Sustainable IT | Ted Samson | February 2008

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February 2008

February 28, 2008 | Comments: (0)

MacBook Air vs. ThinkPad X300: Which is greener?

Imagine, if you will, that you're a sustainability-minded individual charged with procuring eco-friendly PCs for your company's workforce. You hop on over to the EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) Web site, where you can find a searchable listing of machines with ratings of Bronze, Silver, and Gold to reflect their varying levels of greenness.

It may be tempting to go straight for the Gold, drawing on the assumption that the category represents the eco-friendliest of the bunch. You might take a moment, however, to probe more deeply as to just what separates a top-tiered machine from a silver-stamped competitor. As I learned this week by comparing the EPEAT standings of Apple and Lenovo's respective, recently released ultra-thin notebooks, a vendor can reap a couple of precious points to boost a product's rating a full color grade by meeting criteria that arguably don't translate into meaningful green benefits for the buyer.

As a bit of background, Apple stirred up some excitement at the MacWorld show with the unveiling of the MacBook Air, a remarkably slender laptop weighing in at a mere three pounds. Just this week, Lenovo answered back with a slightly lighter yet thicker model (one that actually includes a built-in CD/DVD drive, optionally) dubbed the ThinkPad X300.

Beyond the general cool factor of these lean machines (and the back relief they provide weary road warriors), both offer green advantages over rival notebooks. Both boast low-power processors and are Energy Star 4.0 compliant. They not only use fewer materials, thanks to their smaller form factors, but they both exceed the restrictions on dangerous materials set out in the European Union's RoHS (Restriction on the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive. Both are designed for easy disassembling for end-of-life management. Yet the ThinkPad has Gold EPEAT status and the MacBook Air has Silver. Why the difference?

The 85-pound charger
First, it helps to understand how the EPEAT ranking works. In order for any piece of hardware to achieve Bronze status, it must meet a full set of 23 required criteria. On top of those requirements, EPEAT has 28 optional criteria. If a product boasts at least 50 percent of the green options (14 or more), it earns Silver status. Seventy-five percent or higher (21-plus) brings home the gold. (Vendors are responsible for self-reporting their products, by the way. The Green Electronics Council, or GEC, maintains the registry and performs spot-checks on occasion to ensure vendors are being honest.)

As it turns out, Lenovo's ThinkPad earns 21 optional points, earning it a Gold rating; the MacBook Air has 19 optional points, putting it squarely in the Silver camp. At first glance, a two-point difference might suggest that Lenovo simply went the extra green mile to make its offering that much more eco-friendly. But you may think differently if you consider how Lenovo earned them.

First, Lenovo meets the optional EPEAT criterion of making available a "renewable energy accessory": "[The covered product] shall have a commercially available accessory for powering the product that uses renewable energy." That certainly sounds eco-friendly. But for U.S. and Canadian customers, that accessory turns out to be a $1,200 85.5-pound solar generator/panel package, the Solar PowerPac II, offered by a partner company called Advanced Energy Group.

Notably, Lenovo also offers, through AEC, the Solar PowerPac Euro, which is available only in European countries. It's slightly more practical than the Solar PowerBehemoth, weighing in at a mere 14.9 pounds with a price tag of $499. But -- no disrespect to AEC for its product line -- neither of these "renewable energy accessories" strike me as particularly practical for the vast majority of users. Nevertheless, by the EPEAT standard, it makes Lenovo's ThinkPad one point "greener" than the MacBook Air.

Lenovo's not the only company offering the AEC's solar-power chargers as a renewable energy accessory; HP, for example, has received EPEAT Gold status for products by offering the same gear.

Lenovo's second extra point comes from the fact that it, unlike Apple, compiles a corporate report based on the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative). Developed under the auspices of the United Nations, the GRI provides a standardized, global reporting framework "for publicly disclosing an organization’s economic, environmental, and social performance," according to the non-profit organization.

Anyone familiar with Apple's reputation for secrecy shouldn't be surprised to learn that the company doesn't deliver a GRI report. Apple has faced its share of slings and arrows from groups such as Greenpeace for refusing to openly disclose its sustainability practices -- even though Apple has demonstrated support for eco-friendly initiatives. Does Apple's decision not to embrace GRI mean the MacBook Air is less green than the ThinkPad? I'm not convinced.

