Green Gauge October 2007
From Lauraibm
Global Warming
Full story: Global Warning on Global Warming: U.S Must Help Out (25-Sep-07)
The U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, said at the UN this month: “Put simply, the world needs a technological revolution. Existing energy technologies alone will not meet the global demand for energy while also reducing emissions to necessary levels.”
Hilary Benn, the UK's secretary of state for the environment, used the conference to declare: "Tackling climate change means all of us, including the largest economy in the world, the US, taking on binding emissions reduction targets. It is inconceivable that dangerous climate change can be avoided without this happening."
The UK is a member of the European Union which is actually reducing its overall greenhose gas emissions as part of its adherence to the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. and China are the world’s two leading producers of greenhouse gases and neither is signatory to Kyoto. Both continue to annually produce more CO2.
Climate Change
Full story: Pipes hung in the sea could help planet to 'heal itself' (27-Sep-07)
James Lovelock is one of the scientists who have recently proposed that the sea could be helped to absorb vastly more carbon dioxide by mixing deeper water with surface water. The theory is that pumping deep water up to the surface would allow for algae to be fertilised and encourage them to bloom, taking up much more CO2.
They suggest the use of vertical pipes, perhaps 100 to 200 metres long, 10 metres in diameter and with a one-way valve at the lower end for pumping by wave movement. Richard Branson seems very interested in the project and is considering funding a trial.
The Green Imperative
Full story: London Heading Down Greener Path (1-Oct-07)
"London is setting the standard for climate change policy," says Chris Walker, U.S. director of the Climate Group. Scientific studies show that cities contribute 75% of the global warming emissions in the world. London is the largest city in the European Union. In 2005 Ken Livingstone launched his idea of the Cities Climate Leadership Group. The coalition has since grown to 38 international cities and calls itself the C40.
February 2007 saw Livingstone launch his Climate Action Plan with the goal of reducing London’s emissions by 60% by 2025 through energy conservation, efficiency and renewable resources. London currently has one of the most aggressive anti-congestion programs in the world, demonstrating the city’s commitment to reducing vehicle pollution. A number of targets have been set in the city to help become greener—for example the goal of taking half the city off the National Grid by 2050.
Full story: UK IT Has Yet to Turn Green (1-Oct-07)
Two thirds of UK firms have someone on their board with responsibility for energy and environmental issues, but this high-level commitment hasn’t percolated through to the IT department. In fact, survey results show that 42% of UK IT executives do not measure their energy use. Within the UK, IT accounts for 4% of the total greenhouse gas emissions, so it is vital for CIOs to act now in order to reduce both these emissions and reduce internal costs.
When purchasing new equipment, this means considering more than just the price. Survey respondents put reliability as the deciding factor when buying IT equipment (63%), followed by price (32%) and support (30%). Only 12% mentioned energy efficiency.
Full article: "Rubbish" way to get green message over (14-Sep-07)
The Labour group on Bedford borough council has suggested that council employees stop picking up litter for one day, in the hope that this will emphasise how much the authority does to keep the streets clean. In addition to this, car sharing is being encouraged, and energy-saving light bulbs delivered to housing association properties. The idea is that if enough people get involved, a real difference could be made to the carbon footprint of the borough.
There are also thoughts of utilising photo-voltaic cells and combined heat and power technology for council facilities, which would allow excess energy to be fed into the national grid.
Full story: IT Chiefs Want to Go Green (25-Sep-07)
92% of the 300 senior UK IT executives surveyed by CBR wanted to make their firms IT infrastructure greener, with the key motivator being cost-saving. Despite concerns that climate change awareness is not affecting behaviour, government and board-level pressures are beginning to make a difference. Furthermore, green initiatives are moving higher up the agenda due to the increasing cost of energy.
Full story: Britain Trails World League on Its Green Credentials
A recent study of 141 countries places Britain a poor 93rd in the world for energy efficiency and 77th for greenhouse gas emissions. Total carbon dioxide emissions in the UK actually increased between 2000 and 2005.
Carbon Offsets
Full story: Should IT Managers Jump on the Offset Bandwagon? (Sep-07)
Carbon offsetting is somewhat of a controversial issue, advocates argue that offsetting should play a vital part in any green business strategy, whilst, critics believe the practise is scientifically flawed, and the idea that you can simply pay to neutralise your emissions is based on unverifiable calculations.
Others believe that although some projects are “less than robust” the concept of offsetting still has a significant role to play in helping business transition to low carbon business models. It is thought however, that IT managers need to make efforts to reduce their overall energy consumption in addition to offsetting.
Firms are advised to remain wary of offset schemes and to ensure that the offsets they are buying are scientifically valid and not harmful to local economies or people, otherwise they could end up causing more harm than good.
Combined Heat and Power
Customer Activity
Full story: BP Team with MIT for Clean Energy Research (28-Sep-07)
BP has signed a 5 year commitment to the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Energy Initiative; the pair aim to explore ways of transforming materials such as coal into electricity, liquid fuels and chemicals with the hope of slashing carbon dioxide emissions.
Data Centre
Full story: Don't Wait on Green IT to Spruce Up Data Centres, Experts Say (1-Oct-07)
Experts in the IT industry have recommended that companies make simple reconfigurations to their IT hardware to help free up energy and space in the data centre. They have been advised not to wait for advanced technologies to take root due to a lack of guidance from the federal level which is likely to cause a slow in the pace of innovation on the energy-efficiency front.
