Sun and the Environment
From Lauraibm
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[[Category:Copied 2007 week 29]] | [[Category:Copied 2007 week 29]] | ||
==MI Summary== | ==MI Summary== | ||
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==What the Vendor says about itself== | ==What the Vendor says about itself== | ||
Revision as of 09:32, 19 July 2007
Contents |
MI Summary
What the Vendor says about itself
Eco Responsibility
At Sun, we create technology so that more and more people can get connected, share, interact, and solve problems. And as participation grows, we're committed to building products that are dramatically smarter, safer, and more eco responsible — from product and packaging design to power usage to our global take-back and recycling programs.
Doing Our Part to Reduce Power Consumption
With a billion people participating online today, the network consumes more than 100 billion kilowatts of electricity and costs businesses around $7.2 billion in utility bills annually. And since the power consumption of datacenters doubled between 2000 and 2005, it's no surprise that 25 percent of an IT budget is consumed by energy costs alone. Some analysts say infrastructure power usage will soon cost more than the hardware itself.
So it's clear: what's good for the environment is imperative for business.
This axiom drives Sun's commitment to designing and delivering eco-friendly processors, systems, programs, and services that help businesses reduce their power consumption, environmental impact, and energy costs.
(1)
Greening our Business
At Sun, the first step in being eco responsible is "greening" our business, or minimizing the environmental impact of our own operations. From carbon emissions to energy usage and the efficiency of our datacenters, we are determined to integrate eco principles into every aspect of our operations and deliver value for all of our stakeholders, including the environment.
Sun's Carbon Footprint
Sun is firm in its commitment to a 20 percent reduction of our U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over 2002 levels by 2012, which was made as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Climate Leaders program. We have taken a giant leap in establishing such an aggressive GHG reduction goal. Achieving our goal will take a concerted effort as well as a coordinated strategy, and will involve the following steps:
- Continue to fine-tune our 2002 baseline GHG emissions data, on which our 20 percent reduction goal is based
- Establish tracking systems to capture and measure our GHG emissions, and report our findings publicly and against our baseline data
- Develop a global baseline and set reduction targets for all operations worldwide by the end of calendar year 2007
- Continue to reduce energy usage in our datacenters, converting them into eco responsible facilities
- Develop an alternative energy strategy
Sun's Energy Usage
More than 90 percent of Sun's carbon footprint comes from energy use. We are committed to openly sharing our energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions data and encourage other organizations to do the same.
(2)
Alternative Energy
While reducing energy consumption will have the greatest impact on shrinking Sun's carbon footprint, another viable approach is to use renewable energy. Sun is working to develop an alternative energy strategy that will allow us to fulfill more of our energy needs off the grid by using solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources.
In fact, in the United Kingdom, Sun has been purchasing renewably generated energy for a number of years. We believe that by investing now in renewable energy, Sun can help create and sustain a marketplace for alternative sources, and that could ultimately lead to lower energy costs for both consumers and businesses.
(3)
Greening Datacentres
Sun's datacenters, like those of many large companies, account for a sizable portion of our real estate footprint and a significant share of our total energy usage. Datacenters typically have large numbers of servers located closely together, emitting large amounts of heat that need to be cooled with special equipment, thus requiring even more energy consumption.
Sun is moving toward "greening" our datacenters — in other words, making them smaller and more energy-efficient so that they will emit less carbon and cost less. Our vision is to accomplish all of this without compromising capacity and security. We will publicly report on our efforts to reduce datacenter energy use and CO2 emissions
(4)
Recycling
Sun's recycling programs consistently divert tons of materials from landfills, and save literally hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
Waste Reduction
Sun's internal waste reduction program is aimed at reducing:
The amount of excess printed materials ordered and discarded Excessive office paper consumption by configuring all printers to print on both sides of the paper The use of unnecessarily large envelopes
Office Paper Recycling
Sun's Office Paper Recycling program focuses on waste that can be easily recycled by employees nationwide. Recycling and trash bins located in each office, in conference rooms, break areas and copy rooms allow and encourage employees to recycle materials, including:
- White paper
- Proprietary office paper & materials
- Overhead transparencies
- Beverage cans and bottles
Sun doesn't stop there:
- Old fluorescent light tubes are accumulated and sent for recovery and recycling of heavy metals (mercury) in the tubes, the steel caps, and the glass itself
- Toner and fax cartridges are collected and recycled
- Binders are reused by local schools and charitable organizations
- Employees conduct periodic "Clean Sweeps" to recycle furniture, CDs, software and hardware
Pallet Recycling
Sun's closed-loop recycling program for pallets has been operating at it's Newark, Cal and Hillsboro, Or. warehouse, manufacturing, and delivery sites for years. This money saving program:
- Consistently operates in the black
- Keeps 100% of Sun's used pallets out of landfills
- Won a 1990 Business Environmental Award from the Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation
Sun's pallet coordinator offers rebates for returned pallets and discounts when Sun accepts used or reconditioned pallets. The pallets are manufactured according to specifications from Sun's engineering department, and the new pallets are delivered to the required sites. The company also picks up used wood and foam pallets from each site at regular intervals and returns them for re-use.
Cardboard Recycling
Sun campuses and cafeterias that generate large amounts of corrugated cardboard are equipped with compactors that reduce the material to a manageable size. A waste disposal company then recycles it.
Foam Recycling
Foam packaging peanuts and inserts are collected in special bins at Sun's offices and manufacturing sites, and then picked up and recycled by one of the company's recycling partners.
Computer Equipment Recycling
Used computer equipment is collected and sent to a third-party asset recovery vendor for recycling or re-manufacture.
(5)
Efficient Product Solutions
Sun leads the industry in offering a portfolio of eco responsible products that deliver high-performance, sustainable computing solutions to address customer IT needs. Our goal is to design all of our products with energy efficiency and eco responsibility in mind, while continuing to deliver the industry-leading performance customers have come to expect from Sun.
Product Related Goals
As part of our Eco Responsibility initiative, Sun established specific product-related goals that we are working to achieve over the next several years.
By 2008, Sun intends to introduce several new products that offer 30 times more performance while using one-tenth the energy and generating half the heat compared to products offered in 2003. We will implement a thin-client IT architecture — where processing takes place on the network — in all Sun facilities, to significantly reduce both power and materials consumption.
(6)
Article: "The Greenest Computer Company Under the Sun"
Source
- 5. Recycling
