Green Gauge November 2007
From Lauraibm
Carbon Offsets
Climate Change
Combined Heat and Power
Company Processes
Customer Activity
Data Centre
Fuel Cells
Global Warming
Green Building
Green Computing
Greenhouse Gases
Green Washing
Individual Efforts
ISO 14000
Peak Oil
Politics
Printing
Recycling
Renewables
Software
The Green Imperative
Vendor Efforts
Wind Power
Full story: San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed Unveils "Green Vision"
The Mayor of San Jose has recently unveiled a Green Vision calling for a 50% reduction in per capita energy use and a switch to 100% renewable energy sources. He is also calling for a number of other green initiatives including the construction or retrofit of 50 million square feet of green building space and all city owned buildings to be on solar power by 2022.
Full story: Green Marketing: Is it Worth the Hype?
Green is the latest trend and the majority of companies appear to be jumping on the green bandwagon and touting their green initiatives. The problem is that the more people who say they are green the less people will believe “in” green, thus there is a need for some sort of measurement system to quantify companies green claims.
Full story: I am Green and IT'll do Fine (16-Oct-07)
A problem for many companies wanting to green their IT is that they simply do not know where to start. To gain the most value there is a need to incorporate the whole of the business strategy when planning green projects and work from the top down. The move to green comes as companies begin to understand the extent of the environmental impact of their IT; which is responsible for 2% of the world’s carbon emissions.
Fujitsu’s whitepaper has set out a 5 step plan to help companies successfully move to green:
- 1. Ensure the project covers the full business and has support at the highest executive level.
- 2. Understand the scope of the greening of the company
- 3. Measure IT assets
- 4. Develop strategies, e.g. recycling, reduce power consumption, optimising infrastructure.
- 5. Implementation and tracking benefits.
Full story: Green Storage Shades Across the Atlantic: Survey (25-Sep-07)
A recent survey by Bridgehead Software has found that North American businesses are more worried about running out of power in the data centre, whereas, British companies appeared to be more concerned about the environment.
Bridgehead highlights how moving data from a spinning disk onto a non-rotating tape or optical disk will reduce electricity bills and could save upto 80% of primary storage. Storage problems have arisen partly in response to companies running scared about compliance, but it is also due to the fact that technolgy purchasing power isn't always in the IT department. For a real difference to be made an enterprise wide approach to archiving will need to be taken rather than a divisional approach where archiving is taking place for compliance and disaster recovery reasons only.
Full story: Dell Offers SMEs Tips for Greening IT Practices (15-Oct-07)
Dell believes that all businesses should evaluate their operating processes and incorporate practical environmental measures. They have complied a list of tips for SMEs considering to introduce green IT practices, including double sided printing, virtual working practices, power efficient products and recycling or donating end of life equipment.
Full story: Carbon Offset ROI Not Certain Enough For Sun (12-Oct-07)
Sun Microsystems feels that money spent on carbon offsets would be more beneficial if it were spent on other measures of lowering CO2 emissions. Thus the corporation are concentrating on more direct GHG reduction activities as opposed to taking the easy option of proclaiming carbon neutrality through the purchase of carbon offsets.
Full story: UK Can't Afford Cold Feet Over Nuclear Power (15-Oct-07)
Nuclear Power has been a controversial issue for many years, but with the increase in effort to become green the question is being raised as to when Britain will reinstate its nuclear power programme. However, there have been complaints that the government are moving somewhat slowly in this area, and seeing as it takes approximately 10 years to build a new nuclear power plant this is not an area that the UK can afford to have cold feet over.
It has been highlighted that reviving a nuclear power programme does not mean stopping the search for economic renewable energy sources or efficient ways of producing it, such as the combined heat and power system.
Full story: Big Businesses "Failing to Tackle Climate Change" (9-Oct-07)
The second annual report from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) found that a mere 38% of the FTSE 350 companies that responded have put in place schemes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These findings have prompted leading environmental agencies, UK companies and cross party MPs to push for a call on the government to introduce a “common protocol” forcing companies to report their emissions in a consistent and comparable way.
Investors have a key role to play, it is their responsibility to emphasise to the market that carbon disclosure is vital, and to show companies that this will affect their investment decisions.
