certain states in the US; Verdiem, Sun Microsystems and VMware are all in partnership with utilities companies to offer electricity bill rebates to customers using their technologies to cut data centre use.

Recently there have been discussions with UK utility companies about introducing such schemes; however, experts are divided on whether UK electricity suppliers would support an initiative which incentives a reduction in energy use.

Full article: 7 Ways to Get Green and Save Money (3-Sep-07)

A number of initiatives are being used by various companies to allow for both money and resource savings in data centres. Such initiatives include solar tubing to bring natural light, reflective surfaces on the roofs to keep heat out, receiving electricity from power plants using renewable energy and exploring the use of combined heat and power.

Full article: Livingstone launches green office makeover plan (3-Sept-07)

Ken Livingstone has announced that up to 100 buildings in London—including offices, fire stations and police stations—will undergo energy-efficiency improvements. London recently signed the Clinton Climate Initiative along with 16 other cities including New York and Tokyo, and is the first to take action to tackle carbon emissions.

London’s offices currently produce 15m tonnes of CO2 per year and account for 33% of total emissions for the capital. It is hoped that after the work is complete the buildings will save up to 50,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year and more than £1m through lower energy bills.

Full article: Emissions Targets for 2030 will only be reached by Banning Cars in London (12-Sep-07)

Unless the GLA takes radical steps, one of which could be the removal of all cars from both inner and outer London, it will not meet its goals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new report.

The GLA is committed to reducing London's carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2025. A team of experts from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Transport Studies Unit (Oxford University Centre for the Environment) revealed that London is on course to reduce land transport emissions by only 10%-23%.

They do, however, offer a radical vision which could achieve a 72% drop in emissions by 2030 -- a figure that is 83% lower than the current UK average. The solution involves combining a car-free London with high levels of active transport (for example walking and cycling).

Calculations show that a car-free inner London scenario equates to a 49% reduction in emissions.

A separate paper uses London travel data to identify four archetypal car using groups in London: Claire, a 10-year-old girl; Lucy, a 40-year-old mother; Tom, a 50-year-old man living and working in outer London; and Derek, a 78 year old man. It calculates the increases in physical activity and energy expenditure that would result if they transferred their car journeys to walking, cycling and public transport, with occasional trips by taxi. By doing so, they would expend an average of 139,300 kJ of energy a year, equivalent to an average of 4.5 kg of fat. Lucy would reduce her risk of breast cancer by 25% and increase her life expectancy by between 1 and 2 years, while Tom would enjoy a 20-40% reduction in the risk of premature mortality and around a 30% reduction in risk of type 2 diabetes.

Full article: London buildings to get £10mn green makeover (2-Sep-07)

In an attempt to become the first green city London’s public sector office buildings are to get an environmental makeover at a cost of £10 million. The contract will involve energy and utility management companies planning and implementing energy saving measures for each building; initiatives could include reducing heat gain, installing energy efficiency lighting and better insulation.

Full article: Outsourcers warned 'go green or get dumped' (3-Sep-07)

A recent report from Brown-Wilson states that buyers are increasingly including green and environmental criteria in their vendor selection process. 94% of companies’ surveyed plan to add green clauses to outsourcing contracts during regeneration. As a result vendors need to ensure that they cover green policies to stay competitive. The rise of environmental and green considerations is driven by investor and consumer demand as well as new government regulations.

Full article: Green Storage Index Heads for the Green (24-Aug-07)

The Storage Performance Council (SPC) will produce a standardised metric for the power efficiency of storage gear. It has been proposed that the metric will involve a financial element, because customers need to see how much they are spending in relation to power consumption and performance.

The requirement for the metric becomes increasingly urgent as data centres are reaching the limits of their cooling and power supply, and customers are being faced with the problem of sticking within their kW budgets.

Full article: Lean and Green (Sep-07)

Energy bills can be significantly lowered by cutting storage’s power consumption; in addition to this making more efficient use of storage space can lead to a lower spend on storage in the long run.

In Asia “green storage” has not reached the same level of pervasiveness as in North America and Europe. However, Asian companies have been seen to move towards this area, and there is a common thought by most Asian IT shops that adopting more environmentally friendly storage solutions makes good business sense.

It is thought that for enterprises to go truly green there is a need to make an investment into management as well as into a less power hungry infrastructure; hence IT managers need to develop an information lifecycle management strategy.

Full article: Stepping up to the "green" challenge (11-Sep-07)

In order to go “green” companies need to embrace simple, tangible and effective information technology systems. Such steps include investing in techniques such as server consolidation and virtualisation, not only does this reduce energy consumption but it also makes more efficient use of existing hardware. An additional step is to encouraging mobile technologies; this enables employees to stay connected and thus reduces the need for travel.

Full article: Green as houses (13-Sep-07)

An article about green buildings in the USA.

Full article: Green Emerges As Key to Branding (5-Sep-07)

A recent survey by Ipsos Insight revealed that green factors are emerging as a critical mass consumer consideration. 57% of consumers surveyed said that the Energy Star label is influential when purchasing technology and 48% stated that manufacturer commitment to environmentally-friendly disposal was influential.

Respondents ranked brands for their environmentally friendly business practice; those positioned in the first tier were Dell, HP, Microsoft and Apple; whilst IBM, Sony, Gateway, Kodak and Motorola ranked in the second tier.

The results obtained suggest that environmental practices are emerging as an issue important enough for technology companies to take notice.

Full article: A Done Deal (7-Sep-07)

Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have decided not to engage with the nuclear power consultation, despite the issue being of great importance to their organisations. It is believed by the environmental groups named that inserting new nuclear power stations without looking at what the evidence says is best is the wrong decision.

The environmental groups believe that nuclear power is not the only way to go; there is an unjustifiable negative view of renewable and other approaches that could help us to go low carbon at the same time as meeting our future energy needs. In addition the consultation does not highlight the huge proven potential for combined heat and power systems and more decentralised energy networks to contribute to meeting our carbon reductions targets.

Finally the fact that the government have been reluctant to highlight that if the proposed new stations were built they would only contribute about 4% of our energy demand, is a further reason for the environmental groups to not engage with the consultation.

Carbon Offsets

Full article: In Defense of Carbon Offsets (13-Aug-07)

Carbon offsets have gone from being a cool new idea to an object of derision in the blink of an eye. Cynics compare them derisively to indulgences flogged to medieval sinners to shorten their time in purgatory.

An example: The other day, a startup web hosting company called Greenest Host sent me a press release saying its data center will run entirely on solar energy. Its CEO, Mike Corrales, made a point of saying: 'It is important to note that this is NOT a green solution because we are buying Renewable Energy Credits or carbon offsets... We are not paying a penance for our emissions sins, we are just not committing the sins in the first place.'

Business Week and the Financial Times published excellent stories showing how they can be manipulated, delivering less than they promise.

Here are a few thoughts to help guide a sceptical consumer, employee or company through the world of offsets:

  • First, look for credible third-party endorsements. Abbott's announcement includes an endorsement from Environmental Defense. That's significant.
  • Second, understand that offsets are not as good as directly reducing energy or emissions. If a company announces offsets, see what they have done to directly reduce their carbon impact. Do they operate in LEED-certified buildings? Buy recycled goods? Promote tele-commuting? Buy solar or wind power?
  • If any individual buys an offset, has the person tried first to curb consumption? Drive a smaller car? Eat less meat?
  • Third, those in the business of buying offsets -- particularly big companies -- ought to find a way to set up an independent verification system to insure that the offsets do what they are supposed to do.
  • Sometimes offsets can help finance a renewable energy project that otherwise would not get built.
  • Some well-designed offset programs help people in the developing world exchange their dirty kerosene lamps for solar-powered lights or use a solar or biogas cooker instead of burning wood—changes that improve people's quality of life as well as the environment.

Combined Heat and Power

Full article: It's not easy being Green (7-Aug-07)

This is an overview article that covers many topic: data centre consolidation, wind and wave power, energy losses in transmisson, nuclear energy, CHP etc.

  • Taking power from green energy suppliers seems reasonable—but what happens if all organisations and homes did this? There is nowhere near enough green power being produced.
  • The greenest means of generating centralised power may yet appear to be nuclear—provided you are willing to disassociate the long term green costs of decommissioning from those of the actual power.
  • Limits in the basic efficiencies of turning raw materials to electricity mean 60 per cent of possible energy is already lost before we get any electricity out of a power station that uses fossil fuels.
  • The National Grid leads to further losses of nearly 8% of the remaining power through resistive heat dissipation, and further inefficiencies at substations and distribution to local points of usage account for yet more waste.
  • Finally we get losses due to the inefficiencies of the electrical appliances themselves.
  • Around 70% of energy having been lost before we get to use it, and we then waste more ourselves.
  • IT is estimated to use 5% of all power and targets are set to bring this down to 4%.
  • Heat generated from the data centre could be used elsewhere in the building, for example to heat or pre-heat water.
  • If we could bring the power generation closer to the point of use, we could utilise the heat generated in the creation of electricity within the building's Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning requirements. Commonly known as combined heat and power (CHP), such units were considered during the 1990s but haven't made much impact as power utilities have chosen to go with the lower maintenance and running costs of centralised power plant.
  • The transmission of gas has also become more efficient over time, with low losses. Gas powered CHP units can have overall efficiencies greater than 75 per cent, so we are more than doubling the base efficiency compared to large centralised electricity generation with no heat recovery.
  • Another option is for businesses to run at a fixed load and sell excess electricity and heat to the National Grid and local community (a concept known as Community CHP, or CCHP). The solution therefore not only creates greener, more efficient electricity but removes or cuts heating costs and can provide revenues for organisations to boot.

Full article: Interview with Thomas Casten (13-Aug-07)

Factories and power plants are wasting energy. If it could be captured and put to good use, greenhouse gas emissions could be substantially reduced, at a profit. 38% of U.S. CO2 comes from the generation of electricity -- a bigger percentage than transportation or anything else -- and that number is growing.

While electricity travels relatively economically through the wires -- you lose 9 percent of it on average -- heat takes about seven times as much energy to travel. So if you've got a power plant located 50 miles from Seattle, there is no economic way to move the waste heat from that power plant to downtown Seattle. By moving the power local, he's maybe 85% efficient.