Full story: Less than a quater of UK CIOS believe data centre consolidation could lower carbon emissions (28-Sep-07)
A recent survey found that a mere 23% of UK CIOs believed a green policy could drive data centre consolidation, compared to 50% in North America. IBM believes that despite the current sense of little progress being made, the IT function is well positioned when it comes to reducing its environmental impacts. Through adopting existing energy efficiency methodologies and technologies power use could be cut by 56% by 2011.
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.
Individual Efforts
Green Consortia
Vendor Efforts
Full story: Companies Decide to go Green (1-Oct-07)
Greenpeace released its "Guide to Greener Electronics" in September 2007, which ranked 14 manufacturers of computers and mobile phones according to their policies on toxic chemicals and recycling.
The company rankings are in descending order: Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Dell, Lenovo, LG, Sony, Fujitsu-Siemens, Samsung, Motorola, Toshiba, Acer, Apple, HP and Panasonic.
Nokia has been on the top of the ladder since August 2006. Lenovo who has moved up the ladder from the lowest rank in August 2006 now ranks fourth. At the bottom of the ladder are Panasonic, HP and Apple.
HP is now in 13th place down from 6th. It has weakened its support for individual producer responsibility. It was the first company to devise an electronic waste take-back/recycling metric based on a percentage of sales, yet it has failed to provide timelines for the complete elimination of PVC (Plastic Polyvinyl Chloride) and all BFRs (Brominated Flame Retardants).
Full story: Electronics Companies Green up Their Acts (19-Sep-07)
Greenpeace has launched its latest edition of a “Guide to Greener Electronics”; the changes show that many major electronics firms have made huge improvements since the guide was first launched in August 2006. Not only have the companies that were ranked near the bottom of the previous edition made improvements to move up the table, but companies not even featured in the ranking have made improvements in their policies with the aim of being greener. In fact, the only company seen to fall in each of the rankings is Hewlett Packard.
The initiative has also seen many improvements in company practice since August 2006; with a number of companies now offering free take back programs for old electronics. There has also been an increase in the number of products available without the worst toxic chemicals e.g. PVC plastic.
These results demonstrate the effectiveness of publicly comparing the performance of these companies to help make improvements in environmental policies.
Full story: HP helps Africa with recycling standards (26-Sep-07)
30% of the world’s obsolete electronics end up in Africa, according to United Nations estimates. An estimated 500 containers of used computer scrap enter Nigeria each month. Recycling is potentially a lucrative industry and most African countries already have an active commercial market. But the sector is largely unregulated and fierce competition can lead to corner-cutting.
IT sales in Africa are rocketing and HP wants to help by putting proper recycling practices in place before it is too late. The company aims to work with two non-governmental organisations to educate recycling firms about the benefits of adhering to environmental best practice. One of the key challenges is to give the scheme a commercial edge. By demonstrating that the scheme can generate money and jobs, participation is encouraged.
Full story: Fujitsu Siemens Issues Challenge to Irish Companies to Reduce their Data Centre Costs by 40% (21-Sep-07)
Data centre power consumption is growing at an annual rate of around 25%; a main problem seems to be that many businesses simply do not know how to reduce this huge consumption of power. The Dynamic Data Centre (DDC) Challenge proposed by Fujitsu Siemens hopes to address this issue. The challenge involves demonstrating to Irish corporations where reductions can be made to power consumption costs, operating costs and the physical footprint of the organisation’s data centre by at least 40%.
Fuel Cells
Full story: Fuel Cells The Truly "Alternative" Energy (24-Sep-07)
Fujitsu has recently chosen to install a fuel cell to allow them to clean their energy, the corporation decided to install a fuel cell rather than use solar or wind energy as they believe it to be more dependable and take up less space. Although the fuel cell market is currently far smaller than other alternative energy markets, it looks to be growing and it has been estimated that by 2016 fuel cell sales will reach $15.6 billion.
At present fuel cells are very expensive, thus government incentives have been needed to spark the industry, however, the costs are falling as bigger orders lead to the economies of higher volume production.
Green Computing
Full story: 5 Signs The Computer Industry Is Finally Going Green
There have been several recent developments coming from the high-tech sector which demonstrate that the computing industry is gradually finding a green conscience. Such initiatives include;
- Dell’s plan to be carbon neutral by 2008
- Solar powered workstations
- Green data centres
- USB 3.0, set to become available in 2009, promising energy savings
- The Climate Savers Computing Initiative aims to reduce computer energy use by 90% by 2010; this is expected to provide a saving of $5.5 billion in energy costs.
Greenwashing
Full story: Is the IT Industry Talking alot of Hot Air about Green Issues?
A new survey released by ONStor shows that while CIO’s may be championing green IT the reality is that most have made no active progress. It is thought by Celona Technologies that the greatest green gains will come through application consolidation. It is vital that applications and data are streamlined in order to avoid duplication, if duplication were to occur it would cause a range of operational inefficiencies.
However, a major problem is that many companies are put off by the risk, cost and time associated with consolidation; a recent survey among telecoms executives found that 59% were so discouraged by an application migration that they decided not to go ahead with it.
Company Processes
ISO 14000
Full story: ISO 14000: Five Environmental Management System Principles (30-Sep-07)
There are five environmental management system principles within ISO 14000; these are commitment and policy, planning, implementation, measurement and evaluation and finally review and improvement. Following these main principles will allow for order and consistency in addressing environmental concerns.
Peak Oil
Politics
Full story: Make tech greener, CIOs told (21-Sep-07)
With an annual spend of £12 billion, the public sector is the biggest user of IT in the UK. Cabinet Office minister Gillian Merron has warned that government computer systems must become greener, as it has a responsibility to set a positive example.
This means not just reducing the amount of electricity used, but also looking at how systems can be built in ways that consume fewer materials and make recycling easier, she said.
