Sustainability Reporting

A report from the Sustainable Investment Research Analyst Network (SIRAN) a couple of weeks ago highlights how important Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports are becoming. The report says that more than half of the 100 largest publicly traded companies in the US report on their sustainability effort. I suspect the proportion would be significantly lower in European countries, where CSR reporting is much more piecemeal.

Anyway, the report also highlighted the fact that around a third of these 100 companies incorporate aspects of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. GRI was established in 1997 with the mission of developing globally applicable guidelines for reporting on the economic, environmental, and social performance of corporations, governments and NGOs. The first draft guidelines were released in 1999.

Other findings from the research included:

- 86 of the S&P 100 companies have corporate sustainability web sites

- 49 produced a sustainability report in 2007 (up from 39 in 2005)

- 41 made some reference to GRI standards

- 34 included a GRI Index in their report.

There's more information about the research here, but it just goes to show how important sustainability reporting is becoming. SITS companies need to see whether their own CSR reports are adequate and whether they can help their clients with theirs. There are niche specialists in this market, such as Enablon in France which provides software solutions and is a technological partner of the GRI.

Accenture Green Technology Suite

Accenture has announced a set of tools to help organisations turn their IT Greener. The Green Technology Suite includes:

• The Green Maturity Model (GMM), which assess the environmental efficiency of IT and suggests improvements. It rates companies on a green maturity spectrum based on responses to 300 questions around five areas; working practices, office environment, data centre, procurement and corporate citizenship.

• The Data Centre Estimator is used by consultants to suggest energy reduction strategies based on data on air conditioning, power distribution, hardware components, etc.

• The Workplace Estimator helps the adoption of a Greener IT culture through recycling, energy saving, better procurement, etc.

This is a pretty comprehensive set of tools described as offering a 'holistic view across the entire IT organisation' and they may well be very effective in achieving that. I just wonder whether this is focusing too much on the technology.

Firstly, can it be truly holistic without looking at other parts of the organisation, such as the broader energy use in facilities, re-using energy/CHP solutions? IT is a small part of a bigger picture. Secondly, this 'bigger picture' accounts for a 98% of emissions, so it might be more cost-effective to look beyond the IT department to how technology can help create more efficient supply chain, optimised logistics, etc. I guess Accenture offers help there as well, but from recent meetings and press releases the management of technology seems to be the main focus.

Briefing Paper Topics

As many readers know, we publish a series of reports and briefing papers for subscribers to The Green IT Report service and for one-off sales. The briefing papers are short (10 pages or so) and focus in on various aspects of the market and hot topics that are of particular interest.

I'm interested in getting some feedback on future topics for the briefing papers, i.e. what you would like to see covered (and potentially pay for!) so would welcome some input/opinion from readers.

Possible topics we're considering include:

1. Measuring carbon emissions; methodologies, setting targets and reporting.

2. Carbon trading and offset; what, where and how.

3. Climate change legislation in the US and Europe.

4. CSR reporting; stakeholder expectations and market trends.

5. Green software and IT services specialists - who are they and what are they doing?

6. Climate change impact and opportunities by vertical market sectors.

7. The Greening of the data centre; challenges and opportunities.

8. Anything else - suggestions welcome!

It would be much appreciated if you could drop me an email with your preference, comments or suggestions to The Green IT report topics.

The more we know about what your interests are the more useful will be the research.

Thanks.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting

The Ethical Corporation Institute, the research arm of the UK-based Ethical Corporation 'an independent media firm, launched in 2001 to encourage debate and discussion on responsible business' has published a report into greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting.

The report highlights one of the major problems surrounding the calculating and reporting of emissions, i.e. that companies are doing it in a variety of different ways. Apparently the responses from the FT 500 companies to the last completed survey by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) revealed the use of 34 different methodologies to report on emissions. Since the whole point is to be able to make realistic comparisons between companies and track progress against targets over time, this inconsistency renders the process much less effective.

My own view is that there is no excuse for not using one of a handful of recognised methodologies, which tend to be very similar. The most widely recognised and used, and recommended by the CDP, is the GHG Protocol, from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative, which is itself a joint initiative from the World Resources Institute (WRI), a U.S.-based environmental NGO, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a Geneva-based coalition of 200 international companies.

It's essential to use a standard methodology and reporting structure, which is why I believe the CDP is a good place to start, simply because it has the longest track record and gathers more corporate climate change information than anyone else.