It is cheaper per kilowatt capacity to build a generating plant 100 miles out of Seattle than in downtown Seattle. Expensive real estate, tight spaces, difficult to be small scale. But that's absolutely the wrong question. You don't care. What you care about is how much capital it will cost to deliver a new kilowatt to you.

Let's say you're building a new apartment building, and it's going to be new electric load on the system; it's going to need 10 megawatts. The question is: how much capital are we going to spend to generate and deliver 10 megawatts to that apartment house? Well, it turns out that the wires, the distribution, the transmission, the substations, and the auxiliary equipment you need cost more than the central plant.

So local power costs less capital. It also uses half the fuel. It also puts out half or less of the pollution. It's also far less vulnerable to extreme weather and terrorists than central stations.

Customer Activity

Full article: More Companies Want Outsource Vendors to Green Operations (20-Aug-07)

A growing majority of corporate decision makers will consider green credentials when selecting outsourcing companies, a recent study suggests. Brown-Wilson Group, a Florida company that studies the outsourcing industry, concluded that more corporations are dumping environmentally-unfriendly outsourcers in a trend expected to continue.

  • Public companies are more likely to work green practices into future outsourcing contracts because of regulatory, shareholder and customer concerns, the survey found. More than 21% of public companies have already added green policies into existing contracts while more than 94% of respondents intend to add green clauses when they go to renegotiate.
  • By comparison, 36% of private companies are now contemplating green policies for 2008 outsourcing contracts.
  • Nearly 90% of outsourcing decision-makers indicated that environmental stewardship will influence the outsourcing choices they will make when contracts come up for bid during the next year.

Full article: Green Leaders: A Guide to the World's Greenest Companies (1-Jun-07)

The Top 10 companies in both the UK and the world, as rated by Eiris.

Britain's Top Ten

  • 1. Kingfisher
  • 2. BT
  • 3. Biffa
  • 4. BP
  • 5. Unilever
  • 6. Severn Trent
  • 7. J Sainsbury
  • 8. BSkyB
  • 9. BHP Billiton
  • 10. M&S

Global Top Ten

  • 1. Vestas Wind Systems
  • 2. Svenska Cellulosa
  • 3. ABN-Amro
  • 4. MTR
  • 5. Ericsson
  • 6. Westpac Banking
  • 7. Kingfisher
  • 8. Phillps
  • 9. BT
  • =10. Matsushita
  • =10. Sanyo
  • =10. ABB

BP, Powerspan Team to Develop CO2 Capture Technologies (9-Aug-07)

BP and Powerspan have agreed to develop and commercialise Powerspan’s CO2 capture technology for new and existing coal-fired power plants. The technology, known as ECO2, captures CO2 at the post-combustion stage in order to send the emissions for long-term underground storage. Power plants also can use this regenerative process along with Powerspan's electro-catalytic oxidation process to control sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury and fine particulate matter.

Testing on the ECO2 technology is set to begin in early 2008 and it is thought that the process could yield significant savings.

Full article: Let’s avoid climate change hijacking (14-Aug-07)

The CBI is joining the fight against global warming, perhaps a little late, but better than never. Its Director General has urged world leaders to set aside their disagreements: "The Stern Review has set out a compelling economic case for international action.” The CBI has set up a climate change task force consisting of Chairmen and Chief Executives from some of the UK’s biggest companies. Its Chairman is BT's Ben Verwaayen.

Surely adding the voices of a couple of non-aligned professors, maybe an independent lawyer or a senior journalist would have lent weight to the proposals? And certainly some engineers would have helped guide discussions in the right direction. The real rub is that huge amounts of technology to tackle global warming already exist, but they are massively underused. The capital outlay for their installation has not been made available – withheld by people very like those on the CBI task force.

We can draw an analogy with the UK fishing industry, which is all but gone because we couldn’t find the right way forward with the limited resources. Instead of protecting our fish stocks, the various sides of the industry used them as a weapon to leverage commercial advantage. If we do the same with climate change, the results will be disaster in 10 or 20 years.

Data Centre

Full article: CIOs Plugging Into Utilities' Green Leadership Ideas (14-Aug-07)

What can CIOs do to make data centres more energy efficient?

  • application software virtualization and server consolidation
  • Massive Array of Idle Disks (MAID), which stores rarely-used data on hard disks that are normally turned off, helping customers realize 75 percent or more in energy savings compared to typical always-on systems.

Full article: Holistically (including economics and environment), Moore’s Law could be failing (14-Aug-07)

Datacenter layouts? Taylor says that the average data centre uses three times the amount of cooling than it actually needs because it’s laid out with aesthetics in mind, rather than energy efficiency.

IDC’s storage systems VP asks if part of the problem isn’t the sales person for EMC (or HP) who is looking to close the next sale, driving more gear into the data centres and simply propagating the problem.

Are data centres too cold? An HP rep points out that most data centres are kept at around 60 degrees which is much colder than those data centres need to be given the specs to which servers are built (he claims 68 to 72 degrees is more appropriate). But on the flip side, he acknowledges that many data centre managers see the 60 degree level as buying them some time in the event that there’s some failure that knocks the cooling facilities out (rather than living on the edge where, if the cooling fails, system failure or shutdown closely follows).

Full article: Tech Companies are Greener, but are they Green Enough? (12-Sep-07)

But it's a lot easier to put out a news release than to build a data centre with a significantly smaller environmental footprint. Depending on the configuration and the equipment involved, as little as 30 to 40 percent of the juice flowing into a data center is used to run computers. Most of the rest goes to keeping the hardware cool, since heat saps performance. Unlike in other office space, that A/C cranks year-round, to overcome the 100-degree (38 Celsius)-plus air that the computers themselves throw off. That challenge has increased in recent years with the rise of compact "blade" servers that are crammed into server racks. This is why big data centres can devour several megawatts of power, enough for a small city.

Full article: Today's “Green T” may not be as Healthy as we Think (27-Aug-07)

Marketing departments at many of the leading manufacturers have been spending more time on using mathematics to support the supposed green initiatives being touted than on making tangible and material engineering changes to the design of their solutions to realize true environmental benefits.

One of the most blatant examples of this practice is where a hardware manufacturer exploits increased disk drive densities and advertises that the new generation of their products are now suddenly dramatically more efficient per unit of storage. While this is an undisputable fact, it does not in fact address the root cause, which is the unmanaged explosion of data being stored.

The problem with using denser IT as an energy efficiency strategy is that companies are being asked to store more data, and for longer periods of time to comply with regulatory demands - so no matter what the storage technology, more data is being created and stored.

Many companies tackle this problem through software, by applying de-duplication, single-instance storage, or compression methods that result in an overall reduction in the amount of data stored. While these software solutions certainly achieve a more measurable and arguably more tangible result, these approaches also do not address the same root cause identified above – the unmanaged explosion of data being stored.

In order to really make a dent in reducing energy consumption, we must work with the creators of content and data. The effort towards data reduction and therefore less reliance on ever increasing storage capacities must be collaborative and universal.

This IDC analyst seems obsessed with data volumes as the cause of all IT-related environmental damage. For instance, 'The wide accessibility of free internet storage and content depots (such as social networks), which IDC forecasts will be a major driver of storage capacities, encourages individuals to generate more content and to leverage the availability of these free resources without much thought towards the collective environmental impact.'

Full article: Your Green IT Questions Answered (11-Sep-07)

A panel of three 'experts' answer questions put to them by VNUnet. Some intriguing answers:

  1. To get the board's attention on green issues, focus on cost.
  2. Many outsourcing companies are arguing it's greener to outsource IT to them. The panel seemed to agree that they will be leaders in green IT.
  3. When buying new hardware, customers should factor in the carbon footprint of the manufacturing process.

Full article: LinuxWorld 2007 goes green with Green Grid consortium (10-Aug-07)

  • Rackable offers 40U racks which use energy-efficient DC power distribution within the rack.
    • A large amount of power is wasted before it even touches the server when we have to go through a separate UPS and power distribution system that outputs AC which has to be converted back to DC again by the servers power supply.
  • Sun’s energy-efficient BlackBox project is a data centre in a standard shipping container. What makes Sun’s BlackBox efficient is that it uses water as a heat exchange mechanism. Since water is about 7 times more efficient in heat exchange over air, it reduces the amount of power consumption used for cooling. You basically pump cold water in to the BlackBox and warm water comes out.
  • SMEs with server rooms may need a little motivation to conserve power. These IT shops often use pedestal-based servers and a mixture of rack-mount servers and they often never see the electricity bill since that may be handled by departmental budgets. Business should seriously consider moving the power budget under the IT department and then they might get some motivation in containing energy costs through more efficient server rooms and desktop computers. Until then all the cries of green computing seems to fall upon deaf ears.

Full article: Silicon Valley's Green Detente (Aug-07)

It is almost 30 years since Jimmy Carter called the United States the "most wasteful nation on Earth." Now Silicon Valley finally has found common ground in the fight against climate change. The paper cites some of the efforts by HP, IBM and Sun. Economics no longer trumps the environment. Some of the most innovative minds are working from their R&D centres in Silicon Valley to save the planet. They developed the digital world -- now they're helping to take care of our world.

Full article: Tidy Data Centres are Green Data Centres

Surprisingly low-tech innovations are the secret to success for some of the world's greenest data centres.

Cabling is often the last thing on a data centre manager's mind and as a result the under-floor cabling in many server farms is so untidy that it blocks the channels used to distribute cool air, forcing the air conditioning units to work even harder, driving up both energy use and electricity bills. IBM's Integrated Rack Solution integrates the cabling into the server racks, and neatly bundles cables together to ensure they pose minimal disruption to the all important air flow.

Data centre managers have long known that keeping the front of the server racks cool is critical to their reliability and availability and as a result they have typically alternated cold corridors -- where cold air is pumped into a corridor with sets server racks facing inwards -- with hot corridors -- where the hot air is exhausted from the back of the racks and extracted from the data centre. However, hot air rises and as a result the warm air from the "exhaust" corridor typically "leaks" back over the top of the racks into the cold corridor. As a result the servers housed at the top of the racks are considerably less reliable than those at the bottom and the air-conditioning units once again have to work harder to keep the temperature down.

