Microsoft's Big Sleep

No, we're not talking about that period of time when Microsoft didn't notice the growth of the internet and Google creeping up on it. This refers to a report in The New York Times that Microsoft is working on developing software that will shut down servers automatically when not in use. It's very like the way Alcatel-Lucent is reducing base station power use as we reported on Wednesday.

In Microsoft's case the solution is based on using more of Intel's Atom (netbook) chips, which use a lot less power but are also limited in their computing capability. Microsoft is looking for a combination of these Atom chips and sophisticated software that detects, and increasingly predicts, low server use and puts servers into sleep mode. Intelligent prediction of quiet times and early anticipation of unexpected demands can save significant amounts of power; down to 2-4 watts per server rather than the usual 28-37 watts.

The name of the this green IT project? Marlowe of course (author of The Big Sleep).


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IBM Joins Electric Car Project

IBM has announced that it has joined the EDISON (Electric Vehicles in a Distributed and Integrated Market using Sustainable Energy and Open Networks) research consortium which is collaborating in the development of an intelligent infrastructure to allow the large scale adoption of electric vehicles.

The snappily titled, Denmark-based group comprises IBM, DONG Energy (Denmark's largest energy company), Oestkraft (the regional energy company), Technical University of Denmark, Siemens, Eurisco and the Danish Energy Association. The research will be partly funded by the Danish government.

Large-scale use of electric vehicles (and Denmark expects upwards of 10% of the country's vehicles will be electric or hybrid during the coming years) requires smart technologies to control charging and billing and to ensure the stability of the overall energy system.

Researchers will develop smart technologies that synchronise the charging of the electric vehicles with the availability of wind in the grid. The technologies will initially be tested on the Danish island of Bornholm, an island of 40,000 inhabitants which has a large proportion of power supplied by wind energy.

IBM has also contributed a hardware platform for large-scale real-time simulations of the energy system and the impact of electric vehicles.


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California Ports' Clean Truck Fee

After several set-backs, two ports in California - Los Angeles and Long Beach - started collecting the Clean Truck Fee (CTF) on February 18th.

The idea is to cut diesel emissions from trucks carrying containers to and from the terminals. Trucks built before 1989 are banned from the ports and older trucks are being phased out in the coming years until the entire fleet of 17,000 trucks has 2007 or newer engines. The ports will charge $35 per container carried by a trucks made before 2007 and the fees will go towards an incentive program that gives companies $20,000 toward each new qualifying truck.

It's worth a mention for three reasons:

- It uses RFID to track truck movements, so there's an IT opportunity for similar schemes elsewhere.

- It adds another level of complication to logistics systems. If some trucks are charged and some are not then there's an extra level of complexity in planning truck usage. There will undoubtedly be much more of this as road charging schemes spread. The challenge is for logistics systems to manage these additional factors.

- It reduces pollution (the target is an 80% reduction in truck pollution at the ports).


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Methane Powered Data Centre

Well we've reported on a lot of environmentally friendly data centre proposals over the last year or two, including land facilities powered by wind and waves, floating centres using wave power, date centres where the heat output is used to power associated housing and commercial centre, etc. Now TechTarget has reported a new idea - methane power.

Apparently the mayor of Chicopee in the US would like to run a a proposed data centre using gases from landfill sites. The idea is that publishing company Dow Jones would build a national data centre in the town and the electricity could be generated from methane in the landfill.

It seems that it's been done before - Fujifilm announced in 2007 that it would use methane from a nearby landfill to help power a manufacturing plant in South Carolina. Google has also said that it would pay for the building of a methane-powered greenhouse near a data centre it’s building in North Carolina, allowing the company to claim carbon credits.

I'm not an expert, but I would have thought that landfill gas might be somewhat unreliable for data centre use - reliability being the watchword for all data centre developments. Either it would need expensive storage facilities or, more likely, the landfill will be backed up with more conventional sources.

Anyway, full marks for originality. Remember - holistic.


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Alcatel-Lucent Reduces Base Station Power

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week Alcatel-Lucent announced a new feature of its GSM/EDGE base stations that can reduce power consumption by up to 27%.

Called Dynamic Power Save (DPS), it works by the base station monitoring traffic activity on the network and when there is no information to transmit, even for very short periods of time, the power amplifier in the GSM transceiver is switched off. Because of the sensitivity of the monitoring techniques it not only works at night, when calling volumes are naturally lower, but also during busy times.

