- Accenture primes tech tools for green consulting
- Are green IT premiums worth the cost?
- Green IT numbers don't lie
- Xerox develops Sustainability Calculator for doc tech
- iLinc reports CO2 spared through Web conferencing
- IBM, Motorola back effort to control supply-chain carbon emissions
- Dell, HP join effort to measure supply chains' carbon output
- Eco group brings climate-change conference to Second Life
- Wal-Mart throws its weight behind a greener supply chain
- Sun launches community for measuring, comparing GHG emissions
July 23, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Accenture primes tech tools for green consulting
Green IT consulting services are poised to become to a $4.8B industry in coming years, a prediction made not too long ago by Forrester Research. As embracing green practices gains higher importance for companies worldwide, consultancies will have to prime their tools and offerings to win over customers.
One such consulting company is Accenture, which today announced its Green Technology Suite, a set of tools designed to help an organization assess their environmental standing and to provide recommendations on how to address their carbon footprint.
In creating the suite, the company has effectively supplemented the workbench of tools it offers to clients, according to Rockwell Bonecutter, green IT lead at Accenture. Those tools have traditionally focused on providing three overarching dimensions: reducing costs, mitigating risks, and increasing service levels. The suite adds a fourth dimension: enhancing environmental sustainability through such means as reducing waste and lowering carbon emissions. "Now, for example, when you bring in someone to help you with a server consolidation project, you're making your decisions based on four dimensions and not the standard three," says Bonecutter. "We can tell you what your carbon footprint is; we can also tell you what levels you could pull, and if you pull them, how it would impact your carbon footprint."
Indeed, concern over CO2 emissions is growing among organizations, feeling pressure from regulators, customers, shareholders, and the public. "I would say for most part, clients are coming and saying we need to look at our carbon footprint [because] some CIO or CFO or IT exec is being asked the question, 'What's your carbon footprint?' and they're not able to answer that.
Passed and pending green-oriented legislation pertaining to carbon emissions as well as e-waste and other environmental considerations are driving companies toward these types of green IT services, Bonecutter notes. "The more we see legislation ... both on a local and federal level, the more it becoming clearer and clearer that this is going to be a big play for us, even in light of the economic circumstances today," he says.
Not surprisingly, Bonecutter finds that clients that embrace opportunities to reduce their carbon emissions find they save money in the process. "At this stage, I can't name a single client that we've been to yet where we haven't been able to identify an opportunity to address their carbon emissions and do so in a way that will save them some money," he says.
Aiding in providing guidance to companies is Accenture's Green Technology Suite, which comprises three tools. First, there's the Accenture Green Maturity Model, which is designed to assess the environmental efficiency of an organization's IT and to suggest actions to improve the organization’s overall environmental standing.
The GMM delivers those action based on answers to 300 questions across five areas, according to Accenture: working practice, office environment, datacenter, procurement, and corporate citizenship. Question topics range from commitment to reducing CO2 emissions to the type of enterprise network. The suite generates a scorecard that rates where the organization sits on the green maturity spectrum on a scale from 0 to 5.
There's a free, high-level, Flash-based version of the GMM available online at www.accenture.com/gmm. Using it doesn't require you to enter any kind if identifying information, such as name or e-mail address, so you needn't worry about a follow-up call from an Accenture salesperson. "The purpose of tool is to allow IT executives or the CIO or CTO to go into that tool anonymously and look at some of the higher-level questions we'd ask as part of session," says Bonecutter.
Second, there's a tool called The Data Center Estimator. This is used by an Accenture consulting to assess the environmental and financial impact of datacenters. It "suggests energy reduction strategies based on information gathered from the facility, such as air conditioning, power distribution, and server, storage, and networking components, among others," according to Accenture.
Last is the The Workplace Estimator, used to help companies "adopt a greener technology culture by developing recycling and energy saving policies for personal computers and procuring new equipment with energy efficiency in mind, " according to the company.
Posted by Ted Samson on July 23, 2008 02:51 PM
June 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Are green IT premiums worth the cost?
Organizations are investing in green computers -- that is, machines that are energy efficient and built in an environmentally responsible manner -- at ever-increasing rates. Sometimes they pay a small premium to do this. Is it worth it? They seem to think so.
And their belief is not unfounded. Organizations that invest in green hardware find that the energy savings, extended product lifecycle, and other benefits more than make up for the additional price of that hardware.
What's more, demand for green computers appears to be on the rise. Twenty-two percent of the computers shipped worldwide in 2007 (around 109 million) were registered on EPEAT (the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool), up from around 10 percent in 2006. Maintained by the Green Electronics Council (GEC), EPEAT is a searchable database of computer hardware that meets a strict set of environmental criteria. Among them, registered products comply with Energy Star 4.0; have reduced levels of cadmium, lead, and mercury; and are easier to upgrade and recycle. Depending on how many criteria they meet, products receive a rating of Bronze, Silver, or Gold.
[ For more on the EPEAT rating system, please read "MacBook Air vs. ThinkPad x300: Which is greener?" ]
The price of greenovation
One of the key questions, though, is whether companies need to pay a premium for the green traits they seek. Patricia Atherton, engineer manager at hardware vendor MPC, acknowledges that, at times, the answer is yes, depending on the rating level (Bronze, Silver, or Gold) of the product. "Silver and Gold products will comply with more challenging requirements, and this might affect the cost of certain components," she notes.
For example, she says, "LCD on monitors, laptops, and integrated systems must have reduced amounts of mercury ... In order to elevate this product rating, the mercury content must be reduced to a minimum or eliminated. The technology is there -- LED backlit LCD -- but at a slightly higher price than a regular LCD with CFL lamps."
Another factor, Atherton says, can be the use of plastic parts containing high recycled-material content. "Since this may affect the properties of the plastics, requiring special techniques or materials, plastic components manufacturers may increase their prices as their own costs increase."
Brad Fry, environmental standards compliance engineer at Canadian computer manufacturer MDG, noted that there are, for now, higher costs associated with designing and certifying greener products. "There are some moderate product cost increases but no significant extra labor costs incurred in the production process for a greener computer. However there will be a one-time increase during the product design phase for engineering and certification costs to ensure quality and technical standards are met."
Ultimately, though, he expects prices for green wares to drop: "As demand for more environmentally friendly computers increases, the volumes sold are increasing, and therefore, the extra engineering costs become less significant and the product costs differences will continue to diminish."
Worth the price
Even if companies do pay a slightly higher sticker price for a green product, its energy efficiency, longer life, and other green-oriented benefits often more than make up for the cost. The Green Electronics Council says, "manufacturers and purchasers will actually save almost four billion dollars (US $3,660,553,851) over the life of the EPEAT products sold in 2007, primarily from reductions in energy use."
Attesting to this fact is Kaiser Permanente. The company purchased 55,271 desktop computers, 57,165 monitors, and more than 9,600 laptop computers registered with EPEAT between October 2006 and 2007. Laurie Spoon, executive consultant, procurement and supply, says the health-care organization hasn't found that it pays a premium for purchasing green computer products, especially when taking into account the total cost of ownership, including energy consumption, repair and maintenance costs, operational costs, replacement of components, and the like.
"Of all the successfully implemented environmental initiatives in Procurement and Supply, almost all were cost-neutral or delivered cost savings when total cost was considered," she says. "For example, the EPA calculated that for the purchases Kaiser made [between] July of 2006 through approximately the middle of 2007, we achieved $4.7 million in savings by purchasing EPEAT-registered desktop computers, monitors, and notebook computers, mainly through reduced energy usage."