IBM's response to the problem? Stick a glass roof and door on the cold corridor. Consequently, the hot air is kept away from the front of the servers, as illustrated, and the air conditioning units not only have to cool a far smaller area but are able to do so without warm air seeping into cold corridor.

IBM reckons that combining these two relatively simple approaches can slash the energy used to cool a data centre by up to 50%.

Full article: Green Tech Shops have a way to go (8-Aug-07)

Data centres are the gas-guzzling jalopies of the technology world. Some require 40 or 50 times more power than comparable office space.

"It's somewhat analogous to someone who decides to purchase an energy-efficient car and says, `Gee, I'm using 30% less petrol with this, that means I can drive 30% more miles than I used to, and still do something for the environment,'" said an analyst with Pund-IT Research.

A new report from the EPA estimates that the easiest, least inexpensive changes to data centre operations - involving tweaks to software, layout and air conditioning - could boost efficiency by 20%. The EPA says 45% improvement - enough to lower electricity usage by 2011 - can be achieved with existing technologies.

Unlike in other office space, air conditioning cranks year-round, to overcome the 100-degree-plus air that the computers themselves throw off. That challenge has increased in recent years with the rise of compact "blade" servers that are crammed into server racks.

A 1 megawatt data center will ring up $17 million in electric bills over its 10-year life span. Even so, few data centres have taken obvious steps to reduce that load.

Almost all the energy that goes into the air conditioning systems is used to run giant chillers that make the air pumped through the rooms' raised floors a brisk 55 degrees or so, sometimes as low as the 40s. Such extremely cold air is blasted in to guarantee that no single server's temperature gets much above the optimum level, which is around 70 degrees.

But the air conditioning doesn't have to be so cold if the layout of server rooms is better designed to improve air flow, smoothing out all the various microclimates that can develop.

And in many places, the outside air is plenty cold enough much of the year, for free. Yet only recently have data centres adopted systems that can take filtered outside air for cooling the computer rooms.

To be fair, some data centres are buried too deep within buildings to gulp fresh air. But the main reason for the A/C over-reliance is that data centers were built for one thing - to maximize the performance of the Web sites, computer programs and networking equipment that they run. If the air conditioning is colder than necessary, so be it.

"There are probably two key metrics for the IT guy: no downtime and `no security breaches on my watch,'" said the VP of one cooling efficiency firm. "They normally do not know, don't care and aren't measured by their electric bill."

In fact, in many companies, any given department's responsibility for the overall utility bill is determined by such factors as employee headcount or square feet of office space. By that measure, the IT department comes out way ahead.

An IBM VP estimates this is still the state of affairs 70-80% of the time. The tech shops "aren't actually paying their real energy bill," Sams says.

Full article: IBM Linux Initiative Greens Data Centers (9-Aug-07)

As part of IBM’s Big Green Project, the corporation has launched its Big Green Linux initiative. This will involve the consolidation of 3,900 data centre servers onto around 30 Linux-based System Z mainframes, reducing energy consumption by 80%. IBM also plans to unleash Linux-based server blades for virtualizing and simplifying enterprise information management. IBM believes that software can save energy consumption in data centres by improving the integration between hardware and software.

Full article: Mapping the Green Road (9-Aug-07)

In the third quarter the industry should see documents from the Green Grid addressing data collection, there will also be a data centre efficiency baseline market study identifying the key factors that drive companies to take action on data centre power consumption. At the end of the year development will begin on a database focused on data centre characteristics and performance that organisations may ultimately benchmark themselves against.

The aim is to enable the collection of data that will be needed on a real time basis; this will provide guidance for the design of future data centres and operations of existing ones.

There are a number of areas where data centre efficiency could improve, including cooling techniques and a move to things being on a lower power state so they can be brought on when they are needed as opposed to the current state of data centres being “always on”.

IBM aims to become Big Green, says Butler Group (7-Aug-07)

IBM’s Project Big Green aims to consolidate its IT infrastructure into a more manageable, cost effective and environmentally friendly IT service capability. As part of this there is an aim to consolidate 3900 applications onto approximately 30 System z mainframes. This new phase of consolidation represents a very significant investment for IBM, in addition to this it will enable the corporation to build a team of very credible resources to pass on the experiences learned to its customer base.

Full Article: The Green Grid shrugs off Gartner's criticisms and announces plans (14-Aug-07)

The Green Grid says it will unveil a technical roadmap later this year adding it is dedicated to finding meaningful end user methods as a means of improving performance while promoting the adoption of energy efficient technologies.

The Green Grid, announced last February, is a USA-based non-profit consortium with more than 80 members. It has an 11-person governing committee with members from AMD, Intel, Sun, IBM and Microsoft.

The organization also has four working groups aimed at developing processes and metrics for making data centres more efficient in the way they use energy for power and cooling.

Prior to The Green Grid's formation, there were no standards for data centre managers to accurately measure energy efficiency.

After compiling the required data, the group would then provide IT managers and data centres with a means of assessing what their power consumption levels are as well as provide future guidance on data centre design.

In addition to the "Data Center Efficiency Baseline Market Study", three more studies would emerge in 3Q07, officials said:

  • A "Data Center Standards and Metrics Inventory" to document existing standards and metrics for energy efficiency, identify coverage gaps and make recommendations for future development,
  • "The Green Grid Metrics: Describing Data Center Power Efficiency" would update the group's existing study on data center efficiency metrics and would look at workload classification through a data center segmentation model, and
  • a "Power Distribution Options for the Data Center Study."

By 4Q07, officials said The Green Grid would publish three additional reports:

  • "Operational Best Practices" (focusing on right-sizing the data centre and outlining best practices in the adoption of virtualization and consolidation technologies),
  • "Database for Data Center Performance" (development work on a database focused on data center characteristics and performance schema), and
  • a "Cooling Options Study" (focused on the qualitative advantages and disadvantages of data center cooling architectures).

Gartner recently criticized the consortium in a report, suggesting The Green Grid misses a greater opportunity to influence legislation and industry behaviour. Gartner also said that member self-interest could prevent the group from delivering any tangible standards.

  • The Green Grid needs more user organizations to be members to balance the strong vendor membership, and
  • vendors would develop proprietary technologies to enhance their 'greenness' and won't want to share these with other members, limiting the effectiveness of the group.
  • The report also stated "The Green Grid has the potential to deliver some new standards that will benefit the industry, but don't hold your breath."

Full story: How Green is IT's Future? (8-Aug-07)

Power, cooling and energy efficiency have become key issues in the IT industry as data centres become more densely populated, and there is a shift towards digital information management.

A report submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Energy Star Program highlighted the energy challenges facing the IT industry and possible steps to alleviate some of the problems. The report stated that this won’t be easy to achieve as the technology sector is seeing power consumption rise rapidly, with a possibility of consumption in the industry doubling by 2011. Ways to mitigate the issue were outlined, for example the use of standardised metrics for data centres, Energy Star performance rating systems and financial incentives; the reaction to such ideas was positive.

There is a belief that the future may bring data centres that no longer need cooling equipment, some companies such as IBM, HP and Sun are already doing researching and testing into this area.

Full Article: Achieving a Deeper Shade of Green (Aug-07)

Servers are increasingly performing at a higher rate; however this coincides with them using more power. One of the main concerns with regards to data centre's is that the cooling and electrical costs currently represent up to 44% of a data centres total cost of ownership, furthermore due to the high rack power levels used enterprises are spreading out their servers in order to cool them, this poses the problem of using up valuable and expensive floor space.

There is clearly a need for data centres to improve their energy efficiency; experts believe that there is no single right way to create a green data centre but it is thought that a productive first step is to conduct an energy efficiency audit; this will allow areas of high energy use to be pinpointed.

Further improvements include virtualisation and replacing older IT equipment with newer, more energy efficient models.

Full article: Put your data centre on an energy diet (27-Aug-07)

A study conducted in 2005 showed that within the year organisations worldwide spent $7.2 billion to provide their servers and associated cooling and auxiliary equipment with 120 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity (double the power used in 2001). This growth in power seems to be occurring among volume servers.

A number of suggestions have been made to deal with the problem; one such suggestion is to install more modular power gear that scales as its needs grow. Further proposals covered using combined heat and power or building data centres that operate off DC rather than AC power, such an approach would eliminate the amount of power wasted.

Full article: Data Centre Managers need to Manage Power Proactively (15-Aug-07)

One of the main issues in data centres is that users aren’t implementing the power management technology available to them, if existing technologies and strategies were used it would allow for server energy use to be reduced by up to 25%. In order to further cut power usage it is essential to understand how much power the data centre is using and where that power is being consumed. If the measurement and control of power use were automated at least 50% of a data centre’s power consumption costs could be saved.

The second area where most power is abused is through air conditioning, consuming up to 54% of a data centre’s power supply. The average data centre uses three times more air conditioning than is required, this is mainly due to incorrect configurations, thus this is another area that needs to be addressed.

Full article: Green IT Goes Untapped by Enterprise, Vendors Say (14-Aug-07)

There are a number of technologies available to make data centres more energy efficient, however the problem lies with users not adopting such technologies. If enterprises were to adopt all the energy efficient features available to them today then data centres could make cost savings of up to 50%.

One of the main challenges faced is that IT employees rarely have to deal with the budget issues of data centres, thus they don’t have to worry about the costs associated with the technology being implemented. It has been suggested that this problem will not be overcome until IT takes ownership of the facilities.

It is vital that vendors work together on this issue in order to give users a holistic approach to power savings, the more work that can be automated the easier it will be for businesses to adopt energy-efficient technologies.

Full article: Companies keen on green but hazy on strategy (5-Sep-07)

A recent survey conducted by Digital Reality Trust found that 55% of large North American companies have developed a green data centre strategy, with 80% out of those implementing strategies that cover not only hardware, but also the facilities design and operations as well.

The survey also revealed that 73% of companies said they weren’t entirely sure what constitutes a green data centre. This can be explained partially by the fact that there are no clear standards on green data centres.

In addition to this, the survey found that only 25% of respondents said that their company required its data centre vendors to have a green strategy. This is likely to be due to people choosing their supplier based on the lowest price or best service.

