Logica wins MoD carbon monitoring contract

Logica has won a contract to provide a carbon monitoring system to Defence Estates, a UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) organisation. As its name suggests, Defence Estates is responsible for managing defence establishments and offices and one of its key responsibilities is the MOD-wide reduction in carbon emissions of 12.5% by 2012 and 30% by 2020, relative to 1999/2000 levels, set out in the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets.

The system to be provided, which will be based on Logica’s SIRA sustainability reporting tool, will capture real-time data from the large number of energy smart meters currently being installed in Defence sites. Monitoring the energy use will help highlight individual sites and buildings where energy consumption needs to be addressed and enable comparisons across the estate.

The system, which is planned to be operational by April 2010, could also potentially be used to monitor the progress of some energy measures being installed by Defence Estates, including lighting controls, improved insulation, biomass boilers and ground source heat pumps. The system will also be extended to provide data on oil and liquid petroleum gas consumption in due course.

Logica will be pleased about this one, which really puts it on the map as a carbon management provider. The MoD currently spends over £1bn a year on its estate, which includes over 4,000 sites in an area equivalent to about 1% of the UK landmass. It spends more than £300m annually on energy.

With CA announcing the deal with Tesco yesterday, carbon management solutions seem to be coming more into focus, with the large software and solutions players staking out their ground. It’s likely that these players will take a significant slice of the action in the long term, so the new kids on the block (see previous blog) really need to partner up, focus on the broader market of smaller organisations or start thinking about an exit strategy.

The Carbon Show

Went to the Carbon Show in London’s Docklands yesterday. It was (is – it continues today) a small exhibition which is also running a number of seminars about all things green (primarily business-to-business).

It was put on by a large magazine group and, one suspects, was a rather tentative affair. More than one person I met stumbled on the event by chance (as I did). But it was well attended and interesting. It’s encouraging to be in a forum where the primary focus is the ways and means to combat climate change and I would be prepared to bet that if they run a similar event next year it will be in a much larger venue.

Points of interest:

- I estimate that 20-25% of all the exhibitors were primarily IT solutions available to help companies manage carbon emissions in some form (counting, managing, trading, etc.) and more companies probably had some green IT tools available.

- Most of the IT solutions were from suppliers that didn’t exist two or three years ago. The only big software name was CA (which announced yesterday that Tesco, the leading UK supermarket, had chosen CA’s ecoSoftware to help its long-term commitment to reduce its carbon footprint by 50%).

- Interesting products included Carbon Hub, a carbon management solution particularly focused on complex organisations, such as the public sector, where user tie-in is an issue. Also CO2 Benchmark, a company selling a database of information on corporate emissions management projects and achievements which can be used to benchmark efforts (apparently with much more information than the CDP has).

- The feedback I got is that IT departments have money and are buying solutions to help manage climate change issues.

- But IT departments don’t want to deal with companies that are also selling consultancy (and there were a lot of consultancy companies at the event).

- There are also more VP/CXO people involved in the decision-making process.

- The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) is still causing some problems because of its complexity and the public sector is having particular problems.

I also learned a lot more about the current state of the carbon offset market, which may temper my inherent criticism!

If you’re in London, it’s worth a visit.

US smart grid standards development

The US has unveiled an accelerated plan for developing smart grid standards.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a 90-page document which Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said “Presents a high-level conceptual model to ensure that everyone is on the same page before moving forward to develop more detailed, formal Smart Grid architectures. This high-level model is critical to help plan where to go next.”

The draft report, entitled NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 1.0, incorporates input from more than 1,500 industry, government and other stakeholders. It includes:

• a basic set of standards for interoperability and security, with around 80 specific standards and specifications;

• 14 ‘priority action plans’ that describe what is being done immediately to fill important gaps where additional or revised standards are needed;

• a summary of a separate NIST cyber security strategy.

The draft, which is here, will be posted for a 30-day period of public comment and review.

The document is the culmination of the first phase of NIST’s three-phase approach. Phase 2 will establish a private-public partnership and forum—a Smart Grid Interoperability Panel—to drive longer-term progress. Phase 3 will develop and implement a framework for testing and certification of how standards are implemented.

About $4.5bn of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funds to the Department of Energy are slated for Smart Grid demonstration projects.

Meanwhile, smartgridnews.com reports that companies are falling over themselves to merge, join, partner or otherwise prove they have the right stuff to get involved in this market. To quote the article ‘Silver Spring Networks has snapped up Greenbox, the maker of in-home display software. Trilliant, Tropos and others are announcing important interoperability partnerships. Gridpoint has updated its software and its Web site to better explain its value proposition. And Cisco, IBM and Siemens are here (at the GridWeek conference in Washington D.C.) in force to trumpet their own platforms as the best path forward’.