The City of San Francisco has had similar experiences, according to Chris Geiger, manager of green purchasing and integrated pest management programs for the city's Department of the Environment. San Francisco has an ordinance requiring city departments to buy green products, and establishes a prioritization and standard-setting procedure. "[M]any of our departments do pay extra for certain green products. The extra expense is usually justified by considering the long-term costs of health care, maintenance, etc., and also considering the life-cycle impacts of the products on the environment."
Win-win situation
Customers aren't the only ones who can reap potential benefits by adopting green practices that tie in with EPEAT requirements. For example, MDG has saved money by implementing an EPEAT-based Customer Packaging Take-Back Program, according to Fry. Through the program, the company will take back product packaging from customer sites, then reuse it. "MDG has actually been able to reduce (through reuse) both packaging costs and the cost of excess packaging cardboard and foam disposal. Savings like these are accumulative and will increase over time as program adoption becomes more prevalent," he says.
But the company's customers are also enjoying benefits from the program: "High-volume clients especially appreciate the take-back options as it keeps their shipping docks clear for more important deliveries," Fry says.
It's also noteworthy to consider the less tangible, greater-good benefits of the adopting more sustainable IT products. The GEC says that the adoption of so many EPEAT-registered wares last year will:
- Reduce use of primary materials by 75.5 million metric tons, equivalent to the weight of more than 585 million refrigerators
- Reduce use of toxic materials, including mercury, by 3,220 metric tons, equivalent to the weight of 1.6 million bricks
- Eliminate use of enough mercury to fill 482,381 household fever thermometers
- Avoid the disposal of 124,000 metric tons of hazardous waste, equivalent to the weight of 62 million bricks.
- Save 42.2 billion kWh of electricity -- enough to power 3.7 million U.S. homes for a year
- Eliminate 174 million metric tons of air emissions (including greenhouse gas emissions) and almost 365 thousand metric tons of water pollutant emissions
- Reduce 3.31 million metric tons of carbon equivalent greenhouse gas emissions -- equivalent to removing more than 2.6 million U.S. cars from the road for a year
It's heartening, to me, to learn that organizations are finding that green can, in fact, pay for itself. With time, as demand for energy efficient, environmentally friendly products continue to rise, costs will undoubtedly drop. Sooner or later, in fact, I'd wager those sorts of traits won't even be viewed as extras so much as expected features.
Posted by Ted Samson on June 19, 2008 03:00 AM
May 15, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Stark statistics shed light on the needs driving green computing
If a picture's worth a thousand words, how many are statistics worth, I wonder? I have some numbers this week that speak volumes as to why so many companies have green IT on the brain -- or why they should.
These figures come from management consultancy McKinsey and Company, part of a report titled "Revolutionizing Data Center Efficiency," issued at the recent Uptime Institute's Green Computing Symposium. If someone at your company is pooh-poohing the notion of even investigating sustainable IT opportunities, some of these numbers might give them pause to reconsider.
$11.5 billion - The total estimated energy bill for datacenters come 2010, up from $8.6 billion in 2007. Driving that figure: The installed server base is expected to grow by 16 percent to as many as 43 million machines worldwide; energy consumption per server is increasing by 9 percent; and energy prices have risen by an average of 4 percent, according to McKinsey. That, of course, means that if you're feeling some pain now from high energy prices or insufficient power, it's going to get worse if you don't make some changes.
25 percent - The amount of the IT budget at a typical company that goes toward datacenter costs. Indeed, the datacenter is expensive to operate, with 17 percent of the costs going to hardware and storage and another 8 percent going toward the facilities that support those machines. Of course, the report notes that not all the facilities costs associated with maintaining your IT infrastructure appear in the IT budget, so it's conceivable no one at your company is really aware of how much it costs to run, say, a midtier server each year.
$1,870 - The annual operating expense for powering and cooling a single midtier ($2,500) server in a tier III datacenter. The number is $1,320 for a tier II datacenter, and it reaches $2,020 in a tier IV datacenter. According to the report, "servers are often housed in a higher tier datacenter than necessary, further driving facility costs." The point, of course, is that "cheap" servers really aren't cheap at all, so the "throwing hardware at the problem" approach isn't particularly sustainable.
30 months - The amount of time until 90 percent of companies with large datacenters will need to add more power and cooling. That's two and a half years. Not a lot of time, is it? And if you're already out of floor space or drawing all the power you can from your local utility, you're in trouble. There also may be opportunities to unplug systems that are grossly underutilized.
5 to 30 percent - That range represents the average utilization of the distributed systems in the datacenter today, which, according to the report, handle 80 percent of all computing demands. It's a fairly broad range -- but even if you're running all your servers at 30 percent utilization, you're still not getting as much work out of them as you might.
70 to 80 percent -- The utilization of mainframes that handled 80 percent of all computing demand from 1975 though 1985. It's an interesting statistic, certainly. Perhaps because these machines were so much pricier than "cheap" servers today, companies worked harder to get more bang for their buck. IBM will certainly make the case that mainframes today still offer higher energy efficiency than, say, multiple blades.
146 - Among a total of 458 servers at four production datacenters, McKinsey found that 32 percent (146 in all) were running at or below 3 percent peak and average utilizations. That means nearly one-third of these machines were plugged in, wasting energy to spin and to be cooled -- and doing virtually no work. Those machines need to be put to work or unplugged.
15 percent - The amount of cabinet space that can be reclaimed through techniques such as more efficient racking and the removal of servers that have been decommissioned yet still left in cabinets, turned on, according to McKinsey. Imagine being able to reclaim 15 percent of your floor space. That should buy you some time before having to move forward with a costly datacenter expansion.
65 percent - The reduction in physical server count you might expect through virtualization. Your mileage may vary, both for better and worse, but we've seen plenty of big wins through virtualization, leading to more floor space and lower energy costs.
55 percent - That's the average amount of UPS, cooling, and other facilities that are underutilized in a datacenter. It's not just the servers and other IT hardware draining the juice and the bottom line.
74 degrees - The temperature to which cold aisles can be set in datacenters. Most datacenters are overchilled, which is costly. Adjusting the temperature, along with some inexpensive basic best practices, can put a dent in those cooling bills.
Beyond the cost savings you stand to reap from bringing green practices to your datacenter, there are also environmental considerations. Whether or not you're concerned about your company's carbon footprint, legislators are becoming increasingly interested. Here are more figures to chew on:
0.3 percent - The percentage of CO2 emissions worldwide produced by datacenters today
0.6 percent - The percentage of carbon dioxide produced by the airline industry today
1.0 percent - The percent of carbon dioxide produced by the steel industry today
170 metric tons - The amount of CO2 that datacenters worldwide currently produce per year. (As an interesting point of comparison, that's more CO2 than the entire country of Argentina produces in a year, which totals 142 metric tons.)
670 metric tons - The amount of CO2 that datacenters worldwide are expected to emit annually by 2020
Costs, environmental impact, and government interest -- what other motivators do you need to realize the urgency of adopting greener IT strategies? Hopefully these numbers provide some perspective on where things stand and where they’re possibly headed. As to what to do about it, we at InfoWorld have several ideas here as well as in previous articles, including: employing PC power management software, harnessing datacenter heat, using thin clients, thin provisioning and other green storage strategies, and more.
You might also find inspiration and guidance from the sustainable IT projects we highlighted among the 2008 InfoWorld Green 15.
Finally, I recommend checking out the McKinsey and Company report I've discussed here, which is available for free through the Uptime Institute Web site. It contains plenty of useful guidance on dealing with these problems.
