Greenpeace Cool IT challenge results

Greenpeace has launched its Cool IT Challenge, which scores IT companies on the extent to which they are helping to tackle climate change.

I like the way Greenpeace is doing this, because it acknowledges that IT companies have an important role to play in helping the whole economy reduce emissions. (Greenpeace says IT can help cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2020, but I would argue that the figure could be a lot higher). Anyway,IT companies are judged in three areas:

- 50% of the score measures the extent to which they are providing climate solutions to other parts of the economy, such as smarter transport, building energy efficiency and smart grids. It is certainly true that some companies have been slow in putting forward solutions, waiting for the market to come to them. I've made the point in previous blogs.

- 35% is down to the extent to which IT companies are advocating and lobbying for a strong global climate deal to be brokered at the UN negotiations in Copenhagen at the end of the year. I agree with the sentiment, but wouldn't restrict it to lobbying at Copenhagen. Regular readers will know I would like to see IT companies make their views known around specific country legislation that could have a positive or negative impact on emissions.

- 15% measures how much companies are reducing their own carbon footprints, including using renewable energy. Again, I agree. Much has already been done in this area, generating lots of PR - the focus is now elsewhere.

(The assessment leaves out one other aspect, i.e. product-related emissions, but Greenpeace does cover this in its quarterly 'Guide to Greener Electronics' rankings).

So whilst the assessment looks good, the actual scores for the first round do not reflect well on the industry. Only eight companies scored in double figures (out of a possible score of 100), led by IBM, Sun, Dell and Cisco. The full details of the survey and scores are here. The next assessment is due in August/September.

I'm in two minds about this. I applaud the scoring criteria, but the low scores suggest an industry that doesn't care, which is far from the case, at least among the major players. They do have to walk a fine line between promoting green solutions and doing business, and I think most would say that there is limited 'pure' green business out there. On the other hand, having an established market position will be paramount when the sector does mature, so those that lead are very likely to reap the benefits in the long term.


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.

The impact of carbon legislation on data centres/IT services

In a blog last Friday I mentioned that there is concern in the data centre industry about the future impact of emissions legislation. Government action on emissions reduction has the potential to significantly impact data centre users and providers, with a knock-on impact on IT services as a whole.

The UK's Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) is a case in point. It's a mandatory, cap-and-trade emissions reduction scheme aimed at companies who’s electricity consumption exceeds 6,000 MWh in 2008 and are not included in other schemes, e.g. the EU ETS. The main details are as follows:

- Companies will need to monitor all emissions and complete an annual report. The expectation is that 20,000 companies will need to make information disclosures to see if they need to participate, with 4,000-5,000 companies expected to be included in the scheme.

- Participants will have to buy allowances equivalent to their emissions, initially with a three year fixed-price introductory phase. First sale is in April 2011, covering 2010 and 2011 emissions

- The capped phase and full auctioning will start in 2013. The price of allowances will be dependent on demand each year.

- Companies can trade allowances, so additional allowances can be bought at auction.

- A league table of company performance will be published, based on changes in emissions relative to previous years and changes in emissions per unit turnover/revenue.

- Bonus/penalty will be made based on positions in the table (the scheme will be revenue neutral). Companies will receive a repayment proportional to 2010/2011 emissions ranging from +/- 10% in the first year to +/- 50% in the third year of the scheme.


How will it impact the IT industry? The requirement suggests that any company running a data centre of more than 5,000 square feet/c120 racks will be included (but the scheme will cover all the company's emissions).

Won't companies move their data centres offshore? It's possible that some might, but most large corporations probably won't want to be seen avoiding their emissions responsibility in this way. In any case, schemes will spread - the UK government is talking to other countries interested in adopting similar initiatives.

Will there be a move to outsource to pass the commitment on? That is more likely. By using someone else's facilities the responsibility passes to that supplier, so the use of hosted/managed data centre space is likely to increase.

Is that good news for the data centre industry? Yes and no. The down side is that more business means more emissions. Hence data centre companies will be low down on the league tables and lose out on bonuses. Estimates are that energy costs could be 7-9% higher by 2015 (relative to 2010) as a result of the scheme and companies will also be seen to be poor environmental performers.

Can the cost be passed on to customers? Clearly higher energy costs will mean higher charges by data centre providers. New contracts are likely to reflect expected changes, although existing long-term contracts could cause problems for providers. In the longer term data centre companies may choose to install electricity meters on racks and charge customers more directly.