Full article: Sybase powers world's largest green data warehouse (10-Sep-07)

Sybase is working in conjunction with Sun Microsystems and BMMSoft, to power what it claims to be the world’s largest “green” data warehouse. Sybase IQ has the capability to store one petabyte of raw data using only 160 TB of storage, allowing for a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions. This allows data warehouses to be scaled well beyond today’s levels at substantially lower storage costs, cooling requirements and energy costs than alternatives.

Full article: 5 Steps to a Scalable Data Centre (12-Sep-07)

Many if the major vendors, such as HP, Sun Microsystems and IBM have been working to consolidate their data centres in an attempt to go “green”.

There are a few steps that can be taken to help in “greening” data centres, the first of these is to ensure that all key executives and board members are in support of the project far in advance. This is important, as at present there is often a rift between how senior level executives set out their objectives for what needs to be done and how the IT people are then strapped to be able to implement that infrastructure.

The second step concerns carefully choosing the location of the data centre, the two factors that need to be considered are the availability of power supply and the square footage of the area. Step three involves ensuring that energy efficiency is considered from the word go; lighting/cooling, mechanical, electrical and computer systems need to be designed for maximum energy efficiency and minimum environmental impact.

In step four the hardware and software needs to be carefully chosen, with performance, quality and green / scalability attributes in mind. Virtualisation, duplication and thin provisioning are all becoming “must haves” in the modern data centre. The final step to a scalable data centre ensures that the correct management and automation systems are put in place so the data centre can be switched off whenever possible.

Full article: An FAQ about green data centres (3-Sep-07)

As the cost of electricity continues to increase it becomes more important to care about having a “green” data centre. The most important step is to find a way to measure the efficiency in your facility, this can be achieved through an analysis; by knowing which areas are inefficient these can be addressed to try and help reduce power consumption, thus reducing the cost of energy.

It is also useful to increase the efficiency of IT equipment within the data centre, the biggest savings in this area come from server consolidation using virtualisation technology.

The largest potential savings with regards to cooling and mechanical systems within the data centre come from airflow optimisation. Airflow blockages have been found to cause substantial losses in the data centre, this problem can be addressed by utilising initiatives such as hot aisle/cold aisle designs, and variable speed fans.

Combined these initiatives outline some of the main areas that can help in saving energy in the data centre.

Individual Efforts

Green Consortia

Full article: How Green is Silicon Valley (7-Sep-07)

PC makers Hewlett Packard and Dell, chipmakers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, as well as Microsoft and Google, have joined consortia to improve energy efficiency of hardware and within the firms' giant data centres.

A recent EPA report estimated that US data centres consumed around 61bn kilowatt hours in 2006 at a cost of about $4.5bn. That's about 1.5% of total US electricity consumption, more than the electricity used by all American TV sets.

Gartner is sceptical about the influence the consortium will have. "Competition among the majority of vendor contributors is likely to slow the development of clear standards that can be used by data centre managers," it wrote in a note to clients.

A report from research company, Ipsos, says that a majority of respondents would buy consumer products from companies that demonstrated their environmentally sensitive credentials.

Vendor Efforts

Full article: BLADE Network Technologies Brings Full 10 Gigabit Ethernet "Green Blade" Switch to HP BladeSystem (8-Aug-07)

BLADE Network Technologies, which claims to be the leading provider of network switching infrastructure to the blade server market, announced the release of the first full 10Gb Ethernet "Green Blade" switch for HP BladeSystem. For the first time, HP BladeSystem c-Class can now be equipped to provide 400Gb of Ethernet bandwidth for the high throughput and low latency required by blade server virtualization workloads and converged "single fabric" Ethernet networks.

BLADE 10G Ethernet switch reduces power consumption by 95% per 10G Ethernet port compared to 10G Ethernet modules used in racked chassis-based network switches.

Full article: BT makes it seven in a row (6-Sep-07)

For the seventh consecutive year, BT has been recognised as the world's top telecoms company in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI). The DJSI citation states: "Although an out-performer in most sustainability criteria, BT particularly excels in the environmental and social dimensions.

Full article: HP Laser Jets Help Keep Your Business in the Green

An HP press release about printing, containing ten ideas for running a green business:

  1. Conserve Energy--turn off equipment when it's not being used.
  2. Produce double-sided documents whenever possible.
  3. Reduce fax-related paper waste by using digital images.
  4. Recycle--Choose suppliers who take back packaging, supplies and hardware for reuse.
  5. Detoxify--Many offices have toxic substances, such as used batteries and copier toner, on hand.
  6. Utilize energy-efficient products in your environment.
  7. Buy green--Tell suppliers that you're interested in sustainable products.
  8. Use a Balanced Deployment Model--Using a model where selective desktop, centralized workgroup and data centre printing exists will reduce your overall power consumption and supplies costs.
  9. Get employees involved
  10. Communicate--Inform suppliers and customers about your efforts.

Full article: HP Unleashes Exceptional, Power Efficient Computing Performance in Latest Commercial PCs (6-Sep-07)

An HP press release for three new desktop PCs

Full article: Environmental Impact of CSR for Technology Companies in China (10-Sep-07)

HP is finding that being green and promoting corporate social responsibility can actually increase operational efficiency in China. As many as two million Hong Kong Windows-based PC users first had the opportunity to upgrade to the Vista system, but only a small handful have devices with sufficient computing capacity to run Vista. Changing technologies like Vista decreases the length of time an average user take to replace their machine and in turn will only add to the nearly 400,000 computers thrown out in Hong Kong each year. In China, where HP has over 5,000 employees, the company has recently launched a first-of-its-kind public and private sector collaboration called the Cartridges for Dragon Recycling program. Communities benefit from a reduction of illegal e-waste dumps and trash.

Full article: IBM: Dinosaurs were green (1-Aug-07)

IBM has announced that it is to consolidate 3,900 of its data center servers on to just 30 mainframe systems running the Linux operating system on virtual servers as part of its ongoing "Big Green" energy efficiency project. The project will span six IBM data centers in the US, England, Japan and Australia. The consolidated units will run Linux on top of the mainframes' operating system, z/VM.

Comment: "I live a couple of towns away from where IBM got their start (Endicott, NY), and those guys don't exactly have much of a green rep around here. In 1979, 4,100 gallons of methyl chloroform were spilled by IBM. While investigating that, a large plume of trichloroethene, tetrachloroethene, dichloroethane, dichloroethene, methylene chloride, vinyl chloride, and freon 113 was discovered in the groundwater. Later on benzene, toluene and xylene were also found."

Full article: IT Goes Green to keep Companies Growing (6-Sep-07)

Today the typical server consumes four times the amount of power that an average system used just five years ago. With this surge in IT energy consumption, power costs are also soaring, increasing an average of 20% over the course of the last eight years. IBM is taking a leadership role in this effort, investing $1 billion across its business units in programs and technology to help its enterprise customers dramatically reduce their cost base by providing them with the consulting expertise and the products to improve the energy efficiency of their data centre environments.

Full article: IT shouldn't cop all the blame for wrecking environment (10-Sep-07)

The IT industry is in danger of becoming an unnecessary apologist for environmental woes caused by the equipment it sells.

A lot of the bad press focuses on data centres and, indeed, these should be the starting point for any initiative to green the use of IT by businesses.

The way in which the buildings, energy supply, cooling equipment, hardware and software associated with data centres can be adapted to improve energy efficiency are well recorded.

For many businesses the majority of energy consumed by IT will not be in the data centres, but in the numerous business locations it is there to serve. Of course a lot of kit needs to stay near the point of use, such as monitors, printers and telephones. But moving branch servers into data centres, introducing thin-client computing where practical and serving remote users with web-enabled applications all have a part to play in reducing the “office-IT factor”.

Some might point to a potential downside in that data centres can become a single point of failure for applications that were once widely distributed. But this can be mitigated through good management and failover facilities.

This is where the IT industry needs to get its message across better. Many IT applications can drive reductions in energy usage elsewhere in the business, for instance, reducing transport requirements and better buildings management.

If it can be shown that executives are flying fewer miles, that employees’ car mileage claims are reducing, that supply chains really are more efficient and the buildings are cooled and heated more effectively though the use of IT, then genuine claims can be made that this is helping to reduce the total carbon footprint of a business.

Full article: Lisa Lindblom on 2007 Market Outlook – 2Q07

For IBM, the challenge is how to channel our image in Engineering domain expertise and Business expertise into the Specific Solutions that decision-makers are focused in key environmental issues and do not perceive IBM as credible in. Venture Capital investment in clean energy is up 10 fold in six years. Battery technology, biofuels, energy intelligence, fuel cells, and solar energy make up the majority of that investment. In a recent survey, 30% of executives cited environmental issues to be one of their top concerns affecting future shareholder value--an issue that didn’t even make the list just a few years ago.

Where IBM Is Less Credible: Technical domain expertise, Chemical, Biological, Environmental, Product domain expertise, Energy, Water, Drugs, Tires. “I just don’t think they have the environmental expertise to address our specific needs.”

Full article: PRIMERGY TX120 tower server, Energy Star 4.0 certified ESPRIMO Professional PC set the standard in energy efficiency for rest of IT industry (5-Sep-07)

This is a plug for the PRIMERGY TX120, 'Fujitsu Siemens Computers smallest, quietest and most energy-efficient server'.

Full article: Performance Per Watt on Power6: Same Thermals, More Work (22-Aug-07)

Tim P-M still thinks that IBM should be positioning a line of System i servers with low-power main memory, small form factor SAS disks that use a lot less electricity, and maybe even solid state disks that use very little power. To be competitive, the Power6 line of servers should be the unquestionable leader in performance per watt, because this is what will get a salesperson in the data center door these days.

An i5/OS box that can do transactions with half the energy for the same money will win deals. And with a mix of Web-enabled 5250 workloads and the right hardware, the System i can win in such competitive situations--even against System p boxes running Java. If he were running IBM, that is what he would be building a line of Power6-based System i machines and their marketing message around.

Full article: Sun launches new Eco Innovation Initiative (10-Sep-07)

Sun Microsystems has announced a suite of programs and solutions to help customers design more energy-efficient, eco-responsible datacenters while saving money. Among the tools announced are three Eco Ready Kits:

  1. The Sun Eco Assessment Kit provides a methodical approach to analyzing data center energy efficiency;
  2. the Sun Eco Optimization Kit helps customers optimize, consolidate, refresh, and recycle their hardware infrastructure; and
  3. the Sun Eco Virtualization Kit offers virtualization solutions that enable better asset utilization and datacenter energy efficiency.