The next stage is to have emissions data verified, which the report says only just over half the companies using reporting standards actually do. But the report also highlights that the cost of the process of collecting data and calculating emissions varied from €75,000 to €800,000, with another €50,000-€500,000 for verification.

The full report is available (at a price) from here.

Five Firms Earn Asset Disposal Certification

Five IT companies have earned a certification for their environmentally friendly asset disposal processes. The Green Recycling and Asset Disposal Enterprise (GRADE) certification, from IDC, is based on 34 IT asset disposal-related functions and tasks and Dell, HP and IBM are among the first five companies to receive the certification.

All highly commendable, but in the same way that I have reservations about IT companies advising clients on Greening their enterprises (which needs a broad holistic approach) I also have reservations about a IT market research firm advising IT companies on how to be more Green.

CDP-IBM Guide to Carbon Management

The CDP(Carbon Disclosure Project) and IBM have produced a Best Practice Guide to carbon management under the title of Making Advances in Carbon Management. The full document is available here. The report apparently stems from the sharing of experiences between some 'carbon leaders' earlier this year around how they gather their GHG emissions data, what they measure, how far they have gone in the process and what the experience has been like.

It's not completely clear to me what the purpose of the document is, but apparently the intention is 'to stimulate debate about the new business process of carbon information management and to further the development of creative carbon information management strategies'.

The report looked at five key themes which emerged during the research:

- correct definitions are vital;
- engaging with stakeholders is key;
- carbon information management is a process in development;
- the emerging role of the carbon information manager;
- the role of the carbon information is both control and influence.

To be frank, I think the first three of these are pretty obvious to anyone involved in the area, but the last two are quite interesting. There will undoubtedly be a need for what might be called Carbon Information Managers (or similar) in the future. I've met a number of people who hold these responsibilities in IT companies and they come from a variety of backgrounds. The common element is commitment. But I think it's clear that there are not enough of them around and there is a shortage of people with the knowledge and experience to take on the role. (Indeed there is a shortage of qualified people in the Green economy as a whole).

Anyway, the role is central, but not straightforward, as this diagram from the report indicates:

UK Government Green IT

Well, as mentioned yesterday, the UK Cabinet Office has announced a strategy to reduce the carbon footprint of the government's IT. With government offices generating 20% of carbon emissions - around 460,000 tonnes - from ICT, the plan is to make this energy consumption in central government departments carbon neutral by 2012 and carbon neutral across its life cycle by 2020.

There are a total of 18 actions to reduce emissions, which suggests a lot of discussion has gone on, since they were trying to keep the number down to around 10 when I met with them earlier this year. The increased number may be a reflection of the ambitious carbon reduction target. Lets summarise the actions first:

PCs and laptops:
- remove active screen savers
- switch monitors to standby after five minutes
- shut down PCs after office hours
- enable active power management
- re-use equipment where possible
- use low-power CPUs
- apply thin-client technology

Other ICT equipment:
- apply timer switches to printers, etc
- set default Green printing (duplex, etc)
- optimise sleep mode on printers
- consolidate printers
- device consolidation, e.g. single device rather than phone + PDA

Data Centres:
- server optimisation
- reduce data centre cooling
- turn off servers that are not being used
- specify low-power servers
- ensure equipment re-use
- audit data centres for potential savings in cooling

These 'guidelines' will be adopted by the Cabinet Office immediately; other departments will be asked to base their environmental action plans around these rules and will be expected to report on their implementation in their submissions to the Transformational Government Annual Report.

These are all great actions and mostly things that have been advocated in industry for some time. My problem with the announcement is around the stated aim for ICT to be carbon neutral. In the Greening Government ICT document that sets out the strategy there are two revealing comments:

"Work is ongoing with Defra (the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) to define Carbon Neutrality and how this can be delivered" and the footnote "These targets will be reviewed in light of the ongoing work in the definition of carbon neutrality".

There is also a comment that "Off-setting to be seen as a last resort and only through an accredited scheme in line with Defra’s code of best practice".

I keep harping back to my web cast last week, but one theme was that actions to turn Green need to be transparent and comparable. There is insufficient detail in the announcements so far for me to understand how the actions could result in carbon neutrality. Maybe its a definitional issue, maybe because there's some relevant purchase of Green energy involved, maybe its the offsetting. I don't know. But credibility is undermined unless there is a clear road map to achieve the targets.

There's a press conference early on Thursday morning to formally unveil the strategy (unfortunately at too short notice for me to attend, although the policy has been in production for around nine months!) and ministerial speech will be published later, so maybe we will learn more then.