There's no increases in call blocking or reduction in packet data throughput so the service quality remains high. And because this is a software upgrade the enhancement can be installed on all Alcatel-Lucent multi-standard base stations deployed since 1999 - some 500,000 stations.

The power reductions were demonstrated in January through field trials with China Mobile. On average, a 24% power saving was achieved.

It sounds an impressive and simple way for mobile companies to save money and help save the planet. Benoit de Corn, who leads Alcatel-Lucent’s GSM/EDGE activities, certainly thinks so; “No other wireless equipment vendor in the industry can boast such an impressive power consumption profile".

Ericsson's Tower Tube design for base stations combined with a vertical turbine looks even better - the design itself reduces energy by 40%, as we reported last year. But of course its only for new base stations.


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Recommendation and Feedback

Just to say Thank You to all readers of The Green IT Review, particularly those who have signed up to receive postings by email. The number of readers continues to grow, which makes it all worth while.

Thank you also to those people who have taken the time recently to let me know they find the news and comment useful. What would help to me most though would be:

- If you enjoy the blog then recommend it to a colleague. You can send a link or email a post to a friend (using the link provided). The more readers there are the better the content can be.

- And if you have any comments on the coverage and content let me know. The more relevant it is to reader's needs the more useful it will be to everyone.

That's it. Enjoy.


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Greenstone Carbon Management

Last week I spent some time with Greenstone, which describes itself as a specialist carbon solutions company working to help clients measure, manage and mitigate carbon emissions.

Greenstone is a private company funded by a number of individual investors and run by a combination of IT people and environmental scientists - Kevin Anderson, who I mentioned in a posting a couple of weeks ago is a member of the board.

The company has spent the last two years developing its carbon accounting software solution called Acco2unt (notice the CO2 in the middle of the name - it works better with a more flexible font!). The solution enables emissions measurement and management, reporting and tracking, as well as 'what if' scenario planning and ROI estimation.

Clearly good software is essential for cost-effective carbon accounting and management. It's prohibitively expensive and inflexible to have highly qualified consultants come round once a year to measure emissions and it's this gap in the market that the company is trying to fill. But solutions also need to be comprehensive to allow for both first time carbon accounting and also for sophisticated users planning to reach specific reduction targets.

The Acco2unt solution is sold on an annual subscription basis with prices related to the level of breakdown of data required, the number of countries covered, etc. It's an online solution, which means that customers don't have to keep up to date with the latest standards and compliance requirements. The software draws on Greenstone's database of climate change impact factors to calculate the carbon according to various methodologies, including GHG protocols, national and international standards and compliance requirements.

Greenstone also provides Acco2unt to partners as a portal solution, i.e. the partners sell on to their clients whilst adding their own services.

The company is targeting prospects that have an obvious need to manage and report emissions, such as participants in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the public sector, companies that will need to conform to the UK's CRC (Carbon Reduction Commitment), etc. Those responsible for delivering the data are seen as the prime target (the CSR route tends to be avoided because of slower sales cycles).

It’s still early days for the company. Fujitsu Services in the UK is a customer and much of the proving of the software has apparently been achieved through their relationship. A half dozen clients are listed on Greenstone's web site and the company is apparently talking to a similar number of prospects, both enterprises and portal partners.

There aren't many direct competitors to the Greenstone enterprise solution. Most offerings tend to be bolted on to existing finance, supply chain, etc software, rather than cover the complete enterprise. But this will be a critical area of competition as more and more organisations start to monitor emissions.

Greenstone is keen to create a critical mass in the market as soon as possible to try and ‘own’ a piece of the carbon balance sheet business for future trading and offset requirements. That's the real challenge, though. It's going to be a tough fight, with some heavyweight software players trying to ensure they don't lose out. Ultimately we may well see smaller suppliers such as Greenstone succumb to invitations from their larger rivals who have been slower off the mark.


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OCO Crashes

Well the Orbiting Carbon Observatory didn't. It seems that the spacecraft was inside a covering to protect it during the ride into space. This structure was supposed to separate after three minutes, but the separation failed. Consequently the observatory was too heavy to make it into orbit and it splashed down near Antarctica.