A work in progress
I called on the vendor-neutral Green Electronics Council to weigh in on the subject. Again, the GEC is charged only with managing the EPEAT registry and verification system, not with developing and updating the criteria. The latter task falls on the shoulders of the subscribing members of EPEAT, which includes environmental advocates, private and public purchasers, manufacturers, recyclers, environmental-purchasing specialists, and researchers.

The GEC's outreach director Sarah O'Brien provided some informative responses. "The two points you mention -- the renewable energy accessory and the GRI reporting -- both fall into the 'stretching the envelope' category," she writes. "When stakeholders developed the standard, they wanted to include points that laid down direction for future efforts-- in order to not just reward immediate/accessible design improvements (which the bulk of the criteria do), but also to reward innovation leading to future progress. So while the immediate environmental benefit of these two products may not be significantly different because of the two criteria you mention, the future direction of the market may well be."

Shedding light on the thinking behind the GRI criterion, O'Brien writes, "Stakeholders (in particular purchasers, who want to be able to fairly compare company environmental performance) felt that this step toward consistency and support for global reporting protocols was important and should be rewarded."

O'Brien notes that the stakeholders behind EPEAT always have the freedom to propose and adopt changes to the criteria -- and acknowledges that there's always room for improvement. "Keep in mind also that the EPEAT standard is still in its shakedown stages -- as subscribers begin to meet some of the criteria that have been more of a stretch, we are all discovering ways that the criteria language should be made more precise or clarified to eliminate loopholes," she says.

In the context of the "available renewable energy accessory," for example, "this may be an instance where language which narrows the criterion down to clarify what 'available' means -- more reasonable pricing or size -- will be merited going forward," she writes.

My two cents on the matter: EPEAT provides an invaluable tool for helping companies and individuals select the eco-friendliest of electronic products. Stakeholders obviously put a lot of thought into developing the criteria, which covers a broad range of environmental considerations: materials used in the product, materials used to package the product, power consumption, and many, many others. As O'Brien notes, though, the standard is still young. It will benefit from ongoing tweaking to ensure that products are properly and fairly rated in a manner to reflect meaningful green benefits that they bring to buyers.

In the meantime, if you're shopping for a green machine, or a fleet of them for your workforce, take a moment to study differences among products. A shinier metallic distinction or a higher price tag doesn't necessarily mean it's a significantly greener product.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 28, 2008 03:00 AM

February 25, 2008 | Comments: (0)

D-Link expands family of green switches for SMBs

The world of networking gear isn't immune to the sustainability benefits of energy-efficient, eco-friendly features. Vendor D-Link is spotlighting that point with the expansion of its family of Green Ethernet switches aimed at SMBs.

Now available with 16 and 24 ports in addition to the 5- and 8-port models unveiled last year, D-Link's Green Ethernet Gigabit switches comply with RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment). But for the cost-conscious IT admin, the products' energy-saving features may prove more alluring.

First, D-Link's switches are capable of analyzing cable length and adjusting power usage accordingly. Normally, switches send full power to cables regardless of the actual length. Cable lengths used by small-office and home user users are generally less than 20 meters, according to D-Link, so switch's power smarts can reduce energy consumption.

Second, D-Link says its Green Ethernet technology can tell when a connect computer is shut down and responds accordingly by powering down into standby mode and reducing power used for that port.

According to D-Link, when the DGS-2208 multi-port desktop switch is connected and then powered down, users could realize up to 80 percent savings in power usage; the other D-Link Green Ethernet switches could save up to 45 percent, according to the company. If the devices are used for 10 hours, then powered down for 14, you could save up 40 percent on energy with the DGS-2208 and 27 percent with the other switches. Those figures are in comparison to the energy usage of a D-Link conventional switch connected via 20m Ethernet cables.

More information is available at the D-Link Web site.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 25, 2008 11:55 AM

February 25, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Mobile operators finding green alternatives to power remote stations

Stymied by the high costs and complexities of transporting diesel to remote cellular base stations, mobile carriers are turning to alternative energy, according to a recent BusinessWeek article.

Demand is high for mobile service in parts Africa and India, according to the article, yet the reach of the electric grids is lacking in some parts of those regions to power the cell stations. Traditionally, bases that can't draw power from a nearby electrical substation run on diesel-power generators, which is a costly logistical nightmare.

Now, however, companies such as Ericsson and Nokia Siemens are seeing promise in alternative energies including wind, solar power, and bio-fuel. In India, for example, "manufacturers are moving toward facilities that use both wind and sun. Flexenclosure recently unveiled a design for a base station that features a wind generator atop the same tower that supports the antenna. Solar panels sit on the roof of the shelter that houses the switching equipment," according to the BusinessWeek article.