EPA finalises GHG reporting system

From the start of next year the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will require large emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to start collecting emissions data for a new reporting system.  The program will cover around 10,000 facilities and account for approximately 85% of US emissions.

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said “The American public, and industry itself, will finally gain critically important knowledge and with this information we can determine how best to reduce those emissions.”  The data will allow businesses to track their own emissions, benchmark them with others and identify the best ways to reduce them.

The first annual reports for 2010 will need to be submitted to the EPA in 2011. Vehicle and engine manufacturers outside of the light-duty sector will begin phasing in GHG reporting with model year 2011.

One of the most fundamental aspects of bringing emissions under control is to first make an accurate count of what those emissions are.  Corporations are often accused of setting targets with no accurate means of measuring progress.  So it is quite odd that at a national level legislation is implemented without knowing the details of the problem (85% of the problem in this case).  The US is by no means alone in this (did anyone count first?), but you can’t help wondering whether the climate legislation, currently making a snail’s-pace progress through Congress, would have been more efficiently expedited if the details of the problem were known.  But then time is of the essence.

It’s boom time for the suppliers of Carbon Emissions Management Software (CEMS) though.

Google climate change tool

In the official Google blog, the company has announced that it is launching a series of Google Earth layers and tours that allow users to explore the potential impacts of climate change.

The site uses data from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to show the range of expected temperature and rainfall for the next century under different emissions scenarios. The first tour is already on the site. It’s called ‘Confronting Climate Change’ and has a narration by Al Gore.

Google has collaborated with the Danish government on the site – Denmark is hosting the UN Climate Change Convention (COP 15) in Copenhagen in December. The two are also launching a YouTube COP15 channel for people to submit thoughts and questions on climate change to decision-makers. These videos will be broadcast on screens around the conference.

New CDP reporting solution

In a press release today SAP says it’s working with Microsoft and Accenture to develop a global carbon reporting, benchmarking and analytics system for the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Beginning in 2010, corporations will report to CDP through the new data system.

The solution will be based on SAP’s BusinessObjects Business Intelligence software. According to the company the technology will provide a dashboard to allow users to clearly view the carbon footprint of companies that have responded to the CDP surveys, analyse the data, benchmark responses and track progress against reduction targets.

By the way, on Monday of this week the CDP launched its Global 500 and S&P 500 reports as well as making the CDP 2009 company responses available on its new web site. If you want to know about a companies emissions, reduction targets, risks from climate change, etc. then its worth taking a look. There are now 2,000 companies from 66 countries on the database.

Little Green Genie

Australian company Little Green Genie has launched a service to offset the carbon emissions from desktops and laptops.

It comes in the form of a piece of software that measures how much you use your computer and then calculates the amount of carbon your are emitting as a result of that usage. As you use your computer the software automatically reduces your pre-purchased carbon credit by the necessary amount. The company says that, on average, a desktop computer with a 15” monitor used two hours a day will use about US$7 of credit a year.

The company also points out that, based on a Harvard study released in 2007, the manufacture of a computer has about the same environmental impact as making a small car. When you first set up Little Green Genie you can elect to offset the manufacture, estimated to cost about US$12.

The company goes to great lengths to explain that it’s carbon credits are the real thing. They are acquired through Climate Friendly and are ‘Gold Standard’, described as ‘an independently audited, globally applicable best practice methodology for project development that aims to deliver high quality carbon offsets’. It means that they are restricted to projects that reduce society’s dependence on energy generated from fossil fuels (i.e. renewable energy or demand side energy efficiency projects), they have a strict additionality test, and they incorporate environmental and social indicators.

There’s a lot more information on the web site. The company is clearly trying hard to be seen as legitimate and reliable in an area that has come in for some criticism in the past. As well as the offset assurances it also uses independent and reputable sources for its energy use and emissions calculations.

Despite my inherent dislike of offsets, because they are often of dubious value and work against reducing energy use, I really like this idea, for two reasons;

- There is criticism of the ICT industry because of the escalating uses of various devices using more and more energy. It will be hard to stop this trend, but if individuals could offset (all devices) as they go along it would help

- Similarly, ICT has more value in reducing emissions in other parts of life and business than it emits, so use will (and should) go up. Offsets are a realistic way to get over the problem.