What about managed services, e.g. Software as a Service? Well all services that use data centres will potentially be impacted, so the implications will be felt across the IT services sector.

There are other questions and implications of the scheme too detailed to go into here, but it is in its final consultation phase in the UK and unlikely to change significantly. The UK ICT industry was slow to get involved in the discussions, something that other countries could learn from.

If readers have any specific examples of the implications of such legislation for their business then we would be interested to hear.

And as always, get in touch if you would like to better understand how climate change is impacting the IT sector and players and the implications and opportunities for your company.



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.

Company news - Intel

Intel is another company that participates in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). CCX is the US cap and trade system in which members make a legally binding commitment to reduce their emissions by 6% by 2010 compared to a baseline of average annual emissions from 1998 to 2001.

Intel is also a member of the EPA’s Climate Leaders program and has a goal to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 30% per unit of production from 2004 through 2010. According to its CSR report, at the end of 2008 it was on track to meet the goal, having reduced emissions 40% below 2004 levels on a per chip basis.



In 2008, the company set an additional goal to reduce the absolute CO2 impact of operations 20% below 2007 levels by 2012. In fact in 2008 absolute emissions were down 26% compared with 2007, while emissions on a per chip basis were down 23%. However, approximately two-thirds of the decrease was the result of purchasing renewable energy credits. The focus really needs to be on less use of energy all round.


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.

Company news - Dell

Dell has come out top of 40 IT companies in the Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI) Benchmark Report for 2009 from US company Technology Business Research. Apparently the company scored particularly well in areas of renewable energy, recycling and embedded sustainability strategy.



The analysis is based on an assessment of more than 100 discrete sustainability factors and metrics covering energy, emissions, recycling and transparency.

According to the press release, as well as its overall top finish, Dell took the lead among Computing Sector vendors. Other sector leaders include BT (265.2) in telecom/networking, Microsoft (168.0) in software and Wipro (131.0) in professional services. The full report will be available on June 1st.



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.

Company news - Motorola

Motorola, in its recent CRS report, says that it supports global mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions by at least 50% below 1990 levels by 2050 (a commendable viewpoint, but it might be better to be more precise about the target).

The company's own strategy includes absolute and normalised goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from operations by 15% per million dollars of sales by 2010, compared with 2005, and to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 6% percent by 2010, compared with 2000 (required to meet the company's Chicago Climate Exchange commitment).

In 2008, Motorola's carbon footprint (GHG scope 1 and 2) totaled 535,377 tonnes CO2, compared to 671,791 tonnes in 2005 (a 20% reduction). However, normalised emissions decreased by only 2.6% in 2008 due to weaker sales. The chart gives the details and the full report is here.

Whilst Motorola is clearly making progress, it seems to be mostly down to a reduction in business. In any case, it is absolute reductions that should be the target - normalised targets are not going to allow the company to match the 50% reduction of emissions by 2050 that it supports once the economy starts to pick up.



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.

Company news - Ericsson

Last year Ericsson committed to a 40% reduction in carbon emissions per subscriber in five years, starting with a 10% reduction in 2009. The target includes emissions from in-house activities as well as the life-cycle impacts of products sold.

According to the company's recent CSR report, annual CO2 per subscriber on Ericsson networks has fallen from 90 kg in 1992 to 20kg in 2008 for GSM and 55 kg in 2001 to 25 kg in 2008 for 3G users. But the company's most significant indirect carbon impact is from its products. In 2008, lifetime CO2 emissions from radio base stations and other products rose to approximately 24 Mtons, from approximately 22 Mtons in 2007, primarily due to an increase in the number of units produced. The chart shows the company's assessment of life-cycle emissions.



So limited success for Ericsson thus far, particularly since the emissions reductions goals have to be absolute if we're going to save the planet.


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 data centres

Following on from the previous blog, data centres are coming in for increasing focus for their energy use. There are already several organisations that are working on how to make them more efficient, notable The Green Grid, which announced in February its design guide for building and operating energy-efficient data centres. It's aimed at both new and refurbished data centres and will provide some sort of certification based on the Green Grid's own PUE (Power Usage Efficiency) and DCiE (Data Centre infrastructure Efficiency) metrics.