At least that's the most likely explanation at the moment - an investigation board is being convened by NASA which will hopefully reach a 'most probable cause' for the failure.

There was a rather unedifying press conference in which NASA seemed somewhat unprepared for some of the questions about what happens next:

- There was no figure given for the full cost of the mission, but it had been eight years in development

- In terms of a replacing the OCO there was no information on existing spares or what would be needed to re-build.

- As to what happens next in terms of getting the sort of carbon data that the OCO was designed for, there was a non-committal response. It was pointed out that there are other related and complementary methods that could be employed. For example in January the Japanese Space Agency launched an observatory to make some measurements and algorithms have been developed than can be used with other satellites already in space. They will look at the best way to move forward using existing and future assets, future launch programmes, etc. Consequently there was no precise time delay caused by the mission failure.

- When asked about the environmental impact of the space craft falling back to earth the response was 'not much'.

The NASA press conference is here.


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NASA Launches Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)

In the early hours of tomorrow morning NASA is set to launch a new Earth-orbiting mission sponsored by the organisations Earth System Science Pathfinder Program. The plan is that the spacecraft will collect global measurements of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere to better understand how the gas gets there, provide more reliable forecasts of emissions and hence anticipated global warming

Some of the questions to be answered include:

- Where exactly is CO2 coming from and, more significantly, going to, including carbon sinks where CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere and stored?

- Why does the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by Earth's natural ocean and land sinks vary dramatically from year to year?

- Where is the "missing" carbon, i.e. the 30% percent of human-produced carbon dioxide that disappears into unknown places?


This is one aspect of Green IT that doesn't get talked about too much, but clearly there will be some very powerful computers around the world analysing the eight million CO2 measurements that the observatory will make every 16 days. (Significantly more than the current data available from a small network of instruments on the ground, in aircraft and from limited space observations).

It's also an area of IT that will grow significantly and it's not just because of a search for knowledge. Tracking carbon emissions and their short and long term impact will be an essential element of government policy making and corporate planning in the future. Phil DeCola, a senior policy analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and former Orbiting Carbon Observatory program scientist, said the mission will serve as a prototype for the next generation of greenhouse gas space missions. "The Orbiting Carbon Observatory will be an important experiment because its results will be used to develop the future long-term, space-based missions needed to monitor carbon dioxide for science and decision support," he said.


The Green IT Report offers a range of market research and consultancy services on the impact and opportunities that environmental issues represent for the ICT sector. Click here for more details.

Rackspace Announces Business Carbon Calculator

Another carbon calculator is coming, this time from Rackspace "the world’s leader in hosting". The company has announced new tools to help customers assess and reduce their environmental impacts. It's part of Rackspace’s Greenspace initiative, which was launched in 2007.

The carbon calculator was developed for Rackspace by NativeEnergy, a carbon offsets and emission reductions organisation. Customers can also access Greenspace web resources to learn more about climate change and effective steps they can take to reduce their carbon impact, including the purchase of carbon offsets.

Whilst anything that vendors can do to help make their customers more aware of their carbon emissions and to address the issue is good, I have some reservations about the plethora of carbon solutions out there (although I can't speak specifically about the Rackspace offering as I don't have any details).

The assessment of carbon emissions is a detailed and complex issue and the standards, methodology and metrics used can and will vary. Going a stage further and offering potential solutions can be even more complicated in the context of individual companies; it depends on the nature of the business and trade-offs between business procedures and processes. Simple indications of where power use can be cut (which you would have thought most companies are aware of by now) are useful for one-off, often short-term reductions but not for achieving and maintaining any ambitions, long-term targets.

My point is that any company looking to seriously manage its emissions may be better looking for a dedicated solution from an independent supplier. There are a few out there with comprehensive offerings that also provide users with effective what-if scenarios to manage emissions. (One is Greenstone Carbon Management in the UK which I visited this week - more of that in another post).


The Green IT Report offers a range of market research and consultancy services on the impact and opportunities that environmental issues represent for the ICT sector. Click here for more details.

Microsoft Aims for Green Marketing

Microsoft is working towards making its marketing activities more sustainable by aiming to achieve the first US BS 8901:2007 certification in the US for its Convergence 2009 event in New Orleans in March.