It’s certainly something I would seriously consider and you might also like to take a look, at:

http://www.littlegreengenie.com

DataCentre 2020

To coincide with the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) event in Munich last week, Intel and T-Systems opened their DataCentre (actually DataCenter) 2020 Test Lab.

The lab was designed by the two companies as a vehicle to develop data centre best practices, which initially means efficiency, particularly around cooling.

The data centre is small – 70 square meters with 180 servers in racks – but features include depressurised air at 10K feet altitude, raising and lowering ceiling height, smoke system to track air circulation, cold aisle containment cabinets, water cooled rack for cross comparison and floor tiles that allowed for acute control of airflow.

It’s also equipped with the latest energy and climate change measurement and control technology and with around 50 sensors measure humidity, temperature, temperature difference between supply and exhaust, processor load or fan speed, etc.

There’s more at www.datacenter2020.de, but at the moment it’s in German – an English version is promised (or you could use Google to translate).

Logica’s smart transport focus

Logica is demonstrating a number of its intelligent transport offerings at the 16th annual ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) World Congress, which started yesterday in Stockholm.

Transport is one of of the areas that Logica has identified as a sector-specific, high-growth opportunity for European IT services. ‘Smart’ invariably means greener and in Logica’s case it’s addressing five areas of sustainable mobility; infrastructure charging, smart travel, smart logistics, dynamic traffic management and eco mobility.

On show at ITS are:

- The EMO advanced vehicle emission control service, which allows drivers to analyse and alter their driving practices to achieve more cost efficient and environmentally-friendly driving habits.

- A service called Crimson that offers intelligent auto insurance premiums that help to control vehicle usage. Insurers can calculate individual risks, and hence appropriate premiums, by gauging dynamic, individual driving factors such as distance, speed, location and time (peak/off peak hours).

- Logica is working with the EU on CVIS (Co-operative vehicle-infrastructure systems), a dynamic traffic management system. As the name suggests, it’s based on in-car and infrastructure technologies that will enable vehicles to communicate with each other and the transport network to create intelligent, co-operative vehicles that can maximise transport network use.

As Cees de Wijs, Group Director of Transport and Logistics put it “The transport industry is at a crossroads; it must change if it is to overcome the challenges associated with climate change and globalisation. Only if a sustainable transport model is put into effect can the industry continue to meet demand while reducing costs and its carbon footprint. Technology undoubtedly plays a pivotal role in the creation of a sustainable transport model.”

I’m impressed by Logica’s activities in this market. The company is also active in the smart grid field, but then so is everyone else. In transport, Logica seems to have been quietly building some interesting capabilities in what will undoubtedly be a significant market. It’s not going to reap huge benefits immediately, but it means the company is well placed for the future.

It’s also, of course, another significant area of green IT.

Sustainability in business

The Boston Consulting Group and MIT Sloan Management Review have reported on a survey into sustainability and business strategy. In all 1500 executives were contacted, plus another 50 in-depth interviews with ‘global thought leaders’. A report on the findings, under the title of The Business of Sustainability, is available here.

The Executive Summary draws the following conclusions:

* Sustainability is having an impact on the way that companies behave – 92% of respondents said their companies were addressing the issues in some way.

* Sustainability is a continuing focus, despite the downturn – only 25% said their commitment had decreased.

* The majority thought that their companies were not doing enough to exploit the opportunities and address the risks of sustainability – less than 30% had a clear business case.

* Some companies are aggressively addressing the issues and reaping the benefits.

* Those with experience of the issues had a much broader view of sustainability (and hence the opportunities and risks).

* The biggest drivers are legislation, consumers and employees.

* Sustainability will become increasingly important, as will the risks of doing nothing.

On the subject of drivers, the report has this interesting graphic which shows the various pressures that businesses are responding to:

Energy conscious scheduling in data centres

An interesting report in Computerworld Australia a couple of weeks ago about a couple of researchers at the University of Sydney who have developed scheduling algorithms which dynamically allocate tasks in a data centre to minimise energy consumption.

The patented algorithms, called Energy Conscious Scheduling (ECS), act as middleware that knows the operating system and the hardware and so can make decisions as to what to do with different tasks.  The algorithms use a processor’s dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) capability to allocate tasks to minimise completion time and energy use.

“In doing so it makes sure whatever decisions are made are energy-conscious,” Albert Zomaya, one of the researchers, is quoted as saying in the article.

It’s that quote that caught my eye.  It really sums up what green It is all about.  We’re talking hardware here, but you could equally say that in the future virtually every enterprise applications will need to be ‘energy-conscious’.

An ECS product is expected to be available by the end of 2010.