Legislation is likely to have the biggest impact, though. For example the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres, published last October, may well be a forerunner of specific legislation. Perhaps more significantly, at least in terms of the data centre industry, will be more general carbon reduction legislation.

A few days ago Digital Realty Trust, 'the world's largest wholesale data centre provider' published the results of a survey into green data trends which it carries out each year. In the press release around the findings, the company's CTO, Jim Smith, is quoted as saying "What dominated last year's study was the need for clearer standards and best practices for green data centres. There has been significant progress in that area over the past year. By contrast, what dominates this year's study is companies' concerns about potential government regulation and how that would impact data centre operations."

The survey findings included:

- 69% of survey participants said they were extremely or very concerned about government regulation.

- 81% said that carbon credits are now part of their green IT strategy - compared to only 18% percent in 2008.

- 53% said that the industry now has a clear definition of what makes a datacenter green, compared to 82% in the 2008 survey who said that there was no clear definition.

- 73% of survey participants identified "energy efficiency" as the key aspect of a green datacenter.

I've been involved in several discussions in recent weeks about the impact of legislation on the sector, particularly the Carbon Reduction Comittment (CRC) which is fast approaching law in the UK. It's an emissions cap and trade system which is likely to be the forerunner of similar systems around the world. It will have an impact on almost every company with a data centre and has significant implications on data centre providers, both financially and in other ways.

More next week.



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.

Energy Star server specification

Energy Star, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rating for energy use, has released the specification for computer servers. It came into effect at the start of this week and the first qualifying products are expected to be listed on the site shortly. Details are here.

The ratings relate to a range of energy-saving requirements. The efficiency of the power supply and the power consumed when the server is idle are major aspects, but the specification also includes the means to provide real time information on power use and other factors that help manage the power the server uses.

Servers with up to four processors and at least one hard drive are included. There is some concern, though, around servers shipped through the channel without drives that are configured (or reconfigured) by the channel, so purchasers are urged to check the configuration matches that associated with the rating.

The EPA maintains that servers that qualify will be 30% more efficient than those that don't and expects 25% of current servers shipped will qualify for the logo.

It has come in for some criticism because of the focus on idle time and also for the fact that blade servers are not included, which is often a route to a greener data centre. The EPA says this is the first attempt at a rating and there is apparently a further, tier 2, specification to cover servers in use, due next January. Blade servers may also be included within a couple of months.

Energy Star is also working on a rating for storage equipment and network hardware is likely to be covered at some point.

Obviously highly commendable, the problem is that it does just focus on individual pieces of equipment and does not differentiate between solutions, e.g. the use of blades. At this stage it reflects a stand-alone server market approach, whereas most are in large scale commercial environments. Still, there's lots of other activity in this area which I'll comment on shortly.


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.

SAP smart grid announcements

SAP has made two announcements down the road to smart grid solutions (at least in the US):

- The general availability of the company's AMI Integration for Utilities software. (AMI stands for advanced metering infrastructure). The solution enables the acquisition of metering data and the management of bi-directional communication processes between smart devices and SAP Business Suite software. The company says that it means utilities will be able to promote improved energy efficiencies to their customers by linking sales, service and billing processes within the SAP Customer Relationship and Billing for Utilities package to smart meters.

- A packaged dashboard developed in cooperation with StreamServe that enables utilities to monitor their costs to service their customers, modeling how to reduce these costs and the related environmental impact. (StreamServe's solutions help compose and automate business communications).

David Laker, senior vice president and general manager, Utilities Practice, SAP America, Inc. is quoted as saying; "The plan to revolutionise the nation's electric grid will demand a serious commitment to upgrading the way utilities and consumers interact with one another. These developments reflect our commitment to that goal as well as helping the nation's utilities find ways to run leaner and more efficiently."

I've been sceptical in the past about SAP's commitment to supporting the reduction of carbon emissions, mainly because it seemed very slow off the mark for a company that is likely to be a central player in carbon management inside enterprises. It does seem that the company has got the message now, though and its great to see it lining itself up with what's coming, rather than waiting to see. By starting the process of accommodating the move to smart grids the company is giving encouragement to the market as well as positioning itself for the benefits in the future. A win-win situation.


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.

US climate policy tracker

The New America Foundation, a not-for-profit public policy institute in the US has released an online tool that provides state-by-state information on carbon and energy saving policies being implemented across the country.