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 May 15, 2008 03:00 AM
March 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Xerox develops Sustainability Calculator for doc tech
Add Xerox to the list of vendors adding green-o-meter functionality to their wares. The company Tuesday will unveil what it dubs a Sustainability Calculator, designed to help customers evaluate the environmental impact of their document-technology systems, such as printers, faxes, and copiers.
Part of the company's Xerox Office Services, the Sustainability Calculator measures the waste and greenhouse gas emissions associated with powering printers, copiers, fax machines, and multifunction devices. It also measures the differences, in environmental terms, resulting from practices such as printing single-sided documents instead of double-sided, or using different types of ink.
In addition to the aforementioned version, which Xerox reps would use during an assessment for a customer, the company also has developed a slimmed-down Web-based version.
Both calculators require a user to input information about the various machines in his or her organization. They then employ "proprietary algorithms and document assessment research to deliver data about a company's entire fleet of office products, from printers to multifunction devices and copiers, regardless of the equipment supplier," according to Xerox.
Once a customer has a glimpse of the inefficiency of its document-tech systems, the next step (Xerox hopes) is to show customers how to gain efficiency by, say, in retiring various older copiers, fax machines, and printers for fewer, newer MFDs.
It might be tempting for to dismiss this type of tool as simply a marketing scheme to exploit CXOs who've caught a case of the green fever that's swept the U.S. and beyond. But the reality is, there are cost savings to be had from certain sustainable practices, and making adjustments to your company's network of printers and other document-technology products is one of them. That includes moving to fewer multi-purpose machines as your older ones are ready for retirement.
First, a new model MFD should be Energy Star compliant, which means it has a significantly lower power draw -- as much as 70 percent, according to Xerox -- than that of its one-function predecessors combined. Also, from a green perspective, manufacturing and shipping four machines -- a copier, a scanner, a fax machines, and a printer -- requires more resources than does building and shipping a single MFD that can do the work of four.
According to Patricia Calkins, vice president of environment, health, and safety at Xerox, many customers have been asking for more information about the green benefits of consolidating doc-tech systems and improv-ing their printing practices. "I was very surprised as I've been doing customer roundtables," says Calkins. "We talk about optimizing the office, and people have said, 'We understand the financial benefits. We want to talk about the environmental benefits."
Global defense and technology company Northrop Grumman worked with Xerox at one of its sectors to reduce a fleet of 2,000 printers, hundreds of MFDs, and stand-alone copiers to fewer than 1,100 devices. According to the Sustainability Calculator numbers, the change resulted in a savings of 27 percent in energy usage while reducing GHG emissions by 26 percent and solid waste creation by 33 percent.
Posted by Ted Samson on March 24, 2008 09:55 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 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.
Related articles:
Green demands trickle down the supply chain.
Dell, HP join effort to measure supply chains' carbon output
Wal-Mart throws its weight behind a greener supply chain
C02 spewer? See you in court!
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
January 17, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Dell, HP join effort to measure supply chains' carbon output
Feeling increasing pressure, both internally from high-level execs and externally from customers, investors, and politicians, companies are taking the size of their carbon footprints quite seriously.
Yet more companies are determining that their own daily operations aren't the sole contributors to their carbon emissions. Rather, they're factoring in the emissions produced by the vendors down their supply chains. No one wants to be a greenhouse gas spewer by association, so to speak.
Exemplifying this trend is a recent announcement from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a collaboration of over 315 institutional investors managing more than $41 trillion in assets. CDP is working with 11 corporate giants -- including IT heavyweights HP and Dell -- to develop a standard method to gather carbon-emissions information from suppliers.
According to CDP, developing a standard means for suppliers to deliver carbon-emissions information "will vastly decrease the burden on [those] suppliers who might otherwise receive several separate requests for similar information."
Indeed, suppliers have already been facing increased scrutiny for customers further up the supply chain, such as HP, IBM, and Wal-Mart, to demonstrate their environmental and social stewardship.
"The Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration is a key step towards a unified business approach to climate change," said CDP CEO Paul Dickinson in a written statement. "By bringing together the purchasing authority of some of the largest companies in the world, CDP will encourage suppliers to measure and manage their greenhouse gas emissions. This will enable large companies to work towards managing their total carbon footprint, as the first step to reducing the total carbon footprint is to measure its size."
A pilot of the project is now under way. Each participating member of the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration has selected as many as 50 suppliers to respond to the CDP pilot information request in the first quarter of this year. From there, the project will be rolled out in May.
In addition to Dell and HP, other companies participating in the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration include: Cadbury Schweppes, Imperial Tobacco, L'Oreal, Nestle, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, Tesco, and Unilever.
More information about CDP's Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration is available on the CDP Web site.
Related articles:
Green demands trickle down the supply chain
The healthy carbon diet
Video: HP's Glazer talks green supply chain
Wal-Mart throws its weight behind greener supply chain
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 January 17, 2008 03:54 PM
December 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Eco group brings climate-change conference to Second Life
A group of environmentalists want to hold a series of talks on global warming, open to people around the world. Yet air travel is a huge contributor to climate change. What's to be done? Enter Second Life, of course.
The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) will be hosting a series of talks on the hot topic of global warming on Second Nature, its archipelago in the virtual world of Second Life. The conference will coincide with the United Nations conference on the subject underway in Bali, according to reports.
The talks, free to all comers, will feature speakers such as Simon Buckle, director of climate change policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, on Dec. 11 and George Monbiot, author of "Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning," on Dec. 13. Second Life users can join the conference via slurl.com/secondlife/SecondNature/218/213/28.
The NPG certainly isn't the first organization to have a go at hosting a gathering in the world of Second Life. In October 2006, for example, Sun and IBM held separate meetings in Second Life, both of which were attended by former InfoWorld technology evangelist Jon Udell. He wasn't particularly impressed with the medium, though. "In the IBM event, I found myself in a breakout session chatting with strangers about a topic whose premise I disagreed with. That would be unproductive enough in the real world. Because we lacked a synchronous voice channel, real identities, and sufficient emotional bandwidth, it felt even less productive here," he wrote.
I've only dabbled in Second Life, but I'm the same page here as Jon was: It doesn't strike me as an ideal medium for conferences or talks. For a talk, where only one or a couple of presenters are speaking at any time to an audience, one would think a Webcast would suffice. Attendees could ask questions in real time via a messaging function.
As for an interactive conference, well, it becomes trickier. Telepresence remains a promising means of engaging with other human beings remotely, though for the time being, they're impractical for the average home user (know anyone with a telepresence system in his or her basement?). The systems are evolving, however, to the point that a small system could be set up in a CXO's corner office.
From my perspective, NPG is to be commended for pushing the envelop here. Even if the conference doesn't prove overly successful because of the Second Life medium, I appreciate the fact that the group is using Second Life to make a point about air travel's impact on the environment, as well as a point about technology's potential to combat the phenomenon.
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 December 6, 2007 11:52 AM
September 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Wal-Mart throws its weight behind a greener supply chain
Short-sighted as it may be, some companies may be undaunted by the fact that more U.S. politicians are taking carbon emissions seriously. After all, there's no significant federal legislation looming that would ding an organization that produces an excessive amount of that infamous substance so often linked with global warming.
But even if Uncle Sam isn't monitoring the size of companies' carbon footprint, another powerful entity is: Wal-Mart. Earlier this week, the retail empire announced that it will team with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) to start tracking and reducing the energy consumed and carbon emissions produced by its suppliers. The project will begin with seven product categories: DVDs, toothpaste, soap, milk, beer, soda, and vacuum cleaners.