The upfront costs of these approaches are pricier, but the operation costs of the alternatively fueled stations are "dramtically lower," according to the article.

Additionally, carriers are adopting techniques to reduce the stations' power consumption, such as burying batteries beneath the base, thus "reducing the need for energy-gulping cooling equipment (and also reducing the risk of theft)," according to the BusinessWeek article.

I find it interesting how countries with limited resources are becoming a test bed for greener technology, such as those mentioned above as well as, say, the low-power OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) computers. Hopefully we'll see the lessons learned abroad implemented here.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 25, 2008 10:12 AM

February 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Microsoft faces class-action lawsuit for touting "junk" PCs as "Vista-capable"

Microsoft's attempt to give Vista's popularity a shot in the arm back in 2006 appears to have resulted in a shot in the foot.

As of last Friday, a class-action lawsuit against the company is moving forward, according to The Associated Press. The company is being accused of, during the '06 holiday season, slapping "Windows Vista Capable" stickers on PCs that would only be capable of running the most rudimentary version of the then-forthcoming OS, Vista Home Basic.

The lawsuit was filed last April in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The original suit noted that "the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million and that the size of the class likely exceeds 10,000 people," according to the IDG News Service.

In Friday's ruling, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman certified the class action suit but whittled down the scope of the original version "to focus primarily on whether Microsoft's 'Vista Capable' labels created artificial demand for computers during the 2006 holiday shopping season, and inflated prices for computers that couldn't be upgraded to the full-featured version of Vista, which was released at the end of January 2007," The Associated Press reports.

The Home Basic edition of the OS certainly doesn't deliver the Vista experience users were likely anticipating. For starters, it's incapable of running Aero, Vista's flashy UI. In fact, if you take a look at Microsoft's comparison of the different flavors of Vista, you'll see that this low-end variant of the OS can't do much of anything.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, some of the most damning testimony against its alleged practice comes from within the company itself, according to Computerworld: "An unnamed employee wrote in an e-mail, for example, 'Even a piece of junk will qualify' to be called Windows Vista Capable. And Mike Nash, now a corporate vice president for Windows product management, wrote in an email message, 'I PERSONALLY got burnt...Are we seeing this from a lot of customers?...I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine.'"

As of Friday, Microsoft was still reviewing the judge's ruling. Back in April, however, Microsoft spokesperson Jack Evans defended the company's actions saying that Microsoft "conducted a broad effort to educate computer manufacturers, retailers, and consumers about the hardware requirements to run different versions of Windows Vista," according to the IDG News Service.

Whether or not Microsoft successfully fights the lawsuit, the whole case exemplifies to me just how much of a power-hog Vista is compared to XP. Machines released in late 2006, emblazoned with "Windows Vista Capable" stickers, lack the resources to run a useful version of the OS. On top of that, hardware vendors such as HP and Dell found it challenging -- if not impossible -- to build machines that complied with the Energy Star 4.0 specification and ran Vista well (i.e. beyond the bare minimum capabilities of Home Basic).

Beyond the impact this stunt has on customers' bank accounts, it certainly doesn't have eco-friendly ramifications. End-users who bought those machines and still want to run Vista will either have to upgrade their hardware themselves or, more likely, purchase new, more powerful machines. Either approach is pretty wasteful. And I can't help but wonder just how many otherwise useful machines we'll see retired before their time if Microsoft moves forward with its plans to prematurely pull the plug on XP and foist Vista on customers?

Posted by Ted Samson on February 24, 2008 08:21 PM

February 22, 2008 | Comments: (0)

EPA grapples with Energy Star server spec

Are the servers in your datacenter energy-efficient? Well, that rather depends on what your definition of "server" is.

Bill Clintonesque as that may sound, it reflects one of the many conundrums the EPA faces as it attempts to hammer out Energy Star specifications for server hardware. The department has issued the first draft of the spec [PDF], and it's seeking input from interested stakeholders by March 14.

Interest in the topic should certainly be keen among server vendors as well as chipmakers: Given the growing trend among companies to be greener, an Energy Star stamp could prove a significant selling point for servers down the road.

The draft document reflects one of the biggest challenges the EPA faces in devising an Energy Star specification for servers: They're far more difficult to meaningfully categorize in the context of energy efficiency than end-user hardware such as PCs and laptops.