The State Climate Policy Tracker was compiled from publicly available information from the 33 US states that have actions in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Tracker is a spreadsheet with a tab for each state that has completed or is in the process of completing a climate action plan.

The measures in the Tracker are organized according to the economic sectors used by states in their planning:

- Energy Efficiency and Conservation (Residential, Commercial, Industrial)
- Clean and Renewable Energy, Energy Supply
- Transportation and Land Use
- Agriculture, Forestry and Waste Management
- Water
- Education
- Cross-Cutting issues (i.e. Inventories, Cap and Trade)


This looks like a very useful tool for those who provide the sorts of solutions that can help the states reach their goals.

More information and links to the Tracker are here. The Centre for Climate Strategies is another non-profit group which is helping state governments (across party lines) to help build agreement on climate action. The Centre for Climate Strategies (the source for the chart above) is here.


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.

Solar/WiFi benches

Here's an interesting possibility reported by Treehugger. As yet it's only a concept, but the idea is that these open air benches have solar panels that provide power for WiFi access and for lighting at night. All made of recycled materials, of course.



Sounds like a good idea and would add to the increasing spread of WiFi availability. But I wouldn't be the first one to point out that the solar panels are placed on the top - where people sit. If the benches prove very popular then lots of people will use them, which means they will be obscuring sunlight from the solar panels, which means less power available for the WiFi ....


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.

Ericsson and the WWF in smart telecoms collaboration

Ericsson and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Sweden have announced a partnership aimed at encouraging the smart use of telecom solutions across industries to reduce global CO2 emissions.

The collaboration is based on the belief that the smart use of broadband-enabled services can reduce CO2 emissions by a factor of 10-100, i.e. the use of a telecom service that emits 1kg of CO2 may enable a reduction of 10-100kg of CO2.

The partnership covers three areas:

- a methodology for calculating CO2 savings
- the integration of low-carbon telecommunication solutions in climate strategies for cities
- a support platform for partnerships that promote a low-carbon economy.

Apparently WWF in Sweden and Ericsson have been working together for seven years. Part of this new initiative is to get ICT on the global policy agenda for the Copenhagen climate conference later this year.

The announcement (see here) is a bit short on practical detail, but commendable all the same.

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.

Logica launches sustainability reporting tool

Logica has announced the launch of its Sustainability Indicator Reporting Application (SIRA), aimed at helping organisations comply with current and future legislative reporting requirements.

It's described as a flexible, scalable and transparent solution that manages a range of sustainability and environmental impact indicators, based on internationally recognised standards, and provides targeting and reporting. The software is underpinned by data management and analytics from Kalido.

Judith Halkerston, UK Managing Director for Energy, Utilities and Telecoms at Logica said: “Organisations today need to navigate their way through a maze of international environmental regulation, with a number of FTSE companies now actively reporting on their sustainability performance. Often, this requires a significant investment in resource and raises challenges to present the data in an intuitive and engaging manner. SIRA is designed to be implemented quickly and flexibly and will help an organisation identify immediate improvements and savings in its sustainability reporting, as well as reducing risk and exposure to potential fines".

It's certainly a booming sector. Just looking at the Carbon Emissions Management Software (CEMS) market (which we hope to be reporting on later in the year), there are now close to 50 competitive products available from a standing start not much more than two years ago.

Logica already partners with environmental company CarbonSim to offer the company's emissions inventory and compliance management solution, called Emissions Logic. SIRA appears to be a broader solution, rather than a new in-house offering, but there doesn't appear to be any more details published as yet.

Anyway, Logica is putting its money where its mouth is and implementing SIRA internally in the UK in 2009. Logica maintains that it has already saved approximately £3.6m over two years in energy costs and £7m in travel costs, as well as avoiding almost £5m in travel costs through increased use of video and teleconferencing.


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.

Google's energy use

You may recall the story about a Google search generating as much CO2 as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea. As we reported here, it turned out to be more of a storm in a tea cup.

Now, though, in a blog by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations, Google has supplied some comparisons of the emissions from everyday activities compared with the equivalent number of Google searches. Chapter and verse is here, but summarised in the chart below.


The blog goes on to say that Google's efforts to cut its energy use means that "....in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will likely use more energy than we will use to answer your query". So now it's your turn.


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.