In order to grasp the reality of these limitations, objective assessment is an indispensable tool in helping educate IT professionals as well as top-level management. Once organizations have a clear understanding of their power and thermal envelopes in the data center, then follow-on services such as optimization would become a no-brainer for the data center manager.

Full article: The greening of telecommunications (Aug-07)

The telecommunications industry has largely considered itself a good citizen when it comes to the environment and, in comparison to many others, it is. But it cannot rest on its laurels. An old perennial is the vast amount of paper used to produce telephone directories each year. Why do we persist in doing this? Online is best when it comes to directories. One issue that generates a great deal of emotion from time to time, is the mining and use of coltan (columbite-tantalite) ore. Coltan is a key component of mobile phones and IT equipment. Australia is a major source, where the ore is just one of many. It's a toxic substance that should be carefully recycled - and isn't when we throw out our old phones and computers. But coltan is also the 'blood diamond' issue for the industry. In the Congo, the mining of coltan has funded and prolonged a civil war in the east of the country. It has spawned a global movement under the banner of 'No blood on my cell phone!'.

Telecommunications purists will say this is an IT and consumer-electronics issue. But the telecommunications industry has benefited mightily from the popularity of mobile phones. Mobility has transformed the industry. It must respond with comprehensive recycling programmes and environmentally credible processes for reclaiming valuable and toxic components.

BT in the UK recently announced a renewed set of initiatives to improve its environmental credentials. Well done BT we say. We look for more in the industry to follow this lead.

Full article: Fujitsu Siemens bangs energy efficiency drum (31-Aug-07)

FSC, which has been undergoing restructuring in the face of a tough market, confirmed last week that it had hired a new channel accounts director. Underlining FSC's commitment to all things green, Torbe said that, in his new role, he will be putting across a "very strong environmental message to the channel".

Full article: Ultra-low-emission and energy-saving home computer to debut in the UK (11-Sep-07)

Fujitsu Siemens has unveiled the first dedicated "green PC" for consumers. The PC also features a "green" manufactured internal circuit board, reducing the size of its carbon footprint. The SCALEO PC Green Edition will go on sale from October 2007 with prices around £349.

Full article: New Green Technology Breakthroughs for the Enterprise (07-Sep-07)

Another article on the HP-Verdiem announcement.

Full article: Verdiem Transforms Green Technology with Three Key Breakthroughs (6-Sep-07)

Verdiem and HP announce a power-management solution for HP's PCs running Verdiem's Surveyor.

  • Enables customers to measure and control energy used by PC networks, by putting PCs into low-power states.
  • Surveyor reduces PC energy consumption by a third, on average.
  • A 5,000-PC network pumps over 6 million pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere a year. Thats the same as 475 mid-size vehicles on the road.

Full article: HP and Bell unite to Go Green in the Data Centre (3-Sept-07)

Bell Micro and HP have joined together to launch an initiative called Going Green, aimed at helping resellers to deploy greener IT infrastructures. The initiative will focus on blades, virtualisation and consultancy around data centre consolidation.

Initially HP and Bell will co-fund 10 resellers to sign up to the scheme. These resellers need to be green themselves. A data centre assessment of their business will be offered so they can show customers they are being pro-active about going green.

Full article: Teradata Ships Green Data Warehouse Server (22-Aug-07)

NCR Teradata has rolled out an energy efficient version of its 5500 Server data warehousing platform which it claims used 75% less power. Teradata's chief development officer said the reduction in electricity savings returned by a single server is enough to power 40 homes for a year. He added that energy savings are also accrued from a 30% drop in cooling costs because of the server's cabinet design.

Full article: Minority Report: A greener Apple (23-Aug-07)

Since 2004 the apple brand has been under assault from the environmental action group, Greenpeace. However, the company have tried to overcome these assaults, and earlier in August the latest iMac was unveiled, the redesigned computer is made from recyclable glass and aluminium and is said to be “friendlier to the environment”.

Full article: Sun Launches New Eco Innovation Initiative To Unite Tech Innovation With Eco Leadership (21-Aug-07)

This is a Sun press release detailing its new offerings.

Full article: Sun Goes Green in its Data Centre (21-Aug-07)

Sun has consolidated its multiple European data centres into a single UK facility as part of the firm's bid to reduce its environmental impact. The UK datacentre – located in Blackwater – consolidates multiple European datacentres from Norway, Prague and Holland into single facility. Sun said this has reduced server and storage space by 80%. And by changing the design of the datacentres, the vendor has reduced the number of racks from 95 to 5, which impacts on the square footage required. The vendor already claims to have slashed its energy consumption by a third this year. The head of public policy for Sun UK, said the vendor has also managed to resell, reuse or recycle the servers it has taken from its datacentre.

He said Sun also used in-the-rack cooling, rather than floor cooling, and runs it datacenter warmer than average: "By using in-the-rack cooling, instead of floor cooling, we can run different parts of the datacentre at different speeds, depending on how mission critical the application is. We run our datacenters at 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Most organisations run datacentres at 68 degrees Fahernheit. For every degree warmer we run the data centre, that's 4% of our cooling budget saved, as well as being better from an environmental perspective."

By "getting our house in order" Barrington said Sun has also launched a set of "green service offerings" for its customers. UK customers that are already using this sustainable technology model include Betfair, United Utilities and Centrepoint.

Full article: Sun Goes for the Green with new Data Centre (21-Aug-07)

Sun will open the doors on 21st August to a new, 76,000-square-foot data center. Company executives believe the new data centre will demonstrate its ability to deliver eco-friendly technology to its customers. The new data center will use about 500KW of electricity compared to the 2MW consumed by older data centres. This will also allow the company to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 4,100 tons every year. The new Santa Clara data centre has been online since June and Sun is also launching similar initiatives in Blackwater, England, and Bangalore, India.

Besides the new data centre, Sun will begin offering a new set of services designed to address issues of power and cooling for customers' data centers. The company will begin offering the new services—Sun Eco Services suite.

Within the service offering, Sun will offer both basic and advanced assessment services for customers' data centers, as well as cooling efficiency and optimization services. Sun is also working with another company, Worldwide Environmental Services, to deliver additional services and plans for rack placement and cooling suggestions for data centers.

"Worldwide Environmental Services specializes in this type of services and whether our customers are looking to build out a data center or build a new data center, we want to offer them optimal amount of eco services that is the best for our customers," Nowack said.

The price of these services starts at about $10,000 for the basic assessment package and can increase up to $30,000 to $40,000 for more advanced services with additional on-site visits by Sun engineers and the company's partners.

Full article: Tech's Own Data Centres are their Green Showrooms (21-Aug-07)

Another article on the Sun data centre consolidation and the Fujitsu hydrogen fuel cell announcements.

Full article: Sun touts energy-efficient data centre drive (22-Aug-07)

Another article spawned by the same press release.

Full article: 5 Questions for Sun's CIO Bob Worrall (22-Aug-07)

Sun Microsystems is working to green their data centres; in addition to unveiling three new data centres designed to save electricity the corporation are planning to reduce energy usage in the data centre by 20% in fiscal year 2008.

Sun’s CIO Bob Worrall made a number of interesting points at the corporations “Eco Innovation”, the CIO believes that virtualisation is complementary to solving the whole power problem and is the only way to achieve server utilisation of 80 – 85%.

When asked about the data centres of the future Mr Worrall stated that traditional IT environments will not be needed by 2015; this is due to applications becoming more service based; hence the need for corporate data centres will diminish.

Full article: Could IBM Be the World's First Green Business Behemoth? (22-Aug-07)

IBM could be about to enter another phase in its history. The company's focus has remained steadfastly on the world of IT. But there are indications the company could be returning to its eclectic roots, and it is the burgeoning demands of the low carbon economy that appear to be driving this diversification.

  • IBM's recent partnership with U.S. electricity provider CenterPoint and its investment in research into smart grid technologies capable of smoothing the path towards adoption renewable energy and dramatically cutting energy consumption by providing people with real-time visibility over their energy use.
  • The company's newly revealed interest in in-car technologies, provides Exhibit B. The focus on the development of a car operating system capable of ultimately automating driving may not seem like a particularly green initiative, but when you consider one of the prime goals of such technologies would be to optimise fuel efficiency and ease traffic congestion it is clear a pattern is beginning to emerge.
  • Of course, these initiatives along with the overarching Project Big Green commitment to limit IBM's carbon footprint and enhance the energy efficiency of its servers and other data center technologies still fit into IBM's core IT portfolio.
  • But perhaps the most compelling clue that Big Blue could diversify comes in the form of reports that it is investing heavily in developing photovoltaic technology. According to a recent story over at the Cleantech Blog IBM is using its expertise in semi-conductors to make rapid progress in developing photovoltaic solar technology.

Demand for green products and services is set to soar, but at the moment the supply side of this market remains extremely immature. Consultancies such as SustainAbility and the myriad of cleantech start ups may have experience in the sector, but they all lack the scale large corporate customers will look for when procuring green products and services. Meanwhile, those large multinationals that have been most vocal about their green product lines are either entirely consumer-focused operations, such as supermarkets, or energy and car firms guilty of running their green divisions as niche concerns alongside their traditional polluting businesses.

In contrast, IBM, and several other large IT companies for that matter, are perhaps the best positioned to meet the demand for green services:

  1. they provide the software and hardware that underpins all modern businesses;
  2. they boast relatively low impact business models compared to heavy industries;
  3. they have the engineering expertise in house that would allow them to diversify into other cleantech sectors;
  4. and they often run large consultancy arms already well versed in managing business transformations.

IBM is as well positioned as any company to become the first green business multinational.

Full article: Servers move from a guzzle to a sip, on w3 (1-Aug-07)

IBM is not jumping on the green bandwagon. We’ve been driving it for nearly 40 years. Now IBM is dramatically simplifying our IT infrastructure, identifying almost 4,000 distributed servers at its data centers around the world whose work will be consolidated onto about 30 mainframes. Power and cooling costs alone will be reduced by a 80%.

Since Thomas Watson’s call to action in 1971, IBM has been an environmental leader. In 1973, CEO Frank Cary updated IBM’s corporate policy on environmental protection, stating: “IBM will reduce to a minimum the ecological impact of all its activities."