"EPA would like this specification to be as inclusive as possible but also understands that some of the more complex or niche server types and applications may not be easily addressed under this specification," the Energy Star Draft 1 document reads. "Several stakeholders have suggested that the specification focus on 'volume' servers. However, the term 'volume' is used to classify server types based more on price than function. For purposes of this specification, a computer server definition should be specific enough to clearly delineate based on intended application, hardware/software, and/or operational requirements."

That said, the draft spec proposes the following definitions:
Small Floor Standing or Rack Mounted:

2 to 4 Processor Sockets, up to 16 processor cores

2 to 16 DIMMs

1 to 6 internal disks

2-4 integrated network adaptors

4-8 option slots for adapters to expansion units or networks

1 to 5U of rack space

Medium Floor Standing or Rack Mounted:

<16 processor sockets

< 64 processor cores

< 64 DIMMs

< 16 internal disks

2-8 integrated network adapters

10-30 option slots for adapters

Typically can address upwards of 2,000 disks in expansion units

Floor-Standing and Multiplex Large Scale Servers:

< 128 processor sockets

< 1024 processor cores

< 1024 DIMMs

> 16 internal disks

2-8 integrated network adapters

More than 20 option slots for adapters

Can address upwards of > 2,000 disks

Ability to chain many systems together to present a single system environment (multiplex)

The spec also proposes defining a blade server as "a computer consisting of, at minimum, a processor, memory and hard drive that relies on certain shared resources, contained in a blade chassis, such as power supply(s), cooling, networking, system management, and storage. Blade servers are incapable of operating independent of the blade chassis."

One question the EPA seeks to answer pertains to maximum idle power requirements: How much power should an Energy-Star compliant server be permitted to consume while in idle?

"[It] is EPA's understanding that servers typically spend a significant amount of time in an idle condition. The idle state may occur at any time of the day ... when servers are consuming what could be considered high amounts of power while waiting for client requests," the draft states. "EPA believes that to the extent that the idle state for servers will persist due to numerous factors in terms of how datacenter workloads are managed, there exists the opportunity within this specification to recognize those servers that idle at lower power consumption levels. EPA is interested in receiving stakeholder feedback on the inclusion of this requirement as well as the potential use of the SPECPower test procedure and output for purposes of evaluating idle performance."

Another big question: What should the power supply efficiency requirements be? The EPA will be more specific on this key point in the second draft. For now, it says that "efficiency will be measured at several loading points. Since many of these power supplies are used in redundant configurations, EPA felt it was important to include lower loading points, such as 10% and 20% of rated output. Similarly, EPA is interested in addressing power factor at these loads in addition to the 100% load. While a power factor of 0.9 is reasonable at 100% load this level may prove more challenging at lower loading points."

Other criteria spelled out in the draft Energy Star spec for servers: "All servers must have the ability to provide real time data on AC power consumption, inlet air temperature, and processor utilization during server operation," and "qualified computer servers must come equipped with hardware power management and virtualization capabilities."

More information about the EPA's Energy Star initiative for server is available at the Energy Star Web site.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 22, 2008 12:00 PM

February 21, 2008 | Comments: (0)

InfoWorld Green 15 nominations due Feb. 28

If your company completed a noteworthy green-tech project in 2007 and you haven't nominated it for the InfoWorld Green 15, don't worry: You still have about a week to do so.

The InfoWorld Green 15 award will honor the top 15 green IT projects of 2007; that is, projects resulting in higher energy efficiency, reduced waste, and/or improved impact on the environment.

For more information about the award, check out our FAQ -- or you can go directly to the nomination form.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 21, 2008 01:46 PM

February 21, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Web host The Planet reaps big savings on small changes

Jeff Lowenberg, VP of facilities at Web-hosting company The Planet, can attest to the sweetness of low-hanging green fruit. By spending around $50,000 and three months' time implementing relatively simple best practices for datacenter cooling, he's found a way to save his company an estimated $1 million in power costs this year alone.

"It's like found money," says Lowenberg, expressing surprise at the success of the company's green initiative in its Houston, Texas, facility. "The results have been phenomenal, much more than I expected."

This story of sustainability doesn't begin with aspirations of a cleaner, greener plant; rather, it's firmly rooted in a practical business conundrum that many a datacenter admin no doubt faces: "We had some areas in a couple of datacenters that were warmer than we wanted them to be. All of the CRAC units were running at 100 percent, but there were some areas that weren't getting cool enough," Lowenberg says.