SAP acquires Clear Standard

In a sign of things to come, SAP has announced that it is acquiring Clear Standards, Inc, a private US company providing enterprise carbon management solutions. Clear Standards is one of a long (and growing) list of companies providing software to help organisations measure, optimise and report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental impacts. Often solutions are web-based, as is the case with Clear Standards.

SAP is looking to Clear Standards to help it accelerate its carbon management offering "in this time of increasingly stringent government regulations and expectations for better transparency by the public".

SAP says that it will enable Clear Standards to tap into financial and other data stored in enterprise solutions such as SAP Business Suite 7 software and the SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management application.

This is interesting for several reasons. Firstly, it signals the fact that enterprise software companies may not have the sorts of comprehensive solutions that the market needs, or that they can't develop them in time to meet market demand. In my discussion with SAP last year the company maintained it would develop the functionality as and when required. This acquisition suggests it proved more difficult than expected.

The danger for the likes of SAP is also that companies providing carbon management solutions might encroach upon the ERP space where enterprise solutions providers have made their name.

I also suspect that this move signals the start of a number of such acquisitions, which will gather pace as the market accelerates under legislation and stakeholder pressure. There are quite a few companies like Clear Standards in the market, but few that have comprehensive and mature products. There will be increasing competition for those that have.


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.

UK smart meter plans

In October 2008 the UK government announced that it intends to mandate electricity and gas smart meters for all households. Yesterday it set out its plans for smart metering in domestic households and at small and medium non-domestic sites in a consultation document, which is here.

The consultation makes proposals in two areas, the market arrangements for installing and managing smart meters and smart meter functionality.

The document points out that the roll out of smart meters will be a major undertaking, involving visits to over 25 million households to replace around 50 million meters. However, there is an indicative target of completing the roll out by 2020. Benefits of completing the process in that time are estimated to be between £2.5bn and £3.6bn over the next 20 years and a reduction in UK carbon emissions of about 2.6 million tonnes per year by 2020.

The Government’s current preferred approach is to make the gas and electricity supply companies responsibility for the provision of smart meters (installation and ongoing management) and to have a single central provider of communications services to and from meters.

In terms of functionality of the meters, the chart below summarises the proposals. Interoperability, based on an agreed set of functional requirements, is an integral part of the proposals.


For non-domestic metering, a consultation on advanced/smart metering for small and medium sized sites started in July 2008. The assumption was that metering in this sector would be provided under the existing competitive metering market rules, which allows for the right to change metering providers and, in some cases, for meters to be owned by customers. In terms of roll out, similar plans to the domestic market are envisaged.

The government also proposes to introduce a general requirement that metering in this sector should have the same minimum functionality as in the domestic sector, but allowing some flexibility for customers for whom domestic-style smart meters are inappropriate to their businesses. In terms of interoperability, the approach used in the domestic market is likely to apply in the non-domestic sector.

At least the discussion has started and there will certainly be lots to talk about. Unfortunately some of the press reports to date have made it sound like a trivial process, providing little benefit, increased energy charges and a potential government-backed fiasco.

The fears are understandable, but it is widely recognised that smart meters help reduce energy and hence carbon emissions. It's pretty much an essential part of getting emissions under control (for everyone), so the sooner the better. What is more surprising is that the benefits to the ICT industry are not more widely recognised. Counting and reporting energy use and carbon emissions will be a major requirement in the coming years and smart meters will add enormous functionality to the IT solutions.


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.

UK public sector is failing to reduce emissions

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC - the UK Government's independent adviser on sustainable development) has released a critical report on the public sector achievements to date in addressing climate change.

It compares progress against the Sustainable Operations Targets, which were launched in June 2006 by the Prime Minister - the full plan is here, but the chart below show the main climate change and energy aspects.



The report on progress is called 'Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) 2008: Challenges for Government' and can be seen here. Some of the main findings include:

- A 6.3% reduction in carbon emissions from offices since the baseline year. Whilst this is an improvement of 2.3% from 2006/7, government is still not on track to meet its carbon emissions from offices target.

- A reduction in carbon emissions from road vehicles of 10.3% since the baseline year. This is an improvement on 2006/07 results (which demonstrated a 1.5% increase) and also means that government is on track to meet its target.

- A 7.2% improvement in energy efficiency per m2 from the baseline year. Although this represents some progress, performance is down from 2006/07, when an improvement of 21.7% in energy efficiency per m2 from the baseline year was reported.

So it's not all bad news in terms of achievements, but the report does go on to criticise the proliferation of reporting methodologies, confusing governance structures and poor data quality.