Public vs Private Sector

There was an article in the The Observer newspaper in the UK last weekend about how governments are embroiled in discussions on how to save the planet but businesses are just getting on with it - and making money. It struck a chord.

The problem for governments is that they have to come up with policies and so fight with competing views from different sectors with separate interests. They look to the policy first, before trying to pursue it. But the policy is needed, and quickly. International agreements are slow and an inevitable compromise, but that doesn't mean that national governments can't set their own targets.

The UK is a leader in this respect and yet it still seems to have an uncoordinated approach. Whilst setting CO2 emissions targets it also seems to be going soft on fuel tax (it cancelled a proposed rise this afternoon) and even supports an increase in air travel through another runway at Heathrow.

When it comes to specifics, around IT for example, there is little evidence of any real effort by government departments.

Industry is, at least at the moment, driven by stakeholder demands, competitive positioning and the possibility of new business opportunities. Legislation can only help. When there is legislation business complains, but quickly responds and innovates to move on. Certainly the IT companies I come in contact with are doing much more to turn their organisations Green than government departments are. The government should be giving the lead.

FOOTNOTE: I wrote this blog this morning to post this afternoon, but in the meantime I got a call to say that the UK government is tomorrow morning announcing its action plan to reduce the carbon footprint of its IT systems, with timescales and targets, etc. I'll let you know the details when I get them.

Wal-Mart Traceable Supply Chain

Wal-Mart is already cited as an example of a company that has introduced strict environmental guidelines for suppliers. Back in January the company said it would require all of its suppliers to meet specific environmental, social and quality standards and would make compliance with those standards part of its contracts.

The company has now extended that action by introducing a line of jewelry that can be traced from the mine to the store shelf. The online information source also gives details of the suppliers' environmental and social programmes. The idea is to sell more product sourced from mines and manufacturers that meet its environmental and human rights standards, with a view to ensuring that all of its US jewelry is eventually sourced from a supply chain that meets its sustainability standards.

It just shows the extent to which the supply chain is becoming involved in the efforts of major corporations to make their operations more sustainable. IT suppliers are not going to be exempt from this trend.

It also emphasises the effort that will be required by many companies, particularly retail, in tracking, recording and conveying the source and supply chain information. An opportunity for more complex retail/supply chain solutions backed up with detailed source information.

Deloitte Adopts Telepresence

Anyone who tuned in to the web cast last week will have heard me criticising the lack of thought that goes into the global footprint of consultancy and IT services in general - products get all the attention. But Deloitte have at least seen the light with the announcement that it has signed up for Nortel's videoconferencing and associated services.

This is a managed services agreement under which Deloitte's global organisation and as many as 130 Deloitte member firm locations around the world will be able to obtain telepresence and open standards-based video conferencing services.

The savings can be significant. Nortel has calculated that a company spending as much as $23m annually on travel can use telepresence to recover as many as 385,000 hours of lost productivity, reduce its carbon footprint by up to 4,200 tons and save up to US$7m.

UK the Worst in Europe for Green IT

According to an item on Silicon.com on Wednesday, the UK lags behind the rest of Europe in adopting Green IT. It's based on a survey of 8,000 IT directors by data centre company Brocade. Apparently 60% of UK respondents had a negative view of their companies' environmental policies, compared with 40% for Europe as a whole. Germany came out best, with less than a third saying that their companies could do better.

Actually, based on the second-hand coverage I've read, this may just be a matter of perception. As one who conducts surveys and knows how critical it is to ask the right questions (and interpret the results accurately), I would have liked to understand exactly what was asked, but the results don't seem to be available on Brocade's web site (not even a press release).

Logica wins European Space Agency Business

One sub-sector of the Green IT market which is not talked about much, presumably because it's so specialised, is around the inevitable climate change, e.g. monitoring weather patterns through satellites. This is an area that Logica has some expertise in and the company has won a contract to supply the ground security for the European Space Agency's Earth observation programme, which includes the Global Monitoring for the Environment missions.

Logica will provide the security around the Payload Data Ground Segment, which acquires, processes, archives and disseminates the Earth observation programme data.

Rackspace Survey

Rackspace, the US hosting company, has conducted the second of its Green surveys among its customers - the first was in September last year.

One finding is that a higher number of respondents were less prepared to pay extra to use a Green vendor (I'm not sure how that's defined). That's no real surprise in an economic downturn, but I would have thought even less relevant in the hosting context. A Green data centre provider should be one that reduces power use significantly, which would reduce price. Why pay more?