More on smart meters

- Earlier in the year the U-SNAP (Utility Smart Network Access Port) alliance was formed with the mission of creating “a protocol independent serial interface standard that enables any HAN (Home Area Network) standard, present and future, to use any vendor's Smart Meter as a gateway into the home, without adding additional hardware in the smart meter”.

The alliance has already released its first specification for product developers on how to create U-SNAP compliant interfaces to accommodate several popular wireless standards. The alliance has also been boosted by Trilliant signing up. There’s more than one group working on smart grid standards (see my previous blog) so I hope they’re all talking to each other.

- The US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is seeking comment on how communication infrastructure and services could help achieve efficient implementation of smart grid technology. The full document is here, but the issues include which communications technology is best, current network availability, wireless spectrum requirements, use of real-time data and the use of home network connections.

This is all for the US, of course, but these are the sort of fundamental questions that all regulators will need to address.

- And finally, ScottishPower, a UK electricity provider, received some headlines for apparently being the first company in the UK to provide all its customers with smart meters. In fact it installed 340,000 new key meters to replace ‘Token’ pre-payment meters and never described them as ‘smart’.

They are certainly smarter - they allow data to be updated remotely, a meter reading is automatically recorded every time the key is re-inserted after adding credit (reducing the possibility of inaccurate bills) and the electricity is not cut off if credit runs out during the hours when it is difficult to purchase top-ups.

Good stuff, but not the smart meters that will help save the planet.

SAP endorses Copenhagen Communiqué

SAP announced yesterday that it was signing up to the Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change. The full text of the Communiqué is here, but basically it calls for “an ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change that responds credibly to the scale and urgency of the crises facing the world today”.

The document sets out three aspects that need to be included in a Copenhagen agreement (edited in the version below):

• Establish a global emissions cap and long-term reduction pathway for all greenhouse gas emissions and sources, for the period 2013 to 2050 (with interim targets).

• Developed countries need to take on immediate and deep emission reduction commitments that are much
higher than the global average.

• Developing countries will need to play their part by drawing up their own emission reduction plans in line with their common but differentiated responsibilities and capabilities. The least developed economies need additional assistance including increased and adequate financing, and expanded cooperation to help them adapt to and join the new low-carbon economy.

It goes on to list the supporting elements that need to be in place, including such things as credible measurement, reporting and verification of emissions, policy measures, a framework for developing countries, etc.

The Copenhagen Communiqué was instigated by the Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (CLG), which “brings together business leaders from major UK, EU and international companies who believe that there is an urgent need to develop new and longer-term policies for tackling climate change”. (The groups – one for the UK and one for the EU - were developed and are managed by The University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership).

The stated aim is to get 500 companies to sign up, with all of the G20 countries represented, but the 500 target already seems to have been achieved. There are 29 CLG members and endorsements by 304 large companies, 224 small to medium-sized enterprises and 19 Associations (according to the web site).

Members of the CLG include Deutsche Telekom, Sun Microsystems, Telecom Italia and Vodafone. Other large ICT companies endorsing the Communiqué are Alcatel-Lucent, BT, Cable and Wireless, Cisco, CSC, eBay, HP, Infosys, Ricoh, RM, SAP, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, SunGard, Symantec, Telefonica and Yahoo! (apologies for any omissions – it’s a long list – but there seems to be some notable names missing).

This is a highly commendable action from all concerned. It’s good to see large ICT companies giving backing to specific policy initiatives (albeit global ones where there’s no local market implications).

These initiatives are sorely needed as the prospect of getting an agreement at Copenhagen seems to be disappearing. US climate change legislation is slowing and the appetite for any binding commitment fading in the light of domestic pressures. And if the US doesn’t agree then China won’t …

Australian government’s green ICT plan

Given my comments yesterday, it’s interesting that the Australian government on Monday published its ‘Whole-of-Government ICT Sustainability Plan’ for discussion.

It’s the result of a 2008 review of the use of ICT, which found a disconnect between the government’s sustainability agenda and managing the energy costs and the carbon footprint of its ICT estate.

The aim of the plan is to:

- Identify environmental standards for government ICT procurement.  Various possibilities, including Energy Star and EPEAT, are discussed.

- Identify government ICT energy usage standards and/or usage targets.   The government already has several initiatives in this area, including the development of a data centre energy efficiency standard.  There are also a number of Green ICT ‘Quick Wins’ (along the lines of the UK governments ICT energy saving programme).

- Identify steps to establish an ICT energy consumption target and reporting arrangements.  This includes both overall government and separate agency ICT energy targets and the development of energy management plans.