Among the main issues that the report concludes with are the findings that:

- The government is not leading by example, or contributing enough to UK wide emissions target, as it is not currently on track to meet its own carbon
emissions from offices target.

- The full carbon impact of government’s operations and procurement, including the supply chain, has not been quantified. Full and accurate carbon footprinting is essential if emissions are to be reduced and sustainability goals are to be achieved.


In a country where emissions reduction is now enshrined in law (with CRC coming in next year) these are pretty damning comments. Clearly the public sector needs to do a lot more and quickly. I suspect the UK is not alone in its failings, either.

The implications are that the public sector will be increasingly looking for the ways and means to achieve targets and ICT will be a significant factor. It will need the software to manage its carbon footprint and IT to help generate reductions. It will involve both new contracts and close scrutiny of existing arrangements for potential emissions reductions. It's an opportunity for new public sector suppliers, but could be a challenge for existing contract holders.


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.

Corporations take a stand

In my blog on Tuesday I pointed out that some company bosses in the UK are starting to stand up and be counted around specific government policies with climate change implications, which has not been the case in the past (particularly among IT companies). It appears that something similar is happening in the US, although in the context of broader trade groups.

Political commentators Politico reports that the US Chamber of Commerce is coming in for some criticism from its members for its strong stand against some of the proposals in the pending global warming legislation in the US.

Johnson & Johnson and Nike are among more than 35 major corporations that object to the Chamber's position, apparently Johnson & Johnson has written to the Chamber asking it to restrict comments on climate change to "reflect the full range of views, especially those of Chamber members advocating congressional action.” Other letters may well be on the way and there is also talk of withholding dues from the Chamber in protest.

According to the article, Peter Altman, climate campaign director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, has analysed the views of the Chamber's members and concluded that 99 of the 122 companies represented on the Chamber’s board have not taken a public position on global warming, whilst 19 support regulation and four oppose or disagree with the science behind it.

What would be really interesting would be to see which of the major IT companies that belong to the Chamber have also objected to its stand and made their views known. Hopefully all of them.


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.

Yet more on smart grids

- In an article on earth2tech, Katie Fehrenbacher says that Ray Bell, former Cisco networking executive and founder of Grid Net, a smart meter software company, is backing WiMAX as the means to build out a smart grid. WiMAX is the wireless technology increasingly seen as an alternative option for mobile networks.

Grid Net builds an open-standard, WiMAX-based smart meter. The appeal of the open standards is that third parties will be able to build applications and devices, making the grid more useful and driving down prices. A number of companies already back WiMAX, including Intel, GE, Sprint, Google and some cable firms.

But, as the article points out, many questions remain, such as whether Grid Net will be using national WiMAX networks or partnering with WiMAX network builders for utility-owned networks. In any case, the success of WiMAX is still far from certain, given the competing technologies, particularly the ubiquitous presence of GSM and its derivatives.

- IBM Global Financing, the company's lending and leasing business, is making up to $2bn available to finance IT initiatives tied to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The company says its consulting and technology business units are already helping enterprises build out their infrastructure around some of the key stimulus areas identified in the Act - Smart Grid, Health Information Technology and Broadband Access.

- Of course smart grids are not to everyone's taste. In the UK the National Grid has long-term contracts with major energy suppliers to supply and maintain gas meters and these contracts include penalties if suppliers replace more than the small number of meters allowed under contract. The net result has been to restrict the rate at which suppliers can replace older meters with cheaper or more advanced, smarter meters from rival competing meter operators.

Ofgem (Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets) the regulator of the gas and electricity industries in Great Britain ruled that the National Grid was in breach of competition law and that decision has been upheld by a Competition Appeal Tribunal, which has fined National Grid £30m (although less than the £41.6m that Ofgem set).

Unfortunately there will always be vested interests that obstruct the progress to a greener world, but hopefully the urgency will prevail (and increasingly questions will be asked at shareholder meetings).


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.

Tandberg's carbon reduction tips

Tandberg 'the leading global provider of telepresence video conferencing and mobile video solutions' has published a list of ten ways in which video conferencing can reduce a company's carbon footprint.