Another point is that a higher proportion are unwilling to sacrifice server performance for lower carbon emissions. This is very much along the lines of conversations that I've had. No one is prepared to sacrifice performance in general and security in particular for the sake of a Greener organisation. It's one reason why IT energy use is destined to keep on rising in the coming years whatever we do.

Interestingly, the proportion that felt that environmental legislation would have an impact on their business rose from 29% to 46% (although fewer thought it would 'greatly' impact their business). There seems to be a growing realisation that legislation is going to be a major factor.

Green Agreements

As you may have heard, the G8 nations have at last agreed on a target for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. It's good in that the US has agreed, although in all other respects it seems to be a retrograde step. It seems to support the idea without giving an actual commitment, the target is a 50% reduction by 2050, but the base year appears to be 2005 rather than 1990 (used by the UN) and there is no interim target, which many see as essential to have any hope of achieving targets in 2050. Still, it's progress for the G8 and there is a recognition that shorter-term targets are also required.

By contrast, Reuters reports that the European Union has reached agreement to include air travel in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from 2012. The European parliament has apparently agreed a 3% reduction in carbon emissions in the first year and 5% a year from 2013. As might be expected, the airlines are protesting loudly whilst environmentalists say it's far too weak.

IBM Green Consulting Offering

IBM has announced a Corporate Social Responsibility Benchmarking Utility which helps clients assess the cost or benefit of their CSR strategy, the effectiveness of their activities and how well they communicate their CSR performance to customers and other stakeholders.

The utility stems from research the company conducted that showed how important, in terms of revenue and competitive advantage, CSR activity is, but that there are some gaps in CSR understanding that need to be filled. With another survey showing that 25% of CEOs are planning to increase investment in CSR in the next three years, IBM sees a clear requirement to ensure the investment is going in the right area to meet stakeholders' expectations. After using the utility tool, IBM can use its CSR strategy and Assessment and Road map to improve the customers' CSR activity.

Two things I particularly liked about the press release. Firstly the quote from George Pohle, VP and global leader for business strategy consulting; "Operating a business ethically and environmentally is not only a requirement today, but also an opportunity - companies that demonstrate they adhere to the highest societal expectations of conduct have a significant advantage in attracting consumers, investment and talent". I certainly agree and it is one theme of a web cast on Green IT that I'm giving on Thursday.

The second aspect is the focus on not only doing the right thing but being seen to do it. It's just as important (if not more important) for companies to publish their CSR actions in a clear and transparent way as it is to take the actions in the first place. This is particularly true when it comes to reporting carbon emissions and reduction targets, which need to use standard methodologies in an open forum, such as the CDP or other emissions registry. This is another theme of my web cast.

If you want to take part in the web cast, email Shelly Wills at PAC (s.wills@pac-online.com).

Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics

Readers may recall that Greenpeace has been publishing a quarterly report comparing electronics manufacturers on the environmental friendliness of their products. We reported on the last quarterly edition back in March. The new edition is now out.



Greenpeace has tightened up its requirements on electronic waste (e-waste) and toxic chemicals and added new requirements for evaluating companies’ impact on climate change, so the overall scores of the 18 companies it evaluated has taken a dive. Back in March the best performers scored six or seven out of ten, but this time round only two companies, Sony Ericsson and Sony, scored more than five.

Of the pure IT players, Dell is the leader with a score of just 4.5, but ahead of the pack, including HP, with a score of 4.3.

Dell Achieves CSCI 80-Plus Gold Certification

Well the race to supply the most energy efficient hardware continues, with Dell the latest to make an announcement.

Just to explain, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) is an organisation started by Google and Intel in 2007. Participants commit to producing products that meet power-efficiency targets and corporate participants commit to purchasing them. The first target was meeting the 2007 Energy Star requirements of 80%+ efficiency of the power supply unit at various output levels. However, the targets were increasingly stringent for the following years, with a target of 90% efficiency by 2010. This is the 80+ Gold level that Dell has achieved for a server power supply a year early. (The company had already received a silver certification for desktop power supplies earlier in June).

It's heartening to see these stringent targets being beaten and shows the extent to which competition is driving the market for more energy efficient systems.

The Carbon Trust and the BCS

The Carbon Trust, which is a company set up by the UK Government to work with business and the public sector to reduce carbon emissions, has partnered with the British Computer Society (BCS), the UK's professional body for those working in IT, to develop a software tool to help companies understand the energy use in data centres.

The software is expected to be available in early 2009 and will be released through an open source license. The idea is that it will provide outputs that allow operators to manage total cost of ownership, energy efficiency and carbon emissions by service or application.