Full article: Logicalis joins the Green Grid (20-Aug-07)

87 companies are now members of The Green Grid, but very few of them are IT service providers. Logicalis has recently joined but CSC, LogicaCMG, Capgemini and Indian providers (such as TCS and Wipro) are noticeable by their absence.

Full article: Lenovo tops eco-friendly league

Lenovo is top (displacing Nokia) and Apple is bottom of Greenpeace's league table. Lenovo offers take-back and recycling in all countries where it operates.

Full article: System i and the green skeptic (16-Jul-07)

The article wonders whether System i really is more energy-efficient per workload than the equivalent computing power of scaled-out x86 boxes, because of its higher utilisation and use of virtualisation and logical partitions. (Does anyone really believe that IBM’s endeavours are environmentally altruistic?) It applauds the Power6 processor, which is twice as fast as the previous generation using almost no more energy.

Full article: Wipro and the Environment

Wipro prides itself on the help it has given to victims of three natural disasters in India.

Full Article: A True Test of HP's Green Commitment (Aug-07)

HP has recently spent $214m to acquire thin client vendor Neoware, which represents a major addition to HP’s growing portfolio of green products. Thin clients have been found to use 90% less energy than traditional desktop PCs; they also have the advantage of requiring fewer resources during production and pose less of an e-waste problem.

HP has said that thin clients represent an important component in an overall computing strategy, but the question is how big is the component they are representing? The answer to this will be a huge test of HP’s green credentials, if the corporation encourage major corporate accounts to move to thin clients we will see a significant step towards an industry wide shift for thin client computing. However, if HP continues to push PCs as the default solution for firms then they will be seen as not so serious about the environment as they say.

Full article: EDS Australia goes Green with Fuji Xerox (16-Aug-07)

As part of a new program “Go for Green” EDS is aiming to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in Australia and New Zealand by 25 % by 2010. One of the first changes made by the corporation to help in achieving this goal was to cut their printer footprint by 72% using a green friendly Managed Document Output Services offering, developed with Agility Alliance partner Fuji Xerox.

“Go for Green” addresses three key areas; minimising employee carbon usage, implementing services to help EDS and their customers reduce their impact on the environment and finally to increase productivity and efficiency within the company whilst reducing their carbon footprint.

Full article: Green Desktops from Dell (29-Aug-07)

Dell has recently released the latest of its products which helps reduce carbon emissions through energy efficiency. The OptiPlex 775 is a new business desktop line, which is claimed to be both EnergyStar 4.0 and Electronic Products Environmental Assessments Tool (EPEAT) compliant. In addition to this the product is also available with EnergyStar power smart settings that can help lower energy cost by up to 78%.

Full article: Is IBM Reinventing itself as a green giant? (28-Aug-07)

IBM has recently invested in a number of “green” initiatives, one such example is the investment that has been made into developing photovoltaic solar technology, a market the corporation hopes to become a major player in within the next 18 months.

Full article: IBM sees green in environmental tech (6-Aug-07)

IBM’s Big Green Innovations program focuses on the opportunities that can be made from “green” technology. IBM has a long track record on environmental stewardship, thus converting this internal experience into consulting services to address pressing environmental problems such as water use and energy management is natural. Looking towards the longer term IBM is seeking to apply its expertise into materials to improve water purification and solar photovoltaic cells.

Full article: IBM's Project Big Green Spurs Global Shift (9-Aug-07)

As part of Project Big Green IBM are consolidating thousands of servers (which will be recycled by IBM Global Asset Recovery Services) onto about 30 Systems z mainframes running the Linux operating system. This initiative will allow IBM to consume approximately 80% less energy and consequently save more than $250 million over five years. The consolidation project capitalises on virtualisation, and in addition to dramatically reducing energy consumption costs the initiative will enable IBM’s IT infrastructure to be more flexible to meet evolving business needs.

Full article: Congestion management and IBM (23-Aug-07)

Within the green sector IBM has a huge opportunity for growth by combining its consulting and IT division. At present one of the biggest green initiatives is congestion pricing, this is an area that IBM can contribute to by providing the technology needed to make congestion pricing work. IBM has recently completed a successful seven month trial in the city of Stockholm; where traffic dropped by more than 20%.

Full article: IBM's Big Green looks to solar (1-Sept-07)

A venture capitalist blog suggests that IBM will be make an announcement by 2008 on a move into the solar energy business. The company is working on a number of solar technology areas. The new business unit is focusing on applying IBM’s research and market strengths to environmental issues in order to develop new processes, technologies and products that benefit both the company and the environment.

Full article: Environmentalism, Phase II (23-Aug-07)

IBM has announced that it is teaming up with the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries to launch a new high tech system to monitor the health of the Hudson River. The system, known as the river and estuary observatory network, will consist of a series of sensors that collect data 24 hours a day along the 315-mile length of the river. The system will gather, sort and analyze data from throughout the river in real time and allow scientists to study how the river's ecosystem responds to everything from global warming to local sewage spills. It will measure the amounts of salt, sediment, oxygen and pollution in the water, map fish populations and even track particular fish species. It will allow scientists to study how the river’s ecosystem responds to a variety of circumstances, such as global warming. Once the system is up and running, it is expected to be replicated on rivers throughout the world.

Full article: Fujitsu to invest 44m in green data centre (6-Sep-07)

Press release about Fujitsu Services' data centre in Stevenage (not so near London, really).

Full article: Fujitsu Services builds green data centre on brownfield site (24-Aug-07)

Fujitsu Services has announced that it will be investing £44 million to turn an old warehouse in Stevenage into an eco-friendly data centre. The green technology that will be incorporated into the design, such as an intelligent cooling system and variable-speed fans will allow for a saving equivalent of 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. The fact that the data centre is being built on a brownfield site further minimises the environmental impact.

Full article: Sun Turns Green (24-Aug-07)

Sun Microsystems has recently made two announcements to strengthen its position as a leader in the green initiative. The first announcement concerned a suite of programs and solutions designed to help customers architect more energy efficient data centres. The second was the unveiling of three new data centres in California, the UK and India, each data centre was built using next generation energy efficient systems; allowing for an annual saving of nearly 4,100 tonnes of CO2.

Full article: AnalystWatch: Sun Launches Eco Innovation Initiative (23-Aug-07)

Sun Microsystems has recently announced a new selection of products and services to aid customers in improving the power efficiency and resource usage in data centres. However, a spokesperson from Ovum stated that this latest contribution from Sun is not too different from what HP and IBM are already offering.

It is indeed the case that large enterprises are coming up against power and cooling issues in the data centre and energy costs are an increasing burden, thus CIOs should be looking at what can be done to alleviate such energy costs.

Full article: Fujitsu Siemens , Upsite Technologies Lead Sponsors for 2nd Power and Cooling for Data Centres Summit (22-Aug-07)

Fujitsu Siemens has announced that it is proud to sponsor the Power and Cooling Conference taking place in early October. The conference will allow for knowledge exchange between all parties involved in dealing with rising challenges of data centre cooling. There is a belief that the forum will contribute to, and influence, policy making, to achieve a common goal of reduced carbon emissions, successful power strategies and be the premier showcase for emerging cooling technologies.

Full article: Fujitsu Becomes First Silicon Valley Company to Install Hydrogen Fuel Cell Power (17-Aug-07)

Fujitsu has become the first Silicon Valley company to install its own hydrogen power plant. The new hydrogen fuel cell will provide 50% of the power needed to cool the Fujitsu Sunnyvale Campus data centre and labs, hence reducing the amount of fossil fuels utilised. This move to hydrogen power is claimed to be an excellent investment for the company as the technology has a payback period of about three and a half years, and a lifespan of approximately fifteen years.

The instalment of a hydrogen fuel cell is the latest in a series of environmental initiatives from Fujitsu; other initiatives include the end-of-life product-recycling program and meeting the requirements of the EU’s RoHS standard for eliminating toxic substances. Fujitsu has made the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the past eight consecutive years.

Full article: Sun Plugs Greener Data Centers (23-Aug-07)

Sun is going green by consolidating into three new data centres which are more compact and use less energy than at present. The new technology provides a saving in power and cooling costs of $1.1 million per year, in addition to this it also provides the corporation with a 456% increase in computer power.

Sun has also created a set of services to help customers make the green transition in their own data centres; this is achieved by three Eco Ready Kits. These comprise of an Eco Assessment, Eco Optimisation and Eco Virtualisation kit.

Full article: HP's Green Initiatives Listed (24-Aug-2007 )

HP offers a comprehensive set of solutions with regards to green issues, their design for the environment program has three main priorities; to be energy efficient, innovative with material use and to design products with recycling in mind.

With regards to energy efficiency the corporation has offered its customers PCs with environmental features for 15 years, making it easier for customers to be green. In addition to this the company built the first desktop to meet the ENERGYSTAR 4.0 requirements.

HP also offer customers a number of convenient reuse and recycling services on a global scale, and July 2007 saw the corporation reach its goal to recycle 1 billion pounds of electronics six months earlier than targeted. The company now aims to recycle a further 1 billion pounds by the end of 2010.

Based on the initiatives underway, it is fair to say that HP takes a proactive approach with regards to green issues.

Full article: BT Aims For More Efficient Data Centers (5-Sep-07)

BT is consolidating many of its systems onto VMware and Solaris containers to physically reduce the number of servers. The company is also evaluating the overall energy efficiency of the buildings housing their data centres, and is considering using fresh air cooling and converting from AC to DC.

Full article: Microsoft, HP, Dell Perceived as Greenest Tech Brands (5-Sep-07)

According to a recent survey by Ipsos 57% of consumers rate the presence of the Energy Star label as influential when deciding on a piece of technology to purchase. Consumers were also presented with a list of the leading technology brands and asked which they associated as having green business practices, the results positioned Microsoft as the “greenest” brand.

The results obtained alongside other data, suggest that being “green” is a key emerging issue for American consumers.

Full article: HP offers greener approach to IT (3-Sep-07)

The cost of managing IT infrastructures is growing four times faster than IT hardware spending, according to HP.

Energy is now a top concern for companies running data centres. If this problem is not addressed, companies will face power shortages in the future. For this reason, HP is offering its customers more efficient ways to manage their data centres and energy consumption.