Tandberg claims that its 1,400 employees conduct more than 75,000 video conferencing and telepresence calls monthly (which works out at an average of more than two each per working day, which is surprising). The company also maintains that its customers find they can reduce the need to travel by up to 30%. It cites delivery company TNT which implemented video conferencing estimated to cut travel by 20%, saving €11m over four years and significantly reducing carbon emissions.

Anyway, the ten tips are:

1. Telecommuting – Enable people to work from home. Save on real estate and operational costs, while increasing productivity and morale of employees (no traffic).

2. Access to Remote Experts – Connecting customers and employees to experts and advisors face-to-face through video communications saves time, money and carbon emissions, and increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.

3. Global Meetings – There’s no need for everyone to take a long flight. Just a short walk down the hall or a quick call from the desk and everyone can meet face-to-face without the carbon emissions.

4. Customer Briefing Centres – Video communication unites purchasers, clients, sales staff and engineers in real time to facilitate instant decision making and collaboration, whilst reducing the negative environmental impacts from travel.

5. Work/life Balance – Employees who are always on the road often report more stress, less productivity and reduced job satisfaction. Using video instead increases morale, productivity, and collaboration.

6. Distance Learning – Schools, hospitals and other training facilities get an added lesson in conservation when they connect via video conferencing to remote institutions to enhance learning opportunities and save on costs.

7. Research and Development - Designers and researchers around the globe can hold live face-to-face discussions about product design and carry out component modifications during video meetings.

8. Team Building – Multiple offices don’t have to mean isolated teams. Video conferencing helps enhance collaboration and build camaraderie without associated wastes of travel.

9. HR Recruiting – Initial face-to-face screenings of out-of-town candidates by video can cut costs and carbon emissions whilst allowing managers to read candidates’ facial expressions.

10. Real-time Collaboration – Organisations can deal with large amounts of rich data and collaborate in real-time from multiple locations with the visual and multi-media capabilities of video conferencing.


Clearly they had to stretch a point to make it up to 10 tips, but it does demonstrate a variety of ways that videoconferencing can have a positive impact on an organisation, as well as saving travel costs and carbon emissions. It will certainly become ubiquitous in the future and an increasing important aspect of corporate ICT.


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.

UK businesses unprepared for CRC

In what could presage the introduction of legislation in other countries, a survey has shown that two thirds of Britain's bosses are unaware of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC).

The CRC is a UK scheme which addresses CO2 emissions not already covered by Climate Change Agreements and the EU Emissions Trading System. Organisations will qualify as a CRC participant based on their half hourly electricity usage and participants will have to purchase allowances equivalent to their emissions each year. Around 20,000 organisations may be affected by the scheme which is due to start in April 2010.

The survey, by Business in the Community and available here, was commissioned to coincide with the Prince's May Day Summit last week, the UK's largest gathering of businesses committed to taking action on climate change. Among the findings were:

- Only 29% of UK senior executives are aware that their organisations will be affected by CRC.

- Larger firms are more likely to have taken first steps. Among firms with £10m+ turnover 54% of bosses have measured emissions, 62% have set targets to reduce them, 61% have audited energy consumption.

- 32% of bosses say their organisations need advice and support to meet CRC requirements. Surprisingly, the need is greatest among large organisations: 43% with turnover of £5m+ and 46% with 250+ employees.

- Most (54%) of the UK’s bosses have not yet considered whether their organisations should modify their processes to prepare for climate change. The figure is 74% for organisations with fewer than 50 employees.

- 30% of decision makers say their organisations do not do anything on climate change. One in five (21%) admitted that climate change is not even on the agenda.

- Only 36% of UK bosses say their organisations have audited their energy consumption, 30% say they have measured carbon emissions and 35% have set targets to reduce them (which suggests that some organisations have set targets without knowing their current emissions levels!). In any case, 71% of the UK’s directors and board members say they don’t externally report their emissions.

- Manufacturing, engineering and utilities firms are more likely to have measured their carbon emissions and have reduction targets, but even here only just over half (54%) of bosses say they have done so. These firms are likely to have audited their energy consumption because of the impact on the bottom line.


The results are generally disappointing for the lack of awareness and action, but they also give an indication of the backlog of activity that is likely to build as CRC introduction approaches. If Defra's estimate of companies affected is right, then the survey suggests that over 14,000 companies will need to put carbon counting and management systems in place over the next 11 months and nearly 6,500 already freely admit they need help.

It's almost inevitable that the need to count and manage emissions will spread to all businesses, either through regulation/legislation or simply market pressure. It represents a huge opportunity for the software providers that are springing up to supply the market.