This announcement is a huge one, and it should drive home the fact that it's not just tree-hugger pols and nonprofits that care about energy waste, associated carbon emissions, and other greenhouse gases. When a mainstream global company with the size and influence of Wal-Mart asserts it's keeping a tab on not only its own carbon footprint but those of its suppliers, having a large footprint suddenly has very clear, very real economic ramifications.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment -- one of Wal-Mart's suppliers -- has already initiated a supply-chain analysis of the carbon impact of the production, manufacture, and distribution of its DVDs. More than 20 of Fox's key suppliers embraced the study by supplying detailed information on their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Notably, Wal-Mart certainly isn't the only influential corporation out there keeping a tab on the greenness of its supply chain. HP, IBM, Dell, and Xerox, for example, assess their suppliers' environmental responsibility practices and, in some cases, work actively with those companies to help them become more efficient, as well as better environmental stewards.
Moreover, investor groups such as CDP, a coalition of more than 315 investors representing $41 trillion in assets, have been encouraging companies to disclose their carbon footprints for the past five years. This year, 77 percent of the FT500 -- representing 500 companies globally -- responded to CDP's survey. U.S. companies lagged, though, with only 56 percent of the SP500 responding.
While the aforementioned organizations are pushing for change, Wal-Mart is certainly the largest, most influential, and farthest-reaching organization out there throwing around its formidable economic weight in asking its customers for specifics on energy use and GHG emissions.
At first blush, companies may not revel in the thought of its big customers seemingly playing eco-police and essentially telling them how to run their operations. But there's perhaps an overlooked silver lining to investing the resources in measuring, reporting, and reducing your organization's carbon emissions. Yes, it's the socially responsible thing to do. Yes, it gives consumers a warm, fuzzy feeling when they buy your products. But from an economic standpoint, measuring your company's carbon footprint can be an important tool for gauging energy consumption. When you start looking for ways to cut your CO2 emissions, you're effectively seeking ways to reduce the amount of electricity and fuel your company wastes.
"This is an opportunity to spur innovation and efficiency throughout our supply chain that will not only help protect the environment but save people money at the same time," said John Fleming, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer for the Wal-Mart Stores Division, in a written statement.
Not only is that good for your company's bottom line, but it's ultimately good for the bottom line of companies further up the supply chain. After all, lower operating costs puts you in a position to sell your products at a more competitive prices, which means the Wal-Marts, HPs, IBMs, and further up the chain save money, too. And who knows? Perhaps those savings will reach consumers' pocketbooks.
I anticipate that Wal-Mart's announcement will prove a particularly pivotal moment in the rapidly evolving green movement, with some serious potential for a cumulative ripple effect. First, it will induce companies down the supply chain -- those flying under the public's eco-radar -- to become better environmental stewards. Second, economically influential companies in industries other than retail may follow Wal-Mart's lead, which will result in their suppliers taking steps to be greener. Time, of course, will ultimately tell.
Posted by Ted Samson on September 27, 2007 03:00 AM
September 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Sun launches community for measuring, comparing GHG emissions
In an effort to help organizations get a handle on their swelling carbon footprints, Sun today is launching OpenEco.org, an online community providing free tools and resources for calculating, tracking, and comparing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
With OpenEco.org, organizations can calculate on a granular level the GHGs related to their facilities and vehicle fleets, based on standard, approved carbon accounting standards. They also can track trends and their progress, and compile reports suitable under programs such as the EPA Climate Leaders, according to Sun.
"This project came about because we were trying to calculate our own carbon footprint … and we found that the tools out there were proprietary or expensive, or else companies were building spreadsheets [to calculate their footprint] on an ad hoc basis," said Dave Douglas, vice president of eco-responsibility at Sun.
The company decided to draw on its open source roots and make publicly available a set of measuring tools it developed in house. Participating companies' footprints will be viewable to other members- anonymously, as an option. That way, organizations will be able to see how their carbon footprints compare to those of other similarly size organizations. "People will start to get comparisons and know how they're doing against one another. They'll know what working and what's not," said Douglas.
Being a community-oriented site, it also features forum tools for organizations to interact.
As the green tech movement has picked up steam, companies are feeling both internal and external pressure to be more mindful of their impact on the environment. "One reason companies are measuring their GHG emissions is that people are asking them too. Increasingly, large investors are asking them to report them, no questions asked," said Douglas. "Some of our largest customers are asking us about our carbon emissions."
Additionally, Douglas said that if the U.S. adopts a carbon cap and trade system, similar to that in Europe, tracking and reducing carbon footprints "is going to become an important part of doing business, period."
Moreover, Douglas noted that measuring an organization's carbon footprint at a granular level -- such as on a building by building basis -- can help that organization prioritize its energy-efficiency strategy. "We use it internally to highlight what to go after. The first step in an energy-efficiency project is to figure out where the energy is going in the first place."
For more information, or to join, go to OpenEco.org.
Posted by Ted Samson on September 24, 2007 12:01 AM
September 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Companies are finding digital paper more efficient, secure, and economical than the tree-pulp-based variety
A paperless world is a long way off, but many businesses are taking strides to at least create a less-paper world. Companies across various industries are finding ways to cut paper waste, from issuing electronic tickets and PDF receipts to incorporating electronic document management systems.
As with so many other green technologies out there, the driving influence here isn't necessarily sparing trees nor reducing one's carbon impact on the environment (though saving one ream of paper means five fewer pounds of CO2). Rather, it's a matter of boosting efficiency; making an easier-to-maintain paper(less) trail (nice for compliance purposes); boosting continuity (a digital copy of your files is handy if a natural disaster hits); and saving cash in the long term on costs associated with printing and mailing. (For some perspective on mailing costs, U.S. businesses spent an estimated $800 billion on direct mail correspondence to potential and existing customers last year, which translates into over 115 billion pieces of mail.)
Also a boon: less time wasted tracking down evasive faxes and archived paper documents, as well as transferring the data on those pages to electronic format.
Yeah, that's the ticket
One of the growing trends is so-called paperless tickets. ("So-called" because there's still paper involved; just far less.) Last week, the IATA (International Air Transport Association) -- which represents more than 240 airlines comprising 94 percent of international scheduled air traffic -- said that it would stop issuing paper tickets come May 31, 2008. The AITA says that airlines will save $9 per paper ticket that way, which adds up to $3 billion in annual savings for the industry. (Whether any of those savings will get passed on to Joe and Jane Aisle-Seat remains to be seen, but let's not hold our breath, lest we cause that little oxygen mask to drop.)
The IATA says the move will also spare "the equivalent of 50,000 mature trees each year."
Now, I've read some comments about this move, the authors of which have expressed concern that the cost of the paper tickets is essentially being passed on to the consumer, but I think that's a misconception or an exaggeration, depending on how you look at it.
If you haven't flown with a paperless ticket, here's how it works: You make your reservation and receive a confirmation e-mail. Now, you could print up that itinerary, if you need a printed point of reference, but it's not necessary. You could just access that info from your portable device, or jot down the basic on a piece of scrap paper. Then you show up at the airport before your flight and show your ID and a credit card to the nice person behind the counter (or better yet, you swipe it in one of those check-in kiosks). In turn, you'll receive one slip of paper, your boarding pass, which includes all the pertinent info. That's it.
So from a customer standpoint, it's really a lot easier than having to worry about whether your tickets have arrived, or whether you've left them at home on the bed beside the clean underwear you'd meant to pack. Plus with an e-mail confirmation, you can easily get at your details through your wireless device, just in case you've forgotten whether you're taking off at 1:27 a.m. Pacific or Eastern Time.
On a related note, The Boston Globe had an article last month about a company called Flash Seats, which is pushing electronic tickets to concerts, sporting events, and the like.