Based on his calculations, though, the amount of cooling in place should have done the job. Seeking guidance, he headed to some Uptime Institute seminars and came away with potent new tricks for beating the datacenter heat.

Rather than cutting energy consumption and cooling costs by grappling with complex virtualization implementations or ripping and replacing old servers and CRAC units, The Planet's facilities took simpler, lower-tech measures. Those steps included rearranging floor tiles to better manage cold airflow; installing seals and grommets in the ceilings, walls, and floors to reduce bypass airflow; installing blanking plates in server cabinets to direct airflow more efficiently; and sealing power distribution units to reduce bypass airflow.

The aforementioned tactics ensured that cool air was going to only where it was needed: the server intakes. "Most datacenters are too cold. Ours were certainly that way. [On the high end], it shouldn't be more than 77 degrees with 45 percent relative humidity. Most datacenters are much cooler than that, but being cooler than that doesn't help your equipment," Lowenberg says.

Six months later, the company finds that its efforts have paid off substantially. Even though critical server loads increased by 5 percent, the facility's overall cooling power needs dropped by 31 percent. When The Planet has finished implementing these changes company-wide at its five other datacenters, it expects to lower its energy use by 13.5 percent, and will save at least $1 million in 2008 alone.

Contributing to those savings, Lowenberg was able to shut off four CRAC units in the Houston facility, but more recently, he found he could power down five more. "I think when we look at these measurements over the next few months, we'll have an even bigger increase in savings," he says.

Through the effort, The Planet also improved its "coefficient of efficiency," an EPA- and Uptime Institute-recognized measurement of the total power necessary to operate a datacenter divided by critical power. The company's previous score was 2.0, considered "good"; now it's 1.7, which is nearly ideal.

In addition to padding the company's bottom line, the new energy savings means more growth potential for The Planet. "What this will allow us to do with our future expansion is go to a larger footprint with the same amount of power and cooling," he says.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 21, 2008 03:00 AM

February 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Equitrac aims at monitoring and cutting costly print waste

Although reducing energy consumption remains a high priority on companies' sustainability agendas, there are plenty of dollars and trees to be saved through better management of MFPs, printers, copiers, and the like.

Chris Wyszkowski, VP of marketing at Equitrac, speaks to that point knowledgably and enthusiastically. "If you have experience in an office environment, you'll know that if you go around and look at the printers at the end of the day, invariably you'll see pages sticking of the output tray that are jobs that have never been collected -- or jobs people have printed two or three times but never needed," he says.

Equitrac, which has been around for some 30 years, offers software aimed at putting a dent in the pile of waste end-users print up every day. (Wyszkowski says that on average, 10 to 15 percent of volume prints are never collected.) Meanwhile, GreenPrint cites research that the average user waste $85 in paper and ink on unnecessary prints.

Once Equitrac is installed on the company network (it works with Windows, NetWare, UNIX, and Linux print servers), admins can use the suite to set and enforce policies that ensure that users only print what they need using the least expensive approach possible.

One of the most impressive components of the Equitrac solution is the Follow-You Printing unction. At most organizations, if a user prints a document, the selected printing device will immediately spit it out for the user to come collect -- and that may not ever happen. With Follow-You, a user must go to the machine and key in a password or swipe an ID card before the machine will complete the job. Any jobs that don't end up collected are deleted after a preset period of time.

An added benefit of Follow-You: Suppose you queued up a document for printing on the third floor for a meeting on the fifth -- but forgot to collect it before going up. Rather than having to schlep back down to three, you could find a printer on five, key in your passcode, and collect it there. (There's a clear security benefit to Follow-You, too: It means documents with sensitive information won't get scooped off the printer before they're collected by the rightful owner.)

Equitrac also lets admins limit the number of color prints a user can make, or what he or she can print in color. For example, you could create a policy that any document printed from Internet Explorer would have to use only black ink. Additionally, you could set a policy prompting users to print internal documents as two-sided docs, an obvious paper-saver.

In terms of energy management, the producgt could be configured to redirect print jobs to more power-efficient machines. "Take a 200-page print job sent to a local printer. [The software] could inform user of a better behavior: sending the job to a higher-capacity device that's more efficient and cost-effective," says Wyszkowski.

On top of the functionality aimed a reducing waste, Equitrac provides reporting that can let admins know down to a device level how printing resources are being used. There's a version aimed a law firms that can track which client a particular job is printed for so the client can be billed accordingly.

