December 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Xerox, AMD garner recognition for reducing GHGs
Xerox and AMD garnered special recognition from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) this week for recently achieving their long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals and for extending their commitment to climate-change management. Xerox and AMD are both participants in the EPA's Climate Leaders initiative, the largest corporate GHG goal-setting program in the United States.
Xerox managed to reduce its emissions by 18 percent from 2002 to 2006. The company is now aiming to lower its total global GHG emissions by 25 percent from 2002 to 2012.
Xerox reports that is managed to shrink its GHG production by reducing fuel usage of cars and trucks driven by sales and service employees. The company also curbed its natural gas consumption and electricity usage. Through its efforts, Xerox says it prevented the emissions of 87,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide last year and saved $18 million in energy expenses.
Looking ahead to its 2012 goal, Xerox plans to design more products that use its EA toner, which the company says is grown by a chemical process and uses 25 percent less energy to produce than does traditional toner made by the grinding method. Moreover, the company says it's adjusting climate control equipment to reap higher energy savings.
Meanwhile, AMD achieved its initial goal by reducing emissions by 53 percent per manufacturing index (unit of production) from 2002 to 2006. The chipmaker is now pledging to reduce its global GHG emissions by 33 percent per manufacturing index from 2006 to 2010.
Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and writer of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.
Posted by Ted Samson on December 6, 2007 01:34 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
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