It works similarly to the e-tickets for airlines: When you order your tickets online, the order is associated with your credit card or identification. And when it's time to go to the game or show, you don't scour the house for the tickets or stand in line at will call; you swipe your credit card or driver's license as you go in. In turn, you get a paper guide telling you where your seats are.
In case your card isn't read, "venue officials verify the person's identity by asking agreed-upon security questions, such as mother's maiden name or first pet's name."
The Cleveland Cavaliers gave the system a spin last season. Participation was voluntary. "About 17 percent of season ticket holders used the system last season, a portion that [increased] to 50 percent during the club's playoff run into the NBA Finals," according to the Boston Globe article.
In addition to reducing paper waste, the system means potentially better control and security. "Team officials say they would like to maintain greater control to improve security, to prevent counterfeiting, and to reclaim some of the money that is going to third-party resellers such as eBay, StubHub, RazorGator, and AceTicket," says the Globe article.
From an end-user perspective, though, you do lose some convenience. Rather than being able to give tickets to friends so they can meet you at a show later, you have to go through the steps of having the electronic tickets transferred to their names, or else be sure that everyone arrives on time to go in together.
Would you like an e-ceipt with that?
I wrote about e-receipts a while back after learning that at Apple Stores, you can opt to have a receipt sent to you via e-mail instead of issued in paper form on the spot. To me, it seems like a natural evolution in receipts. That's how my proofs of purchase show up when I order online, or when I pay bills online, so why not when I make an in-store purchase? (I might be a bit warier for purchases made with cash, but as long as there's an electronic record stored with my bank or credit card company, I feel fine.)
But the paperless push doesn't just end for end-user purchases. Environmental Leader reports that UPS is trying to convince SMBs to adopt electronic billing by tugging at their eco-conscious heartstrings: "UPS has partnered with the National Arbor Day Foundation to make a $1 donation to the organization for every customer who opts for the paperless PDF invoice."
As UPS describes it, the benefits of a PDF receipt are numerous. It no doubt saves the company cash on printing and mailing receipts. And for customers, it means you receive receipts faster and in convenient electronic format.
Make the pile lower
Electronic tickets and receipts are, to me, really low-hanging fruit in the drive toward the paperless office. They represent the end part of complex workflows that are often tied to hard-to-change business practices and technology (or lack thereof).
One of the most obvious ways to cut paper (and print) waste at the office is to crack down on all the superfluous printing and copies end-users make. The average employee reportedly wastes $85 worth of printer paper and ink each year through unnecessary prints. Products such as GreenPrint offer an easy, non-disruptive tool for putting a dent in the pile. The utility lets users preview printouts and easily remove specific pages, text, or graphics from a print session.
But companies are taking further steps to reduce paper use, in the name of boosting efficiency. Insurance company Lloyd's (of London) has most recently garnered attention in publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Times Online for company CEO Richard Ward's paper-cutting efforts. According to the Times, "a colleague in IT told him that each day Lloyd's was sending four tons of documents to its sorting office in Chatham, all carried by those white vans."
Ward told The Wall Street Journal that he's tackling the paper deluge on a small scale, liking it to "eating an elephant with a teaspoon." "We have to take small bites out of that elephant to make sure we can digest the changes we're making," he told The WSJ.
Among changes Ward has implemented, as he outlined in a speech in May: "Last year, we introduced an electronic filing cabinet - a document repository that enables claims and premiums to be handled quickly and efficiently without the need for paper files. ... Currently a fifth of all in scope claims are being processed using the Electronic Claims File. This is a significant increase on the 5 percent at the beginning of the year."
"In addition," he added, "if you look at Accounting and Settlement, more than 80,000 premium-related transactions have been processed electronically. Once again there has been a significant increase from the beginning of the year."
He says that the company's processing 30 percent of its claims electronically now, but the the goal is to hit 100 percent by March 31. "We might have a symbolic crushing of a van, and it might become a piece of art somewhere inside or outside the building. That might be quite appropriate to do once we've reached our goals," he told the Journal.
(Notably, crushing an otherwise useful van might not be the ideal way to celebrate an eco-friendly achievement of reducing paper waste and boosting efficiency, but that is another story.)
Keep your fax straight
There are plenty of other recent examples I can point to of organizations strolling the paperless trail. Rosen Hotels and Resorts recently announced that it adopted a fax server solution called RightFax from Captaris and integrated its Microsoft Exchange, Cisco CallManager, and Canon MFPs (multifunction peripherals). The end result: a central document management solution, used at the company's seven hotels, as well as its medical center and the insurance agency, to easily store and share documents that used to be passed around in paper format.
Among other features, the combined solution lets employees send faxes from just about any desktop app, or right from the MFPs, rather than having to deal with paper. Moreover, faxes are filed into SharePoint, where they can be accessed from within the network or remotely. Also handy: Employees on the go can receive immediate notifications when important documents are received.
Paper still plays a vital role in the business world, and no doubt will for years to come. But as more companies trade in reams of paper, stacks of pricey ink cartridges, and boxes of mailing supplies for PDFs, digital ink, e-mail, and document management systems, we'll collectively reap the benefits of a less-paper world.
Posted by Ted Samson on September 6, 2007 03:00 AM
June 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Companies preoccupied with their bulky carbon footprints should opt for healthy conservation over "lite" carbon offsets
People are becoming increasingly familiar with the term "carbon footprint" -- that is, the amount of carbon dioxide an organization or individual is responsible for exuding. The phrase has garnered increasing popularity as the world has become more eco-conscious and carbon dioxide has essentially been deemed Eco Enemy No. 1, thanks to the links scientists have made between the gas and global warming.
Also becoming increasingly en vogue: being "carbon neutral," which ought not be confused with being "carbon free." The latter, to me, means you're somehow managing to produce zero carbon dioxide through your business processes. That's an easy concept to grasp but difficult to achieve, given that the fossils fuels on which we depend to power electric companies and modes of transit also generate CO2.
Compare that to carbon neutrality, which means an organization measures its carbon footprint, then invests in projects, or "carbon offsets," intended to negate or make up for the damage that carbon is thought to cause to the environment.
One of the more popular ones -- and I feel a little guilty about writing about it so often -- is Dell's "Plant a Tree for Me" program. Dell teamed up with The Conservation Fund and Carbonfund.org to set up this program through which people can donate money to plant trees to offset the carbon produced by, say, a new server or PC.
So, by Dell's calculations, $2 worth of trees will offset the carbon produced by a notebook. Forty bucks will negate a server's CO2 damage.
Neat and tidy, sure, and hey, it's a good cause. But is it the best use of resources for a company that wants to be better steward of the environment? And more important, does a participating company really reap any substantial benefits from it, save for being able to tell people, "Hey, we planted $1,000 worth of trees to make up for our new remote office in Tuscaloosa"?
Another carbon offset strategy: Put money toward nonpolluting alternative-energy projects. Rackspace is among companies employing that strategy for its U.S. datacenters as part of its ambition to become carbon neutral. It uses the fossil-fuel-dependent electricity itself but buys offsets through NativeEnergy for a wind farm project in South Dakota and a methane project in Pennsylvania.
Again, good causes, certainly, but again: Is that really the best strategy a company can adopt to reduce its environmental impact?
I am not at all intending to knock Rackspace or Dell; these offsets are just part of their respective carbon-reduction plan. What I'm driving at here is the bigger picture, for companies that want to be deemed carbon neutral but just want to take a quick and easy "throw money at it" approach.
The fact of the matter is, there are better ways for organizations to reduce their carbon footprint that not only benefit the environment, but have a long-term benefit for the company. Rather than fixating on the somewhat gimmicky goal of being carbon neutral, companies would be better served focusing on boosting efficiency and energy conservation.