"63% of the energy that comes into a data centre is used for cooling," says HP. "Some servers and racks do not need to be cooled as much as others, but they are still allocated the same cooling resources. This is a waste of energy."

HP's Dynamic Smart Cooling' strategy is designed to automatically monitor and control cooling resources in a data centre. With DSC, a series of sensors is placed on each server rack to measure the temperature. These sensors report to the control module, which can prompt the air-conditioners to reduce or increase cooling, as and when needed. DSC can save 15% to 40% of costs spent in cooling, HP claims.

HP's Adaptive Infrastructure strategy promotes low-cost, flexible and automated IT environments that can scale according to business needs.

HP also offers the Insight Power Manager, an integrated energy monitoring and management application that enables centralised control of power consumption in servers. "It can produce real-time reports on the power usage of all your servers in a data centre, so that you are aware of exactly how much power each server is consuming," says HP.

Thin provisioning enables a company to allocate storage space to servers as and when it is needed. A company need not be wasting energy to power up storage that it does not yet require.

Full article: DataSynapse, Capgemini Align Around Outsourcing (4-Sep-07)

DataSynapse and Capgemini have recently announced an alliance; Capgemini’s outsourcing UK division will be adopting DataSynapse’s GridServer and FabricServer application virtualisation technologies. These technologies will help in satisfying user demand to better respond to business challenges, improve service quality, reduce operating expenses and create new revenue streams.

In embracing the latest virtualisation technology, Capgemini outsourcing services aim to help organisations evolve their green technology efforts by enabling clients to dynamically allocate, manage and control resources.

Full article: Ecologists and IBM join hands to monitor river (16-Aug-07)

The Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries and IBM have announced a collaboration combining innovative technology with marine biology expertise to create a world-class centre for river research. The two sides have very different goals; whilst the Beacon Institute seek to understand the river in order to protect it, IBM sees an opportunity to create a new business based on environmental awareness. Both partners hope that the methods they develop could in the future be used anywhere in the world where people rely on rivers.

Fuel Cells

Full story: Hydrogen Fuel Cells: Unlimited UPS (Sep-04)

An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) allows computer systems to keep running for a short time even if a facility loses power—the advantage being that the user has time to save data before the power cuts out. In the past UPS systems have relied on battery or diesel generators. However, recent advances in hydrogen fuel cell technology have provided a more environmentally friendly solution. The advantage of using hydrogen is that there is no CO2 emitted.

Like a battery, the fuel cell produces DC voltage, which is the same as used by UPS systems. Automatically, it's a good match. Another benefit is that hydrogen cells are a 10-year product. A battery for a UPS only lasts three or four years. Over those 10 years, facility executives will have to replace traditional batteries three times.

The disadvantage of hydrogen is that it is not very cost-competitive for short runs when compared to other UPS options, thus the future of hydrogen becoming a major player in the economy will depend upon producing, supplying and storing the element at a low cost for end users.

Full article: World Battery and Fuel Cell Chemicals and Materials Market to Reach $21.2bn by 2010 (3-Aug-07)

Scientists are continuously developing alternative sources of power, which have higher energy density, longevity, are more economical, commercially viable, and above all, environmental friendly. Fuel cells provide power with zero emissions. Demand for fuel cell materials is slated to grow steadily through 2010. The market for polymers and carbon/graphite is expected to grow rapidly due to their increased use in fuel cells. Electrodes are expected to continue as the major functional materials segment due to the increased production of fuel cell systems.

Full article: Fujitsu gets cleaner datacentre power from fuel cell (20-Aug-07)

Fujitsu America has become the first Silicon Valley company to install a hydrogen fuel cell to provide power to its data centre and other operations. The fuel cell provides half of the data centre's cooling electricity needs. The company said that it will take three and a half years to get a return on the investment.

A fuel cell generates electricity and heat as by-products of an electro-chemical reaction between fuel and an oxidant in the presence of a catalyst or electrolyte. As long as fuel and oxidant (reactants) flows in and the reaction product flows out then electricity production is continuous.

Much of the heat produced by the fuel cell can't be used by Fujitsu and is just vented away. Fujitsu states that the fuel cell produces 35% less CO2 per megawatt-hour than the average fossil fuel-based power plant, and approximately 4,000 lbs per year less Nitrous Oxide, the equivalent of taking more than 100 average passenger cars off the road.

Green Computing

Full article: Lenovo, PC makers jostle for top spot in green rankings (12-Sep-07)

Last year when Greenpeace ranked the Chinese-American PC maker dead last for green credentials out of 14 global consumer electronics brands. Within a year Lenovo had soared to the top of Greenpeace's quarterly chart and has remained near the top since.

"We've made great strides on the efficiency of refrigerators and washers but we've also seen this huge proliferation of smaller electronics," said a consumer electronics expert for the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy in Washington.

Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint, welcomes the focus on environment but is sceptical of its short-term impact on brand image. Making green products more affordable is a tough manufacturing challenge, but a necessary one given consumers' reluctance to pay more to be green. "You don't want a tax to be a good citizen," he said.

Greenwashing

Full article: Dwell Creative and the Environment

The long tail of the "Green Marketing" niche seems to be getting thicker as America mainstreams into greener consumerism.

  • Be authentic.
  • Back it up.
  • The color "Green" is both a boon and a curse.
  • "Green" is a politically charged word.
  • The Green consumers of the new wave are not treehuggers.
  • Greenwashing will work for a while.
  • Watch your language.

Full article: Is Green IT an Illusion? (12-Sep-07)

While the developed world sees PCs more or less as consumables, for the rest of the world a PC costs half a year's salary.

Computer Aid ships between 2,000 and 3,000 PCs a month to the developing world, but it is a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated three million computers that are decommissioned each year in the UK alone.

"Some vendors are not targeting reuse because there is no money in it and it does not suit their interest to have a large refurbished market. When we refurbish machines and send them overseas they enjoy on average another 6,000 user hours," said the managing director of Computer Aid.

The problem is that the IT industry is already sitting on a mountain of inefficiency, largely created by its own technological success.

"The improvements in price-performance you would get in one year were so great, the storage improvement alone was so attractive in itself, that people did not exploit stuff, it was easier to be wasteful," said an IDC director.

With space and power at a premium, the hope is that businesses will begin to look at IT in the same way that they have looked at areas such as supply chain management.

Full article: Survey vindicates outsourcers' green press release bombardment (17-Aug-07)

According to The Black Book of Outsourcing, 21% of clients already include green requirements in their vendor contracts, while over 94% intend to add such clauses in their contract renegotiations.

The firms most frantically improving their green appeal are likely to be the Indian and Chinese ones who have traditionally 'flogged cheaper, dirtier services'.

Company Processes

Full article: Environmental Accounting

Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) focuses on costs internal to the company; EMA does not include external costs to individuals, society, or the environment for which a company is not legally held responsible. An organization's decision-makers can use the physical flow information and cost information provided by EMA to make decisions that impact both the environmental and financial performance of the organization. EMA is a broad set of principles and approaches that provides the materials/energy flow and cost data critical to the success of many other environmental management activities. The need for EMA was conceived in recognition of some of the limitations of conventional management accounting approaches for management activities and decisions involving significant environmental costs.

ISO 14000

Full article: ISO 9001, What Next? (15-Aug-07)

The Geneva-based International Standards Organization has developed ISO-14000, a set of voluntary international environmental quality standards designed to promote sound corporate management of environmental compliance matters. ISO-14000 is the second major undertaking of the International Standards Organization in developing international quality management systems for business enterprises. In the mid-1980s the Organization adopted its ISO-9000 series of standards for corporate quality management. The idea behind extending the ISO quality management principles into the environmental arena arose out of the historic United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

The overriding goal of ISO-14000 is to develop a comprehensive system of universally accepted corporate standards to ensure that companies will be in a position to successfully manage their environmental compliance matters. ISO-14000 calls for the development of corporate Environmental Management Systems (EMSs).

ISO-14000 spells out in detail the guiding principles for the development of effective EMS programs:

  • First and foremost, ISO-14000 acknowledges that environmental management must be among the highest corporate priorities. ISO-14000 also acknowledges that a company and its highest levels of management must demonstrate their commitment to the EMS process.
  • Additionally, for effective implementation of EMS programs, ISO-14000 recognizes the importance of adequate resources, including proper employee training, to the success of any EMS.
  • Finally, ISO-14000 recognizes that standardized and comprehensive procedures must be in place in order to correctly assess the effectiveness of these EMS programs and ensure the accountability of responsible corporate managers for the success or failure of these endeavours.

ISO-14000 also details the critical elements of an effective EMS. It requires companies to perform an "Initial Environmental Review" of their operations. In the USA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has adopted a "wait and see" attitude on ISO-14000.

Peak Oil

Full article: Oil Production nearing the Peak (28-Aug-07)

Together the top seven international oil companies (IOCs) produce about 12.5 million barrels a day (just over a quarter of all non-OPEC output), plus 43 billion cubic feet a day of gas. They have delivered only about half the growth promised a few years ago. Exxon Mobil, Shell and Chevron all produce less now in 2002. Global demand for oil and gas has stabilized over the last year or so, after a steady increase at 1.4% to 1.6% a year up to the surge in 2004. Future growth may remain lower, driven nor by higher prices. Meanwhile, gas offers a relatively low-cost, cleaner substitute and is set to last much longer. Much of the real problem may be short-term delivery, and the recent tight capacity may persist for another two years or more.

Full article: Planning for Peak Oil (22-Aug-07)

It is believed that 64 of the 90 oil-producing countries of the world have already passed their peak production level, so it is vital that planners develop strategies to deal with the problems associated with a global oil shortage and increasing fuel costs.

Newman (2007) has described four different scenarios predicted by experts demonstrating the impacts upon a city afflicted by the peak oil crisis. Some experts predict that there would be an absolute collapse of society; others anticipate the ruralisation of our cities. A further theory addresses “The Divided City” in which the wealthy would live in the inner city with energy-efficient buildings, within walking distance of everything, whereas the lower-income groups would live in the outer suburbs where transport is unaffordable. The final scenario is that of the “Resilient, Sustainable, Solar City” made up of energy-efficient buildings, linked to other suburbs by electric transit.