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.

Businesses take climate change stand

If you've read this blog regularly you may have seen my criticism of companies for not taking a stand on specific climate change-related policy. ICT companies will typically join groups of like-minded companies to collaborate on industry initiatives or lobby government around general policy. What is not common (indeed unknown, in my experience) is for a company to take a stand around a specific policy, for fear of upsetting a client or section of industry that could represent future business.

Well things may change. The Guardian reported yesterday that a group of UK businessmen have expressed opposition to the controversial third runway at Heathrow airport. These include CEO of DIY retailer Kingfisher, the head of Credit Suisse in the UK and Sainsbury's boss. More significantly, Charles Dunstone, of Carphone Warehouse 'Europe's leading independent communications retailer' and Jon Moulton, of private equity company Alchemy partners, which has an ICT focus, are also signatories to an open letter asking the UK government to reconsider their decision to allow the runway.

The group is looking for other companies to join them. If they get support then they will look to meet with government ministers to put their case.

It's a great opportunity for other like-minded ICT companies to stand up and be counted. Hopefully it will also start a trend of companies and leaders being more open in their support (or otherwise) of climate change policy.


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.

Is the Internet too power hungry?

Two articles appeared in The Guardian over the weekend that are worth a mention. The first was a full page item about how much power the internet uses and the consequences. The paper quotes Subodh Bapat, vice-president at Sun Microsystems as saying that "In an energy-constrained world, we cannot continue to grow the footprint of the internet … we need to rein in the energy consumption". He goes on to say that "We need more data centres, we need more servers. Each server burns more watts than the previous generation and each watt costs more".

The article goes on to say that a secondary result is that the computer industry's carbon emissions are increasing drastically and 'leapfrogging other sectors like the airline industry that are more widely known for their negative environmental impact'.

One issue the article raises is that tracking internet energy use is difficult because company power consumption are rarely made public. Rich Brown, an energy analyst at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California, is quoted as saying "Google is probably the best example: they see it as a trade secret: how many data centres they have, how big they are, how many servers they have." Although it does go on to say that "Google was among the first internet companies to take action to reduce its footprint by developing its own data centres — but even though it pumped an estimated $2.3bn into infrastructure projects last year, it remains unclear whether it is winning the battle".


I know this is just journalism, but the article does confuse a number of significant points about green IT that should to be part of a serious debate:

- Firstly, the problem is with data centres as a whole. The article mentions the likes of Google and YouTube, but these 'internet companies' represent only one area of internet use and an even smaller proportion of data centres (if anyone has actual figures I would be interested to hear). The article quotes one study that suggested that US data centres used 61bn kilowatt hours of energy in 2006, 1.5% of the entire electricity usage of the US. Every company of any size will have some sort of data centre and they all contribute to this total.

- The use of the internet is not just additional power use. The growth of software as a service (SaaS) is partly because of the reduced need for resources on the end-users' desks. With greater efficiency at the data centre, the net result should be a saving in energy use (although that might depend on circumstances). Similarly, virtual desktops generated at data centres have the capability to reduce desktop power use.

- 'Each server burns more watts than the previous generation' is not necessarily true and certainly doesn't need to be. Server energy is coming under closer scrutiny as manufacturers publish energy consumption (and TCO) figures and the new Energy Star rating for servers is due this month, which will add significant weight.

- A great deal is being done to reduce data centre power; it's the focus of much of green IT activity and for renewable energy schemes. See blogs on proposed centres in Lockerbie and also a tidal-powered data centre.

- It is true that Google is reluctant to talk about its power use, withholding data from the CDP for example, and can (and should) be criticised for that. Nevertheless, the company is active around climate change (as a search of this blog will show). Google is, in any case, a poor example of an industry that is notable for its efforts in reducing power usage, as CDP submissions show.

- Having said all that, since the use of computers is an essential part of reducing emissions elsewhere in an organisation, it is inevitable that the use of IT, and hence associated emissions, will increase. We cannot hope to make progress in reducing climate change impacts without IT, and IT means data centres.

- Finally, perhaps the main comment to make is that computer use is an integral part of business and economic development. If we want to limit data centre emissions then we need to restrict IT use, which means limiting economic growth and market development. That means a different sort of capitalism. Perhaps an inevitable long-term debate.


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.