BSI 8901, the sustainable events management certificate, is aimed specifically at the events industry and covers anything from large-scale conferences and conventions down to business meetings. It's in three phases - planning, implementation and check and review - and BSI Management Systems America has announced that Microsoft has achieved Phase 1 certification. The other assessments are after the event.

This is a great example to set to the industry, where large-scale, often international, conferences are the norm. I wonder how far it goes in specifying modes of travel, though.


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Wipro's Green Solutions for Telecoms

Wipro has developed a solution designed to reduce the energy footprint in telecom test labs, which will help the equipment manufacturers green their product development process.

The 'Green Test Lab' solution combines virtualisation techniques with Wipro’s Test Automation Services (WTASTM) framework and the company is also working on lifecycle analysis (LCA) paradigms for a systematic approach to creating greener products.

“With our expertise in telecom product engineering, we offer consultancy and implementation services to address Design for Environment (DfE) issues for telecom products, operational costs and energy footprint reduction in product development life cycle for equipment vendors.” said P Subrahmanyam, Senior Vice President and Head of Telecom Equipment Business at Wipro Technologies. “Our product redesign services for energy efficiency and RoHS, REACH compliance inherently consider cost reduction possibilities for a faster ROI.” he added.

I'm not sure I entirely understand (I think they could use a little help with the PR-speak) but the intention is clear.


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Telecoms News Bites

- In an interview with a German Broadcaster, the European Commissioner for Industry has said that the European Commission is pushing mobile phone manufacturers to come up a universal charger for all mobile phones. The idea is that chargers can be transferred between phones when users upgrade, so they won't all be thrown into landfill (and it would also be cheaper for us users).

- BT has signed a three-year managed services telepresence contract with SWIFT - the financial messaging provider for more than 8,600 institutions. Under the contract BT will provide its Unified Communications Video solution which connects offices across Europe, the USA and Asia, including five Cisco TelePresence units connected via SWIFT’s own backbone. SWIFT's CFO quoted reduced carbon emissions as one reason for the move (along with efficiency and cost control).


The Green IT Report offers a range of market research and consultancy services on the impact and opportunities that environmental issues represent for the ICT sector. Click here for more details.

CleanTech Spend Optimizer

With Green IT faced with a downturn in the economy, it's useful to have a product that helps support the Green investment decision-making process.
US company Clear Standards Inc. has announced such a product, called the CleanTech Spend Optimizer, which supports organisations seeking to reduce costs and GHG emissions by implementing energy efficiency projects.

The software helps evaluate and select those projects that yield the best return on investment, given the on-going changes in energy prices, clean technologies and government policies. It provides a framework to measure the ROI of projects to help companies understand the long-term financial impact, including the price of carbon offsets or allowances based on participation in voluntary or mandatory cap and trade programs.

This seems like an ideal product for the current climate. Even with the best will in the world, it's difficult for many companies to work out where to invest in reducing energy use and CO2 emissions. Help in bringing together all the factors that can have an impact on investment decisions must be a good thing.

It will, of course, need to be kept up-to-date to be effective and can only be country-specific (I assume this is for the US market only).


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Solar-Powered Mobile Phones

According to PC World in the US, both LG and Samsung will this week unveil prototype mobile phones that are (partly) recharged by solar panels built into the case.

Samsung's phone is called Blue Earth and its environmental credentials also include being made from recycled plastic with no harmful chemicals such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs), Beryllium and phthalates. There's not much information on LG's offering, except that, as with the Samsung model, the solar cells occupy most of the rear of the phone's case.

However, the solar panels in the two phones don't actually provide enough power to run the phone, they just help recharge conventional batteries.

There's no date yet for either phone becoming commercially available.

The Green IT Report offers a range of market research and consultancy services on the impact and opportunities that environmental issues represent for the ICT sector. Click here for more details.

Green ICT Research

The Green IT Report offers a range of market research and consultancy services on the impact and opportunities that environmental issues represent for the ICT sector.

With our knowledge of ICT markets and understanding of environmental issues we can help you with:

- White papers that provide an independent view of the market and your company’s approach.

- Workshops and presentations on the current market situation, competitive landscape and/or other aspects of the market, tailored to your company’s focus.

- Competitive benchmarking, with a SWOT analysis comparing you with your competitors.

- A go-to-market assessment looking at your company’s current positioning and market perception and/or focusing on specific opportunities.