Virtualization, for example: Rather than not making any changes in your datacenter and then paying money to some other organization to offset your server usage, how about using virtualization technology so that you can get rid of some of the hardware you have, or postpone buying more anytime soon? You save on your energy and cooling bills (which means less carbon), you get more bang out of the floor space in your facility, and hey, it's like a future carbon offset for the servers you don't need to buy tomorrow, if you want to think of it in those terms.
Or how about putting your carbon-offset fund toward a project such as what HP just introduced: a power-capping tool that you can use to control how much energy each server in your datacenter consumes? Again, less energy used and less carbon emitted. You have the carbon-offset benefit, but you've made an investment in your company that pays off in the long run. Plus, it better prepares you for any future legislation aimed at putting caps on the greenhouse gasses you're allowed to produce.
I can keep listing projects that will have these benefits: Solar panels, such as Google and Microsoft have installed. Telecommuting programs such as Sun and Xerox have. PC-power management tools. More energy-efficient desktops, or thin clients in place of the PCs. You can also look beyond your IT shop: hybrid vehicles in place of regular ones, or software tools for managing lights and A/C in your buildings. The bottom line is, any project you implement to reduce energy affects your carbon footprint, but you're reaping direct benefits down the road.
And there's one other important difference between outsourcing your carbon-offsetting efforts and implementing them at your company: Once you've signed a check and handed it over to the nice executive at CarbonCappers Inc., you can't really be sure whether the dough is going to erect windmills or pay for that exec's new speedboat.
I say that because The Financial Times recently reported on "widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organizations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place."
All told, I wouldn't want to see companies simply jettison their ambitions for a size-zero carbon footprint all together. But I like to think of it this way: If you have an ideal weight in mind, the healthiest route is to invest time and money in a sensible diet and exercise regimen. Eventually, you'll not only achieve the poundage you desire, but you'll have more energy and better general habits that you can carry with you. Sure, you could subsist on diet soda and celery for a couple of weeks and hit that weight goal sooner, but in the end, are you really in a better position?
Like the Tab-and-tasteless-greens diet, save the carbon offsets for shedding those last few unsightly pounds of carbon, after you've exercised your other energy-conservation options.
Posted by Ted Samson on June 28, 2007 01:01 AM
June 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Alternative-power datacenter part of Rackspace green initiatve
New green facility, carbon offsets part of managed datacenter-hosting company's eco-friendly initiative
Rackspace has joined the ranks of companies such as HP, IBM, Dell, and Yahoo announcing plans to become better environmental stewards by embracing carbon reduction, energy conservation, and other green initiatives.
A managed datacenter hosting company with 90,000 square feet of space worldwide, Rackspace today announced that as part of its GreenSpace campaign, it's planning to open a new data center next year in the Slough, England region which will be powered directly by alternative energy from a utility called Slough Heat and Power.
Also, the company has teamed up with NativeEnergy, a national marketer of renewable energy credits and carbon offsets. Rackspace plans to purchase offsets through NativeEnergy for each new customer server it brings online. Specifically, the company will buy offsets through a wind farm project, which powers at Sioux Indian reservation in South Dakota, as well as a methane project that powers a dairy farm in Pennsylvania.
The practice of purchasing carbon offsets has garnered criticism from some environmentalists, arguing that companies should take direct measures to reduce CO2 pollution. But Rackspace CTO John Engates said that it's difficult to find utilities in the U.S. offering direct alternative energy. "As power and utility companies in regions we work have alternative power available to buy directly, we'll explore that," he said.
In addition to reducing its carbon footprint, Rackspace has been looking at other ways to reduce its energy consumption, including choosing servers that use less power. "Primarily, we buy from HP and Dell. HP has servers that are our primary model: a dual-process, dual-core server that is many times more efficient than servers of two generations ago," Engates says.
The ongoing chip wars between AMD and Intel have affected which hardware the company buys. "When Intel had problems with power and AMD was winning, we switched to AMD for a vast majority of our deployments," says Engates. "Intel is back on par, perhaps in the lead, and we're starting to offer the latest Intel processors to our customers."
Like other IT leaders, Engates is also concerned about there being sufficient energy available in the future. "If we don't pay attention to this and start to cut power usage, we all in for power problems down the road. We'll still need to continue to build power plants, but hopefully, we won't have to add as many if we can work on programs like these down the road," he says.
Companies like Rackspace are also increasingly concerned with their image as it pertains to energy usage. "The fact that dactacenters are going to be large consumers of power means that we need to work on [conservation]. We don't want to be the bad guys. People will eventually look for large-scale users of power and will ask them to cut their consumption," Engates says.
Finally, in addition to being an active member of The Green Grid consortium, Rackspace is working to foster environmental awareness and education among employees. For instance, the company had a its first "Green Day" event earlier this month, inviting more than fifteen vendors and non-profit organizations to present employees with environmentally friendly tips and product alternatives.
Posted by Ted Samson on June 11, 2007 09:26 AM
May 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A new study finds companies bracing for costly liability lawsuits for contributing to global warming
Carbon monoxide has proven one costly little emission for tobacco companies, as they've had to fork over billions of dollars in liability lawsuits over bodily harm caused by wares. The paint industry also has felt the pain of being held legally liable for the harmful effects of the lead in its products.
Well, now companies, including those in the tech industry, had best beware: Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are increasingly being linked to global warming. As noted in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, climate change, in turn, is being more conclusively linked to health problems, such as respiratory and coronary disease and heat stress, as well as adverse weather conditions, windstorms, droughts, heat waves, and increased lightning, which can affect an organization's business, either directly or by knocking out a utility or a supplier's operations.
According to a study titled "Limiting Liability in the Greenhouse," the growing awareness of global warming's effects and the threats they pose are a recipe for a new rash of lawsuits against companies that don't take steps to reduce CO2 emissions.
Crazy? Bloody unlikely? The tobacco industry probably felt the same way once upon a time. Some utility companies have already been slapped with lawsuits for contributing to global warming. The recent Supreme Court ruling that GHGs are pollutants that the EPA has the power to regulate just opens the door even wider.
One of the key points made up front in the report is that the authors aren't advocating liability lawsuits as a positive catalyst for positive change. Rather, "litigation reflects a market failure that can be avoided, at least in part, by adequate regulation, proactive reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, and adaptive strategies to prevent damages from climate change."
The report, by the way, was written by an independent trio of experts: Christina Ross, manager of technical services at LaCroix Davis, Evan Mills, staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sean B. Hecht, executive director of The Environmental Law Center at UCLA School of Law. Available now, it also will appear in a forthcoming joint issue of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal and the Stanford Journal of International Law. It's a well-written, well-researched piece, too, and it makes for some interesting, if not troubling, reading.
Notably, the paper focuses on the insurance industry, but it mentions various industries. The info is undoubtedly relevant to just about any organization.
So let's examine some of the legal risks associated with global climate changes outlined in the study: One potential scenario is that you're a service provider -- maybe a hosted application company, an Internet provider, or an outsourced datacenter. Your local utility loses power due to climate-change-related weather conditions, such as a major hurricane. You can't maintain SLAs for your customers, and you've suddenly got costly legal troubles on your hands.
"Uptime is everything for these companies, and there's going to be more power outages, more stress on the electrical grid, " Mills says. "If IT operators aren't prepared, they may cause financial injuries to third parties."
The authors do offer some mitigation for this scenario. Among them: developing a business continuity plan; searching for alternative energy carriers other than electric, which is "particularly vulnerable,"; and investing in demand-side energy management and on-site power.