More information about Equitrac is available at the company Web site.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 19, 2008 04:09 PM

February 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)

iLinc reports CO2 spared through Web conferencing

Not long ago, I wrote about ways tech companies have been incorporating green-hued features into their offerings in innovative and sometimes unexpected ways. I have another company to add to the list: iLinc, a Web-conferencing company that pits itself against players such as WebEx, Citrix, Microsoft, and Adobe.

It all started with Al Gore (as does any good tale pertaining to the environment). Over a year ago, Gore sat down for lunch with the iLinc CEO James Powers. When Powers returned to the office, he got his team cracking on the iLinc Green Meter.

Built in to the iLinc platform, Green Meter detects the locations of people attending a Web meeting, via IP address, and measures the distance between them. It then calculates how much CO2 they're saving by not traveling to meet face to face. This, according to iLinc, allows a company to monitor and track its actual carbon savings.

From my perspective, this Green Meter is a nice idea, and it's a clever bit of technology. It doesn't bring too much extra value to the product the way, say, BigFix's power management module does. (That module lets admins set up and enforce policies to ensure that end-user systems are put into low-power mode when they're not in use.) But that's OK: Web conferencing (like telepresence) is a green technology in and of itself. A feature like the Green Meter is gravy.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 19, 2008 12:23 PM

February 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Study ties sustainability to stock performance

Report also reveals supply chain as a blind spot for companies' sustainability plans

Companies paying closer attention to embracing environmentally and socially responsible practices enjoyed higher stock-share growth over the past three years compared to do companies didn't, according to survey results released this month by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

"Causality is difficult to establish but the link appears clear," says the report titled "Doing good: Business and the sustainability challenge," drawing from a survey of 1,254 business executives from around the globe. "The companies that rated their efforts most highly over this time period saw annual profit increases of 16 percent and share price growth of 45 percent, whereas those that ranked themselves worst reported growth of 7 percent and 12 percent respectively. In general, these high-performing companies put a much greater emphasis on social and environmental considerations at board level, while the poorly performing firms are far more likely to have nobody in charge of sustainability issues."

(These findings may not come as a surprise to those who have read "Green to Gold", in which author Andrew Winston shared similar conclusions.)

Additionally, just over half of the executives surveyed said that "the benefits of pursuing sustainable practices outweigh the costs, although well over eight out of ten expect any change to profits to be small."

The greatest cost reduction, according to the execs: lower energy expenditures, though sustainable practices can also open up new markets and boost a company's reputation.

When asked which actions they'd implemented in the past five years to address sustainability, the top response at 55 percent was "set policies to reduce energy consumption."

Next on the list, at 51 percent, was "Taken steps to improve governance in relation to your organization's environmental and social performance" at 51 percent, then "Revised and tightened controls to support ethical business dealings/avoid allegations of corruption" at 40 percent.

Supply chain as the weakest link
According to the report, the supply chain remains a sustainability blind spot for most organizations. Only 29 percent of respondents said they had a sustainability plan in covering the entire organization and its supply chain. Further, only 35 percent said they considered it important to take action in regard to addressing suppliers' sustainability practices.

That trend may change, though, as more big-name companies such as HP, Dell, IBM, Motorola, and Wal-Mart draw attention to the business case for keeping the supply chain clean.

"Doing good: Business and the sustainability challenge" can be downloaded for free EIU Web site.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 19, 2008 05:00 AM

February 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Nanowires could transform clothing into device chargers

Infoworld: Nanowires could transform clothing into device chargers Wouldn't it be nice if your on-the-go workforce could charge their BlackBerries and iPhones without having to pause and plug in to a spare socket? Nanotechnology researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) are developing a shirt that transforms the wearer's physical motion into electricity that could power small electronic devices.

Featured in today's issue of Nature, the research details how pairs of textile fibers covered with zinc oxide nanowires generate electricity in response to applied mechanical stress. "Known as 'the piezoelectric effect,' the resulting current flow from many fiber pairs woven into a shirt or jacket could allow the wearer's body movement to power a range of portable electronic devices," according to the National Science Foundation, which is helping fund the research.

The fibers could also be woven into curtains, tents or other structures to capture energy from wind motion, sound vibration, or other mechanical energy, the NSF notes, which has interesting implications in, say, a noisy datacenter.

"The two fibers scrub together just like two bottle brushes with their bristles touching, and the piezoelectric-semiconductor process converts the mechanical motion into electrical energy," said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the GIT. "Many of these devices could be put together to produce higher power output."