Or we can simply support your internal marketing efforts through existing research, surveys and focus groups, sector reviews, etc.

Whatever you need in Green ICT research, The Green IT Report can provide you with an independent viewpoint backed up with in-depth understanding of the market, issues and players.

To discuss your requirements call +44 1442 891419 or email me at pete.foster@thegreenitreport.com.

Powered by Google

Google has developed an application to help consumers better manage their home energy use. The company says that studies show that access to energy information results in savings of 5-15% in electricity usage. If just half the US population cut bills by 10% it would be equivalent to taking eight million cars off the roads.

The company has been lobbying for a 'smart grid' that provides both utilities and consumers with real-time energy use information, which of course means smart meters. Google goes further in pressing for open standards and protocols to drive the market. But the company is also building the tools. It has developed a tool called PowerMeter, which will show consumers their home energy information almost in real time on their computer. It's currently under test, but Google is building partnerships with utilities and independent device manufacturers to roll it out in pilot programmes.

As Google rightly points out, there is no easy solution to providing consumers with detailed energy information - it will take the combined efforts of governments, utilities, device manufacturers and software developers. But if households had the sort of real-time power usage (and cost) information shown in the chart then it will surely have a direct impact on usage.

I certainly want it.


Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details. The offer ends on Friday February 13th, so don't be unlucky ...

IBM launches Strategic Carbon Management Consulting

IBM has launched a consulting offering aimed at helping clients analyse their CO2 emissions and energy usage at all levels of an organisation.

The analysis from the Strategic Carbon Management offering covers everything from business travel to datacentres and manufacturing and distribution facilities for all or part of an organisation. It helps with strategies to reduce energy use and CO2 emissions. IBM says clients could reduce emissions by up to 50% - 15-20% for travel to up to 90% for datacentres.

If you want to take a look there's a demo here.


Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details. The offer ends on Friday February 13th, so don't be unlucky ...

CDP Data Grows in Importance

At the launch of its 2009 information request the CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) released some data about the investment companies that use the data they collect.

There are now 475 signatories, i.e. 475 institutional investors that have signed the information request sent out by CDP, up from 385 in 2008. A survey revealed that three-quarters factor climate change information into their investment decisions and asset allocations and of those 80% consider climate change to be important relative to other issues impacting their portfolio.

The survey findings revealed that:

• Four-fifths of respondents find CDP data useful and valuable

• Carbon risk and potential legislation are the primary motivators for utilising
CDP data

• CDP is the leading source of climate change information among respondents

• Corporate engagement emerged as the principal area in which investors are
currently using CDP data.

The point being that if the request lands on your desk then fill it in. To not do so risks damage to your corporate credibility.


Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details. The offer ends on Friday February 13th, so don't be unlucky ...

EU Reviving Road Tolls

According to EuroActiv, a vote in the European Parliament's transport committee today is expected to restart talks on road charging for trucks in Europe. It would allow countries to charge for the pollution and congestion they cause, with the aim of pushing freight on to less-polluting rail and waterways transport.

The transport committee will be voting on a package of amendments to the Eurovignette Directive, which is the proposed rules on how EU states could charge for road use. The EU Commission proposed the changes last July, but even after this vote real progress is not expected before the next Parliament takes office in the autumn. Even then, the proposals are voluntary, the first time that an EU directives has not been required to be implemented into national legislation within a set period.

There is more discussion of the issues surrounding the Directive in the EuroActiv article, which is here.


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News Update

- I guess it's easier for a relatively small island, but Malta is showing larger countries the way by investing €70m in installing the first national smart grid network. IBM has won the contract with Enemalta (the national electricity utility) and Water Services Corporation (WSC). Apparently 250,000 meters will be replaced by 2012.

- IBM again. This time it's the company's launch of a technical validation programme, called "Ready for IBM Energy & Environment". It's designed to help clients identify offerings from its 100,000 Business Partners that provide energy and environmental benefits.

- The Green Grid has launched new programmes, tools, metrics and reporting guidelines to help data centre managers improve the efficiency of their operations. The Data Centre 2.0 programme will cover both new data centres and retrofits and will include a recognition program for end-users reporting their PUE or DCiE measurements. The Green Grid is also launching 'The Green Grid Academy', a set of training materials to help users better understand how to deploy industry-standard metrics.


Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details. The offer ends on Friday February 13th, so don't be unlucky ...

Is Technology Pulling its Weight in the Fight Against Climate Change?

Intellect, the UK trade association for the technology sector, is running a series of events and debates this week under the general title of High Tech: Low Carbon. The name comes from the report of the same name that the organisation published a year ago - you can read it here.

The kick-off event this morning was a breakfast debate. Short speeches from Intel, the CBI, WWF, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and a University of Warwick economist were followed by a (non-attributable) open discussion.

What struck me initially about the speakers was the extent to which they simply stuck to their own perspectives. Intel on how the efficiency of technology has come on in leaps and bounds but was not being adopted by users. The CBI speaker's main concern was how British business could benefit from climate change.

Inevitably, it was the NGO speakers that brought proceedings down to earth. Dax Lovegrove, Head of Business and Industry Relations at WWF pointed out that ICT companies had done well to cut their own carbon footprints, but there is even greater opportunity to deliver reductions to customers. Companies had not focused on the enabling technologies and had also lacked leadership in promoting a low carbon economy.

Kevin Anderson, from the Tyndall Centre, had the role of pointing out the urgency of action. The two degree Celcius increase in global temperature that the EU, among others, is aiming at as an acceptable limit now looks increasingly unlikely. A four degree increase is possibly achievable if significant action starts now. Either way, though, a dramatic change in society is needed to achieve the two degree limit or to live with the four degree change.

Finally, Andrew Sentance, Professor of Sustainable Business at Warwick, pointed out the difficulty in growing economies without increasing carbon emissions, but that technology is key to moving in the right direction. Technology can provide energy and transport breakthroughs, can create increased efficiency throughout the economy and can help facilitate the sorts of changes in lifestyle that will be necessary. The key issue is that technology cannot do it alone. It requires politics, business, consumers, etc. to work together.

The point that resonated most with me was the lack of leadership shown by IT companies. Whilst they're eager to get their own house in order and make products more efficient, beyond that there is a wariness. Since IT services are increasingly intertwined with business processes, to promote Green IT services too much could be seen as either irrelevant or even anti-business. IT companies do not want to be seen as tree huggers.

It's understandable. No company wants to take a stance that could put off some customers. That's capitalism at work - lets face it it wasn't designed to have a social conscience. IT companies must be more proactive in promoting technology and services to help companies achieve emissions reductions goals - this is no time to be embarrassed about trying to save the planet. Nevertheless, they can only go so far on their own and need significant support, in terms of regulation, investment, education, etc.

If you want to take part in any of Intellect's High Tech: Low Carbon events, full details are here.

Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details. The offer ends on Friday February 13th, so don't be unlucky ...

Report - The Next Wave of Green IT

CFO Research Services has collaborated with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu on a report entitled The Next Wave of Green IT. It's based on a survey that had over 350 responses, mostly senior management, with the majority from the US but also Europe (28%) and Asia (16%).

The responses are quite interesting, although as with many surveys I've seen it's not always clear what's meant by Green IT, i.e. is it just the greening of the IT operation itself or does it include using IT to help 'green' the rest of the organisation? I think both are implied, but it's not clear in some of the survey questions and responses. The other issue is, of course, what constitutes a 'green' action, as opposed to improving efficiency and saving energy costs. A survey that explores these issues in more detail would make a significant contribution to defining the market. (If any readers are interested in pursuing this line of enquiry then The Green IT Report can certainly help - give me a call).

Anyway, one interesting chart in the report is that information and expertise are the main barriers to Green IT. The inability to make the business case and carry it through were much more likely to be reasons for not implementing Green IT than the lack of technology.



Another area that caught my eye is the extent to which various company stakeholders are concerned about the environmental impact of their business. The conclusion drawn from the responses is that those who are closest to and most responsible for managing the risk of environmental impact are most concerned, whereas other stakeholders (customers, employees and shareholders) are less likely to be concerned because they are more distant.



I think this is a little misguided. My view is that the first people to raise the issue tend to be customers, shareholders and employees (probably in that order). Management simply responds to those concerns. What bothers me about this chart is that with around 45% of each of these groups of stakeholders being seen as concerned about the issues it only translates to less than 60% concerned at board level. You would think it would create more of a stir.