Or think Enron, but instead of the CEOs and other higher-ups fudging the financial numbers, they're fudging the data about the company's environmental impact. "Directors and officers' actions (or lack thereof) in managing climate change risks may depress shareholder value, and their disclosures about climate change risks are governed by specific federal laws that may subject them to personal liability," the report notes.
This type of scandal also could leak out to the public, tarnish a company's reputation, and result in a drop in stock prices. Next stop: court.
Another potential legal threat: A company could find itself sued because its products (for the IT industry, a server, perhaps) are less energy efficient than those of its competitors, thus producing more GHGs. A plaintiff could argue that he or she was harmed by climate change due the product's design defects. The report notes that this would be difficult to demonstrate in court, but the company would still incur legal fees (and bad press).
The mitigation here should be pretty obvious, though perhaps easier said than done: Work to stay ahead of the curve in terms of product development. Fortunately, we're seeing plenty of innovation from hardware makers in their server and chip designs.
Alternatively, a company could also find itself being sued for bringing harm to individual or a class, or to a city through pollution, due to its general GHG emissions. This, too, would be difficult to prove in court, but there would be pesky legal fees, increased insurance rates, bad PR, and the like.
One of the mitigations is repeated time and again in the report to address just about every potential legal threat: reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and participate in emissions-offset activities.
Hardly anyone (exceptions might include certain types of lawyers and litigants) wants to see any of the litigation scenarios enumerated in the study (of which I've just scratched the surface). They're all-around bad: bad for business, bad for our health, bad for the environment.
The good news is, there are plenty of ways for companies to reduce the threats and the associated costs. At the same time, cutting your carbon emissions means you're cutting your power consumption, which translates into not just reduced risks but reduced bills.
"Limiting Liability in the Greenhouse" is available here [PDF]. Again, I highly recommend you read it if you're all at concerned about the legal implications of global warming, the impact it might have on your insurance, the future of your business, or global warming.
Posted by Ted Samson on May 31, 2007 12:03 AM
May 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Less power hungry than their PC peers, thin clients are garnering greater attention for their green advantages
Verizon CIO John Hinshaw confirmed a juicy green nugget of data in a recent interview: He said the wireless giant has reduced energy consumption by 30% since replacing PCs with Sun Ray thin clients in the company's call centers.
That will translate to a savings of $1 million per year for Verizon, once the company rolls out thin clients (or some "desktop-less" variants) in its remaining data centers.
"Power consumption is more of a hot topic in the U.S. than it has ever been," says Klaus Besier, president and CEO of thin-client vendor Neoware. "What we see with many more customers today is when they look at thin clients, they're taking more into account power consumption and [related] savings."
With their relatively lower energy requirements compared to PCs -- not to mention other eco-advantages like longer lifespan and smaller form factor with fewer parts -- thin clients are worthy of some serious consideration from companies.
Or perhaps I should say "reconsideration." Thin clients, after all, certainly aren't new, and advantages such as easier administration (fewer admin visits to users' desks) and improved security (data's stored remotely) are pretty well recognized. But thin clients continue to mature, as do the essential technologies that make them all the more viable. That includes virtualization (as InfoWorld Chief Technologist Tom Yager has noted), Wi-Fi, embedded OSes, and software as a service.
Thin, trim, and healthy
Combine all those technologies with the very real concerns over power shortages, high energy bills, and global climate change, and it's no surprise that IDC foresees steady 20%-plus year-over-year growth in the thin-client space, with shipments expected to reach 7.3 million in 2011.
"We're expecting positive growth for thin clients based on all the factors you've laid out [i.e. advances of virtualization and 10G, and growing concern about power consumption], as well as ongoing concerns about security and PC management costs," says Bob O'Donnell, program vice president for clients and displays at IDC.
Neoware asserts that companies can save as much as 90% on desktop-computing energy costs by swapping out PCs for thin clients -- depending on what models of hardware you're extracting or implementing, of course. But as an example, a desktop PC consumes as much as 280 watts of power in the amount of time that the high-end Neoware e140 burns up 48. So a company with 1,000 desktops would be spending about $62,000 yearly on power (based on the national KWH rate of $0.0849.), compared to around $10,500 for the clients, according to NeoWare. Savings: Around 50 grand a year per one thousand systems.
For the visually-oriented, here's a chart provided by thin-client vendor Wyse, comparing energy consumption of some of its thin-clients to various PC configurations:
Of course, when you install thin clients, you need servers in the server room to act as their brains. But those power savings are still significant, as noted in a recent report titled "Environmental comparison of PC and thin client equipment" by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. "Consumption is at least twice as low, sometimes three or four times lower than the consumption of corresponding PC systems. This applies even with the proportionate offsetting of the energy required by the server and the cooling power required for this," the report says.
Lower energy consumption is one of the clear eco- and monetary benefits. Another green-oriented cost advantage: the life-expectancy of a thin client, compared to a PC. "Thin clients don't need to be upgraded frequently. With thin clients, an OS release does not cause an upgrade to the client, only to the server -- resulting in far less e-waste, since the client can continue to be used longer," says Subodh Bapat, vice president and distinguished engineer for Sun's System Level Energy Strategy, which offers a range of Sun Ray thin clients. "Upgrade cycles of eight to 10 years are common in the thin-client world, as opposed to three to fours years for PCs, with corresponding benefits to the environment in terms of less e-waste."
Speaking of e-waste, Neoware's Besier adds that "Without moving parts, such as a fan or disk drive ... thin clients help companies meet their sustainability targets by eliminating much of the overhead associated with computing."
According to the Fraunhofer study, thin clients also hold a form-factor advntage over PCs, making them less expensive to ship: "They are only 35-40% of the weight of a PC and only take up 19-30% of the volume."
Not just about the green
Green issues aren't the only drivers for thin-client adoption. Jeff McNaught, chief marketing office at Wyse, opines that the new and improved Terminal Services features forthcoming in Windows Server 2008 (i.e. the platform formerly known as Longorn) will be a boon a Windows shops running thin clients.
In a simiar vein, Travid Brown, product manager for thin client solutions at HP, credits Windows XP Embedded for more acceptance of thin clients. "Microsoft has come a long way in developing XP Embedded It's the same binary as XP Pro ... and the thin-client experience now looks very much like the desktop experience. It's a lot better than it was a couple of years ago."
Another boon for thin clients: the shift toward 64-bit computing, by companies like Microsoft and Citrix, will spur adoption by sweetening the TCO pot. "Instead 125 users, you can have 250, 300 users on that server, just by changing the software. That has changed the cost equation," says McNaught
Moreover, McNaught says that company's in 2006 had been waiting to gauge VMware's success on the desktop virtualization front, given it success in the realm of server consolidation, and the results look promising. "You take the existing PC, suck all the data off a hard drive and onto the back-end, pop that PC off the desktop, drop a thin client, and the user continues working."
(Test Center Analyst Randall C. Kennedy was fairly impressed by the beta version of VMware Workstation 6.0 -- especially compared to the competition.)
There's also the advancements thin clients have undergone since the late 1990s when they were overhyped, notes Wyse's McNaught. "In those days, thin clients didn't do multimedia. Screen-draw capability was good, but not amazing," he says. "Companies like Wyse have been working on technology that will dramatically improve the user experience with multimedia, with voice over IP, with USB peripherals. Users can work in a multiscreen environment."
But green fever and technological evolution alone won't necessarily reduce some company's resistance to thin clients. Thin client vendors acknowledge that there wares won't dethrone the PC anytime soon.