Newman predicts it to be more likely for cities to adapt to the peak oil crisis with new urban technology and lifestyles rather than a dramatic change in the habitat where approximately half of the world’s population currently live.

Politics

Full article: How Green are our Green Parties? : The Green Standard Report

David Cameron’s Conservatives have given the environmental cause a profile greater than it has enjoyed for many years, and put pressure on the government to deliver. But even on climate change they still have very few policy positions, and there is therefore currently insufficient ground for confidence that they would deliver in government.

Labour deserves much credit for its international leadership on climate change. Very few other countries have done as much as the UK. But a change in prime minister has not changed the significant disconnect between this and domestic action on climate change. The Labour government, despite displaying international leadership on climate change, is failing on its carbon emission reduction and renewables targets.

The Liberal Democrats have received three green lights by offering the strongest set of policies on climate change, green taxation and green living. They have delivered the most substantive policy commitments, even though their leadership has not been as high profile on the environment as that of the Conservatives. But like all the parties, they have failed to give sufficient attention to policies that will protect and enhance our countryside and wildlife.

Full article: Green Policies: how the three parties compare (13-Sep-07)

Comparison of the three main UK parties' view on green issues.

Printing

Full article: InfoPrint Solutions Company UK Environmental Offerings (2007)

InfoPrint (IPS) printing solutions are designed to address environmental issues in three ways:

  • IPS encourages customers to return their IPS printer cartridges to one of our collection sites free of charge. Use recyclable printer supplies. Centralise purchasing of supplies.
  • Use only printers that have Energy Saver mode or Eco Mode, like IPS printers. When idle and in Energy Saver mode, IPS office printers consume 80% less power. Consolidate your printer fleet.
  • Reduce your printed output. Use Duplex printing as standard. Eliminate (where possible) non-networked printers. Rework your core business processes.

Recycling

Full article: WEEE

The WEEE Directive aims to minimise the impact of electrical goods on the environment by increasing re-use and recycling. It seeks to achieve this by making producers responsible for financing the collection, treatment, and recovery of waste electrical equipment, and by obliging distributors to allow consumers to return their used equipment for free.

Full article: Sony offers free recycling across the US (20-Aug-07)

Sony has set up a national recycling initiative in the US, allowing people to recycle all Sony-branded products for free. It is the first national recycling initiative in the US to involve a major electronics manufacturer. The Sony programme will allow individuals to take unwanted Sony products to one of 75 eCycling drop-off centres throughout the US or to select Waste Management Recycle America locations. The programme also allows consumers to recycle other manufacturers' consumer electronics products at "market prices", and may include a recycling fee. The COO of Sony Electronics said that the company expects to reach its goal of recycling 1lb of old consumer electronics equipment for every 1lb of new products sold.

Full article: A green solution for unloved computers (6-Sep-07)

Byteback, the joint project between the Victorian Government and the Australian Information Industry Association is hoping to encourage homes and small businesses to send in old computers for recycling; as opposed to dumping them in landfill.

There is talk of the project expanding nationally. Large non-technology organisations may be added to the project as they too produce significant levels of computer waste due to the nature of their business.

Renewable

Full article: Green Energy Set to be Compulsory in New Homes Across Britain (22-Aug-07)

Gordon Brown has set an aim to make all new homes zero carbon by 2016 and for Britain to obtain 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. In response to this wind turbines and solar panels are to be made compulsory on millions of new homes and offices. Housing minister Yvette Cooper is determined to push ahead with moves to force developers to cut their carbon emissions by using renewable sources of power.

In some areas, for example Woking, the council has pioneered combined heat and power generators, and it may be compulsory for all new houses to be linked to such a scheme.

Ms Cooper will not be abolishing the Merton Rule, a policy that lets councils insist that all new commercial buildings must take at least 10% of their energy from green sources. The Merton Rule was introduced in 2003. Merton council's cabinet member for the environment, Tariq Ahmad, said: "We would strongly urge the Government to continue letting councils implement renewable energy policy at a local level."

A spokesperson for the Department of Communities and Local Government said that in the future councils will be required to deliver more ambitious carbon saving measures and set tougher targets for renewable energy for new developments.

Full article: Green Power EMC Welcomes New Member (11-Sep-07)

Renewable energy use in Georgia, USA.

Software

Wind Power

Full article: RWE npower shows continued commitment to green energy solutions (17-Aug-07)

RWE npower has signed a major contract with Siemens Power Generation to supply and install turbines for the 90MW Rhyl Flats offshore wind farm scheme which should be fully operational by mid-2009. The £190 million offshore wind farm and neighbouring wind farm North Hoyle, will eventually produce enough clean, green electricity every year for over 100,000 homes and prevent the release of around 410,000 tonnes of CO2 every year. Plans for the wind farm also include using the power for major UK businesses, including BT and Marks and Spencer, and supply green electricity to UK venues such as Wembley Stadium.

Malcolm Wicks, Minister for Energy, comments: “Offshore wind farms can make a real contribution to the UK’s renewable electricity targets and we want to see more of them. We backed Rhyl Flats with a £10 million capital grant."

The company has also applied for consent for a third offshore wind farm at Gwynt-y-mor, off the coast of North Wales which could become one of the biggest wind farms in the world with a capacity of 750MW. They have also pledged £100m for several onshore wind farm projects including Little Cheyne Court in Kent and Knabs Ridge in Yorkshire.

Glossary

Glossary

  • carbon dioxide equivalent, (CO2e) n. a measure applied to other greenhouse gases, measuring their global warming potential expressed in terms of the mass of CO2 that would produce the same effect.
  • carbon footprint n. the total amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, emitted over the life-cycle of a product or service. Businesses tend to include the CO2 emitted during their activities, but exclude full life-cycle effects such as the construction and eventual demolition of the office buildings they use.
  • carbon neutrality n. the state in which an organisation's or individual's net carbon emissions are zero, achieved through a combination of carbon offsetting and/or using renewable energy. (NB There is no universally accepted definition of carbon neutral.)
  • carbon offsetting n. the act of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. A well-known example is the planting of trees to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from personal air travel. The benefit of this is that trees absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, so a growing forest will reduce atmospheric CO2 levels. (NB There is no universally accepted definition of carbon offsetting.)
  • carbon trading n. the control of CO2 emissions through economic incentives. A central authority—usually a government or supra-national agency—sets a limit on the amount of pollutant each company or country can emit. Companies that pollute beyond their allowances must buy credits from those who pollute less than their allowances—or face heavy penalties.
  • climate change n. the variation in the Earth's climate over time. These changes can be caused by processes internal to the Earth, external forces (e.g. variations in sunlight intensity) or, more recently, human activities. In recent usage, the term may refer only to changes in modern climate, including the rise in average surface temperature known as global warming. In some cases, the term is also used with a presumption of human causation.
  • combined heat and power (CHP) n. the use of a heat engine or a power station to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat. Conventional power plants emit the heat created as a by-product of electricity generation into the environment through cooling towers, as flue gas, or by other means. CHP captures the by-product heat for domestic or industrial heating purposes, either very close to the plant, or—especially in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe—for distribution through pipes to heat local housing.
  • environmental management accounting n. the identification, collection, estimation, analysis, internal reporting, and use of materials and energy flow information, environmental cost information, and other cost information for both conventional and environmental decision-making within an organization.
  • environmental sustainability n. the characteristic of a process that can be continued indefinitely without permanent damage to the environment; the assessment that a project's outputs can be produced without permanent and unacceptable impact on the natural environment. (See also sustainable development.)
  • global warming n. the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades, and its projected continuation.
  • greenhouse effect n. the process by which the atmosphere captures and recycles energy emitted by the Earth's surface. The name comes from an analogy with the warming of air inside a greenhouse compared to the air outside the greenhouse.
  • greenhouse gases n. the components of the atmosphere that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Some greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, while others result from human activities such as burning of fossil fuels such as coal. Greenhouse gases include water vapour, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.
  • green politics n. a political ideology which places a high importance on ecological and environmentalist goals, and on achieving these goals through broad-based, grassroots, participatory democracy and a consensus decision-making.
  • greenwashing n. the behaviour of companies in putting a positive green image on environmentally unsound activities.
  • hydropower n. the energy captured from moving water for some useful purpose.
  • nuclear power n. electrical energy generated using the heat produced by an atomic reaction.
  • peak oil n. the point at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached. After this timeframe, the rate of production will, by definition, enter terminal decline. According to the Hubbert model, production will follow a roughly symmetrical bell-shaped curve. Some observers believe that because of the high dependence of most modern industrial transport, agricultural and industrial systems on inexpensive oil, the decline and possible resulting severe price increases will have negative implications for the global economy.
  • renewable energy n. energy derived from resources that are regenerative or for all practical purposes cannot be depleted. For this reason, renewable energy sources are fundamentally different from fossil fuels, and do not produce as many greenhouse gases and other pollutants as fossil fuel combustion.
  • solar power n. a source of energy that uses radiation emitted by the Sun. It is a renewable energy source that has been used in many traditional technologies for centuries. It is also in widespread use where other power supplies are absent, such as in remote locations and in space.
  • sustainable development n. development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (See also environmental sustainability.)
  • tidal power n. a form of hydro-power that exploits the rise and fall in sea levels due to the tides, or the movement of water caused by the tidal flow. Because the tidal forces are caused by interaction between the gravity of the Earth, Moon and Sun, tidal power is essentially inexhaustible and classified as a renewable energy source.
  • wave power n. the energy of ocean surface waves and the capture of that energy to do useful work - including electricity generation, desalination, and the pumping of water (into reservoirs). Wave power is a form of renewable energy. Wave power is distinct from the diurnal flux of tidal power and the steady gyre of ocean currents. Wave power generation is not a widely employed technology, and no commercial wave farm has yet been established.
  • WEEE n. the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive aims to minimise the impact of electrical and electronic goods on the environment, by increasing re-use and recycling and reducing the amount of WEEE going to landfill. It seeks to achieve this by making producers responsible for financing the collection, treatment, and recovery of waste electrical equipment, and by obliging distributors to allow consumers to return their waste equipment free of charge.
  • wind power n. the conversion of wind energy into more useful forms, usually electricity, using wind turbines.
  • zero carbon a. having zero net emissions of CO2. (See also carbon neutral.)
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