There's more in the report, including differences between the US, Europe and the rest of the world, areas of Green IT investment, broader CSR issues, etc. The full report is here.


Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details. The offer ends on Friday February 13th, so don't be unlucky ...

More on Smart Energy Delivery

Continuing the smart grid theme, software companies are also picking up on the energy-tracking opportunities in the market.

On Monday SAP announced a software development agreement with Landis+Gyr, a major metering provider. The agreement will see the integration of Landis+Gyr's metering infrastructure within the SAP Utilities solution portfolio. The idea is to enable business processes from the meter to the business applications and to deliver greater availability and transparency of energy data for utilities.

Not to be left out, Oracle came out with two related press releases yesterday. One was around sales of Utilities Meter Data Management, which supports the collection and use of meter data. The other announcement related to the availability of a new version of Utilities Quotations Management, which is used to calculate, analyse and manage price quotes for customers in utilities markets.

Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details. The offer ends on Friday February 13th, so don't be unlucky ...

Trilliant Passes the Million

The smart grid is gaining momentum in the US with Trilliant, which provides advanced metering and smart grid solutions, reporting that it has deployed over a million intelligent devices.

These two-way communication devices help create an energy grid which allows greater energy efficiency, more efficient utility delivery and better integration of renewable resources, which all helps to reduce carbon emissions.

It's an aim of many countries to have a smart grid in place - it's become a political football in the UK, for example, and the recent US Congress economic stimulus package called for $32bn directed at improving the US transmission grid, $4.5bn of which is directed specifically at smart grid programmes and grants, both for utilities and their customers.


Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details. The offer ends on Friday February 13th, so don't be unlucky ...

Tidal Power Data Centre for Scotland

One I missed from a couple of weeks ago is the news that Atlantis Resources Corporation, a Singapore-based company that develops technology to get renewable energy from tidal power, has formed a strategic alliance with Internet Villages International (IVI), a data centre builder based in Scotland.

The two companies are working with economic development agencies and other partners to identify sustainable regeneration opportunities in the areas around Atlantis’ data centre at Pentland Firth in Caithness and IVI’s data centre in Dumfries and Galloway.

The available renewable power in Scotland, from both wind and tide, seems to be making it a centre of attention for new, renewable energy-based data centres. In December I reported on the plans to build the world's largest data centre in Lockerbie, which will not only use renewable energy but also has plans to re-use the output heat in new homes and commercial developments.


Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details.

Intel Tops Green Power Partnership Table (again)

The EPA Green Power Partnership has released its latest ranking of US organisations according to their purchases of green power. (Note that this is US organisations only, with energy sourced from US green sources. Also, green energy covers Renewable Energy Certificates (REC), on-site generation and green power supplied by utilities).

Anyway, Intel once again tops the list with 1.3 billion kWh of green energy purchased (primarily through RECs). It represents 47% of Intel's energy use in the US. Intel is closely followed by PepsiCo, which uses 100% green energy.

Things have changed somewhat behind these leaders, though, particularly for IT players. Last year Cisco was the second placed IT player with 374 million kWh purchased. This year the companies green power use is a little higher (386 million kWh), but has been easily overtaken by Dell, with 553 million kWh purchased, up from just 13 million last year. According to the rankings, Dell now buys 158% of its total electricity use from green sources. (No, I don't know how that works either, but it may be because the purchase figures are based on annualised contract amounts, not calendar year totals).

Further down the list their are other changes. AMD is in 19th place (of the Fortune 500 corporations included), HP in 22nd (with 50 million kWh purchased - the same as last year). IBM seems to have reduced its green purchases, with only just over 11 million kWh, compared with 110 million last year (which could be a matter of timing), whilst Apple continues to purchase 9 million kWh. Oracle and Yahoo are also in the top 50 (at 37 and 44 respectively).


Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details.

Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy

McKinsey has published an interesting report looking at the actions that might be most effective in delivering the sorts of emissions reductions that are needed to keep global warming within a two degrees Celcius limit and what those actions would cost. It gives an idea of the opportunities and costs across regions and sectors, although there is obviously a great deal of estimation going on.


The report doesn't specifically refer to the impact of ICT, although the abatement cost curve does give some pointers, but its interesting reading for its insight into what can be done. The report is here.


Don't forget - a pdf of all the 2008 blogs is available with news, comment and links to a range of sources. Click here for more details.