According to the Nature article, Wang "expects a material to be produced within three years that is fully functional, flexible and wearable."

Posted by Ted Samson on February 14, 2008 11:14 AM

February 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Nokia builds Remade phone vision around recycled materials

One man's trash is another man's cell-phone materials. That, at least, is the philosophy behind Nokia's Remade mobile device concept.

Nokia revealed the Remade concept at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona. The idea is to assemble mobile devices made from nothing new, according to Nokia. "It has been designed using recycled materials that avoid the need for natural resources, reduce landfill, and allow for more energy efficient production," per the company's description on the Nokia Web site.

The phone would be made from recycle aluminum cans. The chassis materials would come from plastic drinking bottles. The rubber key mats would be made from old car tires. "Inside the phone are new more environmentally friendly technologies such as printed electronics, and the graphics used on the display save energy without compromising on style," according to the company.

The company also alludes to a "no-waste charger" -- presumably one that stops drawing energy from the wall socket once the device is charged.

Nokia isn't clear yet as to when it might transform the Remade concept into a commercial product.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 14, 2008 10:13 AM

February 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)

NComputing puts excess PC power to good use

Thin green client NComputing CEO Steve Dukker doesn't just subscribe to the belief that the average PC packs more processing power than the average end-user needs; he's built his company's product line of virtual PCs around it.

"I'm not saying that the PC is dead, [but] there's a very large portion of the market that has no need for basically 80 to 90 percent of the power that's delivered in today's desktop," he says.

An evolution of the thin client model (which I deem a viable green alternative to desktops), NComputing's technology enables as many as 30 users to simultaneously run virtualized Windows or Linux desktop sessions from a single standard PC. This approach can save an organization the expense of equipping end-users with average-priced $500 machines -- each of which consumes an average of 280 watts of energy. Rather, shops running NComputing's devices pay as little as $70 per seat, and each one draws as little as one watt of power, according to the company. For companies struggling to keep their energy bills and carbon emissions down, every watt is precious.

I should note that an organization isn't tied to using a PC as a host. Like other thin clients, NComputing's devices work with servers. But the notion of running a couple dozen desktop sessions from a spare desktop is, as they say in Boston, wicked cool -- and a particularly excellent model of sustainability. Moreover, even the higher-end NComputing devices run on just around five watts of power each, which is downright green, too.

Here's how it works: NComputing virtualization software is loaded onto a standard Windows or Linux PC or server, which acts as the shared host machine. Each user's monitor, keyboard, and mouse plug in to a small NComputing access device, which connects to the host using NComputing's home-grown User eXtension Protocol (UXP).

According to NComputing, users working on the terminals can seamlessly and simultaneously share nearly all applications residing on the host machine, including Web browsers, IM programs, office apps, and basic multimedia applications, such as streaming video and Flash. (High-end 3-D games and 3-D design apps are out.) For network applications, UXP features 128-bit encryption to ensure strong security

The access devices come in two flavors. On the lower end is the X300, which connects directly to the host computer via a standard Cat 6 cable that can be up to 10 meters (33 feet) long. One X300 kit enables an admin to add three users to an existing PC; with two kits, up to seven users can share a PC, with six users connected through the kits and one working directly on the host.

NComputing's higher-end alternative is the L-Series. The L-Series access terminals connect to the host PC via Ethernet, which means there's no 10-meter cable constraints. These machines can support more simultaneous users than the X-Series; a PC running a desktop OS (for example, Windows XP) can support up to 10 users. Server operating systems (such as Windows 2003 Server or Linux) can support up to 30 simultaneous users, according to NComputing.

L-Series features include a couple of choices. The highest-end offering here is the L230, which includes 24-bit graphic support, a mic port, and USB memory-device support.

One the software side, NComputing has developed its own virtually platform-agnostic terminal services software, which divides the computer's resources into independent sessions that give each user their own full PC experience. However, the solution is compatible with rival offerings such as Windows Terminal Services, VMware, or Citrix.

Additionally, the company provides NControl and NShield for managing the overall system. NControl allows IT admins to remotely monitor users from a single station; admins also can take control of users' computing environments, be it for remote support or security purposes. One master host PC can be configured specifically for managing as many as 128 simultaneous sessions.

NShield enables recovery of a previously stored backup of a host machine's hard disk via a manual or automatic reboot.