- Take into account implications of an emissions reduction scheme on the government’s use of ICT and other sustainability initiatives.  Among the examples cited are web conferencing and telecasting, Web 2.0 forms of collaboration, video-conferencing and telepresence technologies, flexible working practices such as teleworking, smart metering and decentralised production and management

 

It’s this last point which particularly differentiates the Australian plan from the UK one.  Using ICT to reduce emissions elsewhere seems, at the moment, to be an integral part of the consideration in Australia, as it should be.  In the UK, the government’s ‘Greening Government ICT’ report that set the whole thing off also stated that' ‘… ICT can also be used to generate environmental benefits elsewhere in government operations and the UK. It …. should play a major part in reducing carbon emissions from other areas of government activity, for example through enabling tele and video conferencing, remote and home working’.

However, in the UK the government has already committed to ensuring that energy consumption of Government ICT will be carbon neutral by 2012 (although ‘carbon neutral’ has never been fully defined).  This seems to be the priority.  Not until December 2009 are government departments supposed to demonstrate how ICT is being used to reduce the carbon footprint elsewhere.

In terms of the Australian discussion document (which is here if you want to contribute), my view is:

- Don’t let the ability of ICT to reduce emissions elsewhere become a secondary focus. It’s easy to make quick wins by targeting ICT equipment itself, but short-sighted.

- Don’t re-invent the wheel.  For example there are already widely-used standards for equipment procurement, as well as good practice recommendations and efficiency measures for data centres.  The more standards are universal (or near universal) the faster they can be adopted.

The UK government's green IT progress

According to Cabinet Office Minister Angela Smith, the UK Government has saved at least £7m over the past year by making its IT systems greener. The measures have cut the carbon footprint of central Government computers by 12,000 tonnes.

Smith is due to give a speech at a conference this afternoon in which she accuses the IT industry as being one of the hidden causes of climate change and that “few people are taking action to improve the situation” (which some computer manufacturers might argue with).

The government quotes a Carbon Trust estimate that ICT is responsible for up to 20% of carbon emissions generated by Government offices, around 460,000 tonnes a year.

The speech goes on “A year ago the British Government became the first in the world to set tough targets to tackle the huge environmental and financial costs of computer use and I’m delighted to see the real progress that has been made. In just 12 months we’ve saved enough carbon dioxide to fill almost 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools”.

Departments were asked to take 18 measures, including such no-brainers as turning off all machines at night and keeping machines longer (see the full list in my previous blog).

Some of the success stories quoted in the press release include:

* The Department for International Development (DfID) donating old equipment to charities in developing countries

* The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) saving £2.35m by replacing 9,500 computers and 2,500 printers every five years rather than every three

* The Home Office (HO) saving £2.4m a year by removing unused IT equipment and improving efficiency

* The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will save 200 million sheets of paper a year through cutting down the number of printers in the department and changing the default setting to double-sided printing

“All departments have risen to the challenge of cutting their IT carbon footprints and countries from around the world are now looking to us for advice on how to follow our lead. But it’s not just about the Government. I hope that private companies and individuals will also recognise the savings that can be made and get on board.”

Well. Firstly, lets just say that any measures that help cut the governments carbon footprint are good, but as I’ve said before, just focusing on the emissions from ICT (20% in the case of government) and not the other 80% is short-sighted and bad leadership.

The comments from the Minister raise a number of questions:

- What exactly are the baseline emissions that are being attacked, i.e. 12,000 tonnes were saved from a total of what? If it’s the 460,000 figure from the Carbon Trust then it represents around a half of one percent of Whitehall emissions.

- Why isn’t there an exact figure for the emissions from Government offices (rather than ‘up to’ and ‘around’)? If you can’t measure the total accurately, how can you measure the success?

- Why were computers on all night anyway? It’s tax-payers money.

- And the big question, how is the government using ICT to help reduce the other 80% of its emissions? By squeezing IT as a carbon emitter its restricting opportunities to reduce emissions elsewhere.

The government as a whole has not been doing particularly well. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC - the UK Government's independent adviser on sustainable development) released a report in May this year critical of the public sector achievements in addressing climate change. It compares progress unfavourably against the 2006 targets. It wasn’t all bad news, but the report criticised the proliferation of reporting methodologies (there’s an IT opportunity for a start), confusing governance structures and poor data quality (IT again).

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 foot printing is essential if emissions are to be reduced and sustainability goals are to be achieved.