For one thing, the machines are well-suited for plenty of basic applications, such as call centers or other roles where users are continually using the same few apps (e.g. productivity and e-mail). But high-end apps are better left on the desktop. "You would not have a CAD/CAM application running through a thin client," says Besier. "It doesn't even make sense to try to solve that problem. The market is not large enough."
Another reason thin clients haven't seem greater adoption, many vendors say, is that companies are set in their ways insofar as purchasing that which is familiar -- in this case, PCs, despite the fact that most desktops generally run at around 3% utilization. "Today's barriers are more of a cultural nature rather than a technical nature," says Sun's Bapat.
But Bapat predicts that "with the lower energy use, lower administration costs, better security, and less frequent capital expenditure outlays for upgrades, we will see more and more organizations making the move to thin-client computing."
Posted by Ted Samson on May 24, 2007 03:00 AM
May 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
HP gives WWF $2 million in tech, cash for climate-change research
Partnership another example of big-name IT companies like Microsoft, Dell, and Yahoo investing in environmental causes
"Technology is part of the problem, but it's also part of the solution." That, paraphrased, is one of the comments that Dave Douglas, Sun's VP of eco-responsibility, shared with me earlier this month.
The problem he was alluding to was the environmental challenges the planet faces due to global climate change. (When, and why, did the term "global climate change" replace "global warming"?) The IT industry indeed contributes to the phenomenon as its operations and wares churn out greenhouse gas in the form of carbon dioxide.
But a growing number of tech companies are owning up to the responsibility and becoming increasingly better environmental stewards, not only by boosting the energy-efficiency of their products, reducing waste, and finding ways to shrink their carbon footprints; they're also teaming up with environmental groups, donating not only money but technology and resources toward solving the problems.
Among them is HP, which today is announcing a partnership with the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) to allocate more than $2 million in cash and equipment to the non-profit for establishing three projects aimed at addressing the causes and consequences of global climate change. (HP and the WWF aren't strangers to working with one another.)
The projects, which focus on analysis, research and data collection, include:
-- The Epicenter for Climate Conservation – Focused on advancing climate adaptation and resiliency strategies and projects worldwide, the Epicenter for Climate Conservation will be driven by HP technology and led by Dr. Lara Hansen, chief climate scientist of WWF.
-- Information and Communication Technology Innovation as a Driver of Climate Change Solutions – This program will work to identify 1 billion tons of carbon reductions through the use of information and communication technology.
-- Climate Witness – An online forum to raise global awareness of the tangible consequences of climate change, Climate Witness will gather the stories of individuals and communities affected by global warming and share them with the world.
This announcement comes less than a week after Microsoft's big announcement that it would be teaming with the Clinton Foundation to develop a suite of technology tools, both software and services. designed to enable cities to monitor, compare and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Assisting in developing these measurement tools by ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives)—Local Governments for Sustainability and the Center for Neighborhood Technology. Microsoft will build the software using the knowledge base that ICLEI has acquired in developing its Harmonized Emissions Analysis Tool (HEAT).
Additionally, Microsoft recently launched its "i'm" initiative, built around Windows Live Messenger. Users of the Microsoft instant-messaging client can register to have a portion of a Live Messenger session's ad revenue go to one of various non-profit organizations, including The Sierra Club and stopglobalwarming.org (not to be confused with stopglobalclimatechange.org).
The list of tech companies embarking on environmental causes (and other socially responsible ones) doesn't end there, and while I've been, well, a bit skeptical of some of the other efforts I've seen, the fact remains that these companies are making an effort and are certainly helping to raise awareness about environmental issues.
Dell, for examples, teamed up with with The Conservation Fund and the Carbonfund.org earlier this to launch "Plant a Tree for Me" -- a program through which Dell, er, lets people donate money to plant trees in order to "offset" the carbon emitted by their personal computers, laptops, and general lifestyles.
And Yahoo announced its "Greenest City in America" Challenge last week, which I'm still shaking my head over: Essentially, the city that wins is the one whose residents use Yahoo services the most for the next couple of weeks. And the prize is a fleet of hybrid taxis, or else $250,000, which can be used for a eco-friendly project of the winning city's choosing.
While the contest itself is, to me, simply ridiculous (they should have called it "The Yahoo-iest City in the U.S." Challenge), it, too, raises awareness, such as through the info on the company's new green portal -- plus Yahoo is giving out 150,000 energy-efficient CFL lightbulbs to people who participate.
Posted by Ted Samson on May 23, 2007 12:01 AM
May 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IT has the power to cultivate a greener world
Consensus continues to grow among political leaders around the world that global warming is a very probable threat that needs to be addressed. The latest evidence of this shifting mindset is the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, released last week. The report is a major one, given its scope and number of countries involved, representing a large drop in a bucket of governmental studies and legislation aimed at addressing climate change.
Whether or not business leaders take seriously the threat of global warming, they would be well served to start finding ways to reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions at their companies -- both in terms of their operations as well as their products. Acting sooner rather than later means they can stay ahead of stricter laws, as well as on top of the energy crisis that's already being felt in some datacenters.
"Energy grids are being constrained such that they can't deliver the energy that companies needs. Legislative schemes are being put into place to control [carbon emissions]," says John Frey, manager of corporate environmental strategies at HP. By not acting, companies themselves will be "inhibited from a growth perspective, or find themselves legislated or taxed into a corner. Most companies don't want to find themselves in that situation."
Frey concedes that legislation can help spur a change in a company's operations and its products, but waiting for laws to guide you isn't a prudent approach. "Legislation is not going to drive innovation. It is going to bring the high bar up a little bit for those that have not sought a leadership position and gotten in front of the issue."
Another benefit to staying ahead of the legislative curve: You get to participate in how legislation evolves. "As legislators are looking at whom they can invite in for a dialogue, it's interesting and satisfying that companies like HP are the ones that get invited to the table first," Frey says.
A member of the WWF's Climate Savers Program, HP has long employed sustainable IT practices, according to Frey, which has positioned the company well to stay ahead of legislation. Most recently, the company announced ambitious plans to reduce its energy consumption by 20 percent by 2010. And driving these company's efforts is indeed green -- both of the monetary and environmental perspective. "This is the right thing to do, just looking at energy efficiency from a cost of ownership perspective... When you look at it from the environmental perspective, it becomes an even better decision. It's not a logical leap a lot of companies make: 'Hey, our IT group can contribute to reducing our environment footprint.'"
Indeed, the IT industry has a major role to play in a day and age where servers, PCs, networking gear, storage, and applications are vital organs for just about any business, keeping that essential data flowing and operations moving. Frey observed that IT was not explicitly referenced in the IPCC report: "When this issue is talked about in a legislative framework ... the assumption is that all these segments, from power generation to general industry, all have an IT component."
That puts the IT industry in a potentially powerful and influential position as businesses worldwide adapt a greener, more sustainable state of mind, says Edan Dionne, director of corporate environmental affairs at IBM. (Dionne sent me some very thoughtful answers to my e-mail questions, which I am posting here for you to read.)
"Improving the energy utilization of IT equipment and datacenters is important because the application of IT to business and societal energy-efficiency challenges offers us the opportunity to transform the way that society uses energy," Dionne says.
"For example, IT applications can manage power grids to reduce losses and enable distributed generation," she continues. "IT can introduce congestion-pricing schemes that reduce road traffic and encourage the use of carpooling and mass transit. IT enables businesses to improve manufacturing processes and supply chain efficiencies to reduce waste and energy usage. IT allows people to work remotely to reduce commuting requirements."
Big Blue, like HP, is a participant in WWF's Climate Savers Program, and it, too, has been tackling energy-efficiency issues for years. Just this week, the company announced its