Thus far, NComputing has made inroads in education, SMB, and manufacturing markets, both in the United States and abroad. The company claims to have deployed more than 500,000 seats in more than 80 countries over the past 18 months. At a World Trade Organization conference, for example, the company was able to set up 500 workstations running on 200 PCs, an approach that cut electrical use by 95 percent and acquisition costs by 80 percent.

California-based Valley Yellow Pages, meanwhile, set up its 500 account executives, spread out around 45 offices, with NComputing terminals. The implementation required just one host PC per office.

The benefits here for cash-strapped education or SMB markets in particular are evident. Time will tell, of course, whether more large companies will be game to trade in some or all of their high-end PCs for thin clients, whether from NComputing, Wyse, or any other vendor. The outlook is good, though: IDC predicts 20 percent year-over-year growth in thin client adoption.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 14, 2008 03:00 AM

February 13, 2008 | Comments: (0)

HP makes MCS liquid-cooling rack twice a nice

HP MCS G2 HP has made a clever upgrade to its Modular Cooling System (MCS) liquid-cooling rack. In its previous iteration, the unit was designed to chill a single rack packed with high-density machines. However, the company found that many customers weren't packing enough processing power into racks to take advantage of the MCS unit's full 35kW of cooling power.

With the new G2 version, however, customers will have a way: Thanks to bi-directional cooling technology (including three additional hot-swappable fans), MCS G2 can simultaneously cool two server racks at up to 17.5KW, or concentrate up to 35KW to cool a single rack. The machine's form factor and power draw remain the same, however.

HP says the water-cooled MCS reduces datacenter cooling costs by containing between 95 and 97 percent of heat inside server racks "while supporting up to three times the kilowatt capacity of a traditional, air-cooled rack."

More information is available at the HP site.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 13, 2008 10:23 AM

February 12, 2008 | Comments: (0)

IBM, Motorola back effort to control supply-chain carbon emissions

More big-name companies are joining forces to figure out ways to measure and control their supply chains' carbon emissions.

This time, IBM and Motorola have joined the European Supply Chain Institute's (ESCI) Supply Chain Carbon Council. The aim of the program is "to develop and promote strategies for effective carbon management in the supply chain. ... All aspects of this field will be addressed to include carbon reduction initiatives, carbon trading/offsetting, and compliance/reporting."

The group is pushing the initiative as not only a means of helping suppliers to reduce their carbon footprints, but to save money in the process.

Also joining the ESCI's Supply Chain Carbon Council is the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Last month, that group announced its Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration, through which 11 corporate giants -- including IT heavyweights HP and Dell -- will develop a standard method to gather carbon-emissions information from suppliers.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 12, 2008 10:47 AM

February 11, 2008 | Comments: (0)

MS-Yahoo marriage could drive green SaaS innovation

I've been out of the country for over a week, and thus I'm a bit late to the Microsoft-Yahoo party. But I saw that The New York Times had an interesting take on the subject that spoke to my green-tech sensibilities. The idea is, Redmond's not just seeking a bigger piece of the savory search pie; it's looking to build on Yahoo's technology platform and expansive user base to advance its Web-based software strategy and compete against Google Apps.

I'm certainly a firm believer in the SaaS model. For the end-user, it means having the convenience of creating, editing, and sharing documents from anywhere you can get online. For an IT admin, it means fewer headaches maintaining software on user systems. And from a green IT perspective, it means users can get by with less expensive, less resource-intensive machines, since most of the processing and storage is being taken care of on the back end. That means companies get to spend less money on replacing and powering machines.

As it stands, Google has been making rapid advancements in the world of SaaS (software as a service), having just recently unveiled a Team Edition of its Internet-based productivity suite. According to IDG News Services, more than 500,000 organizations have signed up for Google Apps thus far.

Microsoft, meanwhile, hasn't made much progress on the Web-software front. Yes, it has its Office Live Workspace program (currently in beta), but that's really just an extension of the processor-hungry, hard-drive-bound version of Office. Yet surely the company can't ignore the success Google is enjoying with Google Apps, which, again, is likely figuring in to its desire to buy up Yahoo.

The future of SaaS certainly doesn't hinge on Microsoft's ability to snag Yahoo. If it does happen, though, I expect we'll see some real Web-app innovation thanks to the combined mindshare of the two companies. In the meantime, I'm curious whether Microsoft, or Yahoo, for that matter, will show us anything that will compete with Google Apps.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 11, 2008 02:08 PM

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