Please, Minister, keep switching off computers and using both sides of the paper, but also use IT as a means to accurately count government carbon emissions, to better manage facilities, to put government activities online, to help reduce travel, to better manage services, etc. Take a lead, talk to industry (much of which is well ahead of the public sector), get local government on-board. Come up with a real strategy for using IT to reduce emissions across the economy and encourage businesses to adopt it.

It’s called leadership.

Ericsson calls for ICT to be part of the Copenhagen agenda

In a keynote speech to the Broadband World Forum in Paris last week, incoming Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg called for ICT to be on the agenda at the UN Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen in December.

Vestberg quoted the Smart 2020 report prediction of ICT helping reduce emissions by 15%, but went on "Ericsson believes that with an innovation-driven climate agenda, reductions could be even greater. Modern ICT solutions, ranging from education and information services, health as well as transport, can give access to vital services all over the world, without sacrificing our environment."

Vestberg said: "As representatives of the ICT sector, Ericsson and our industry peers also have the task to bring this message home to our governments and politicians. Change will require the commitment and actions of all levels of society; governments, industry, civil society and individuals. A committed global effort at COP15 (Copenhagen) is essential to secure both environmental sustainability and economic development, and ICT should be at the heart of this."

The focus of the speech was that (well-functioning) broadband is the backbone of a low-carbon 21st century information infrastructure and that investments in this infrastructure can reinforce several different low-carbon solutions such as virtual meetings, smart grids, m-governance, m-health, e-learning, e-paper, etc.

He has a good point. I am surprised by the continued lack of focus on how ICT can help us achieve a lower carbon economy. Despite the Smart 2020 report (and others like it) that detail and quantify the savings that can be made by effective use of ICT, attention remains on the emissions that ICT generates and how to reduce it. If it isn't highlighted at Copenhagen then one avenue to serious emissions reduction is being ignored.

As for broadband, well if BT in the UK can't supply at any respectable speed outside of major cities (I'm 40 minutes from London and speeds often drop to dial-in) then it's going to be an uphill struggle.

Green IT impact

Following on from my blog earlier in the week about the comments at the Fujitsu Executive Discussion Evening, it really should be a cause for concern in the industry that such a narrow view of Green IT, i.e. that it's about saving energy in the IT department, generally prevails.

I was reminded of the fact by some recent comments that Green IT is entering a new phase (unfortunately dubbed Green IT 2.0) because we are starting to see a wave of interest in Carbon Emissions Management Software (CEMS), a new IT solution.

In fact there are a range of opportunities in the market, many already being addressed. But what has defined the market in the short term is the economic climate. An understandable focus on cost cutting and a fast ROI means that short-term solutions, such as reducing the data centre energy bill, have been the focus, but there is a lot more in store.

In a report published more than a year ago I identified a number of areas of green IT, i.e. areas in which IT can help businesses and the community reduce the impact of climate change. These are:

• Carbon counting and management solutions

• Carbon economy systems, e.g. carbon reporting, compliance and trading

• New infrastructure/transport projects, e.g. road charging systems, public transport optimisation, etc

• Enterprise solutions: data centres, facilities management, logistics/transport

• Renewable energy generation and distribution, e.g. solar/wind-farm control systems

• Climate change opportunities, such as weather monitoring and reporting, impact assessments, risk management systems, business continuity, real-time information, etc.

With hindsight, the only change I would make is to emphasise smart grids as part of the infrastructure project opportunities.

At around the same time The Global e-Sustainability Initiative released the Smart 2020 report. The main thrust was that emissions from ICT in 2002 accounted for around 2% of the global total, but set to grow at an average annual rate of 5.7% from 2002 to 2020. But the opportunities identified in the report could lead to emissions reductions of five times that amount - 15% of total BAU (business as usual) emissions by 2020. The areas of opportunity were dematerialisation, smart buildings, smart power, smart industry and smart transport. This is where the focus needs to be.

Whilst the IT industry can help by reducing its own energy emissions and coming up with new and innovative solutions, it's as much (probably more) about the will to make the changes to processes and procedures, which will require IT input. Hence the potential impact of legislation.

It would be interesting to report more IT sector activity outside of reducing power from products and data centres, for instance IT solutions and success stories across the range of opportunities I listed above. If you have any, then put me on your mailing list.

Yorkshire Dales online green game

Sense Internet in the UK has designed an online game for the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority. (For those of you who don't live in the UK, the Yorkshire Dales is a 680 square mile National park in the North of England with outstanding scenery and a range of wildlife habitats).

The idea of the game (which supports the information taught in schools, but described as 'suited to all visitors to the website') is to help players think about the effects of climate change on the Park and also addresses related issues such as litter and recycling.

The game is here. Go on, have a go - it's Friday afternoon (or morning, or evening ....).

We're not doomed - Sir Jonathon Porritt

Attended a Fujitsu Executive Discussion Evening last night, entitled ‘Will going green keep you out of the red?’. The headline speaker was Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future (previously Chairman, UK Sustainable Development Commission) but Catalina McGregor, Founder and Chair, HMG Green IT Delivery Unit, Cabinet Office and Paul Coby, CIO, British Airways also gave their views.

In a pretty upbeat speech (only 20 mins) Jonathon Porritt's theme was that from initially being sceptical, business is now often leading the fight against climate change, with major corporations such as Wal Mart and DuPont setting an example. And it should be no surprise, given the market opportunities and the business benefits (eco-efficiency, quality management, license to operate, market advantage and sustainable profits) from going green.

Overall, though, managing emissions has had limited success to date, because the cost of CO2 emissions has not been included in business costs. Even now, in the UK there is a range of views as to what the cost should be; EU ETS currently around €14 a tonne, Defra looking for £27, The Treasury suggesting £70 and Stern said it should be greater than £100. When a realistic price for CO2 is reached, (via cap and trade) then business as a whole will adapt and innovate to reduce emissions.

The down side is that what we need to achieve is getting harder. From an initial target of stabilising at 550 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, reduced to 450 ppm at Kyoto, the consensus is rapidly approaching 350 ppm, and we're already above that.

Catalina McGregor talked about the contribution that IT can make in reducing its emissions and what the government is doing. She particularly focused on the issue of full life-cycle emissions (rather than just the energy used in operation) and also the e-waste problem. She showed the Greenpeace video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mLtheejM30, described by Greenpeace as a response to Cebit 2008 (anyone who's been to Cebit will understand).

Paul Coby talked about BA's targets as a whole, which are to stabilise emissions at 2005 level by 2020, reduce them by 25% by 2025 and cut them by 50% by 2050. In IT, the plan is to reduce the carbon footprint by 25% by 2011 compared with 2007.

It was all very interesting - Jonathon Porritt is a great speaker and puts everything in perspective. The differing views at the IT level, though, showed where some of the issues are. Both Catalina McGregor and Paul Coby focused very much on reducing the environmental impact of IT, rather than how IT can help the rest of the organisation manage emissions. McGregor's talk followed the UK government's lead in this respect, which is all about procurement, turning off PCs, etc - not much of a lead to industry.

Coby's focus was similar, with only one reference to how IT was contributing to reducing emissions elsewhere in BA. (There were also several references to refreshing the IT infrastructure, which seemed to ignore the life-cycle concerns that McGregor expressed).

Overall the comments confirmed the view that progress in reducing emissions will be slow until legislation kicks in. Even then, not until the cap or tax results in a 'realistic' carbon price (whatever that is) will businesses really make the effort. But it does also seem that until then IT departments are reluctant to emerge from their bunkers and look at what's happening in the rest of the operation, which is very shortsighted. Or maybe they're just not being asked.

Siemens smart grid expectations

In a press release last Friday Siemens said that it wants to win smart grid orders worth over €6bn by 2014.

The company anticipates that orders for smart grid technologies will reach nearly €1bn in the current fiscal year. Wolfgang Dehen, CEO of the Siemens Energy Sector, is quoted as saying that “The smart grid market will see increasingly dynamic growth fueled by climate change and economic stimulus programs. We want to grow twice as fast as the overall market”. The company estimates that the smart grid market it's addressing will total around €30bn over the coming five years and Siemens is aiming at 7% annual growth and a market share of over 20%.

Siemens sees the smart grid market as having three main components: smart metering (intelligent billing), grid intelligence (the grid infrastructure and its controls), and utility IT (intelligent data management), and the company is active in all three areas and claims to be a global market leader in grid intelligence.

As we reported recently, Siemens will strengthen its portfolio in the field of power data management with the acquisition later this year of a 60% stake in Energy4U and its consumption data acquisition and billing solutions. (I would expect to see more acquisitions in the future).

Smart grids are part of the Siemens Environmental Portfolio, which the company says generated revenue of nearly €19bn in fiscal 2008, around a quarter of the company’s total revenue. The company claims that this makes it the world’s largest infrastructure provider of environmental technologies (a pretty broad and imprecise market description, though).

Australian council e-waste ban

According to the Sydney Morning Herald last week, four local councils in Sydney (Mosman, Manly, Warringah and Pittwater) have banned the dumping of electronic waste from next January. It's hoped that the move will force the federal and state governments to implement a national recycling scheme when the national e-waste policy is announced - expected in November. Other local governments are being urged to join the ban.

The councils will not accept computers, printers, scanners and other electronic goods either in the kerbside collections or at the councils' tip. Residents will be told to find responsible alternatives instead, with the hope that a nationally regulated recycling system will be agreed and running in 2010.

There are some manufacturer recycling programs in place, for example from Dell, Apple and Toshiba, although understandably limited in scope. According to the Environment, Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) Australians discarded 16.8 million electronic devices in 2007/8, but only 9% were recycled.

I'm surprised that Australia, a country that seems to be very aware of environmental issues generally (and on the ball for green IT), hasn't got this sorted yet. Maybe it's because there's plenty of space for landfill.

Kyocera 'Green Curtain'

Kyocera is growing a curtain of greenery to shade portions of the walls and windows of manufacturing and office buildings in Japan. The plants, which are grown over trellises, prevent direct sunlight from raising the inside temperature, reducing the need for air-conditioners.

Kyocera has concluded that the foliage can decrease the temperature on the wall or window behind by as much as 15 degrees C (27 degrees F). As a result, Kyocera's Okaya and Gamo plants no longer need to use air-conditioning in the offices in the morning.

As well as saving emissions from less energy use, the plants also help eliminate CO2 from the atmosphere. In all, 12 locations are now using the technique and the curtain stretches for 294m (965ft) in total, absorbing as much CO2 as 194 cedar trees.

And that's not all.

The plants used are goya (bitter gourd; a traditional summer vegetable of Okinawa) and peas and are harvested by the employees and, at most locations, used as part of a special lunch menu in the employee cafeteria. The press release goes on to say "Goya, which is rich in nutrients, is widely used as an ingredient for the prevention of fatigue in the hot summer months in Japan. Moreover, the employees have enjoyed watching the plants grow, and being able to harvest the vegetables".

That's what I call a holistic approach to going green; lower emissions, actively reducing atmospheric CO2, creating quality food as a by-product and increasing employee well being (and apparently many employees have adopted the same approach in their own homes). It's certainly an approach that could be adopted very widely.

Solar charger for iPhone

US company Novothink has announced Solar Surge, apparently the first Apple licensed solar charger case for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The case allows devices to be charged anywhere under the sun 'walking, running, hiking, or biking .... ideal for the beach, camping, or traveling' (says the press release from the California-based company - not so good for central London, obviously).

Basically it's like a standard case but with solar panels on the back, so headphones can be attached, there's a USB cable outlet and the normal external controls. The case has it's own battery to store the power and LEDs indicate the power left. The company has a Solar Planner available on its web site (www.novothink.com) to help users estimate solar needs for iPhone 3G and 3GS usage.



Available in a variety of colors, the iPod Touch version is priced at $69.95 in the US and will available at the end of September. The iPhone versions are due in the fourth quarter.

Green Grid data centre energy efficiency awards

Whilst on the subject of green data centres, The Green Grid, which is a consortium of IT companies working to improve energy efficiency in data centres, has announced a new award category, “Improved Data Centre Energy Efficiency,” as part of the Data Centre Leaders’ Awards.

The idea is to get organisations that have been innovative in improving their data centre energy efficiency to show others how it can be done, with particular emphasis on The Green Grid’s guides, research and using the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric.

What's particularly useful is that the award will specifically recognise older data centres, including those that were designed before power consumption became a headline issue, and the effort required to bring these facilities up to scratch. It's easy to make new data centres significantly more energy efficient, which gives an advantage to large and expanding companies. Smaller organisations with aging facilities have much more of a challenge.

Green data centre degree course

IBM has announced that it is collaboration with Metropolitan Community College (MCC) in Omaha, Nebraska to develop what it claims is the first green data centre management degree course. The two-year course is designed to help students gain technical and business skills to prepare them for careers in the design and management of energy efficient data centres.

The course will use IBM hardware, software and online skills training resources, including a new, enterprise data center on campus with IBM Power Systems servers running AIX, IBM i and Linux environments. The course will cover topics such as virtualisation and server consolidation, energy efficiency, business resiliency, and security and compliance skills and can be extended to other colleges through a virtual learning program to remote students.

However, the press release says that the course, which starts in December, has the title of "Associate Degree in Information Technology - Data Center Management ". Courses mentioned as part of the degree include: Hardware, Disaster Recovery, & Troubleshooting, Introduction to Data Center Management, Virtualisation, Remote Access, & Monitoring, Data Center Racks & Cabling, Building a Secure Environment, Applied Data Center Management and Networking Security.

I have some problems with this - not the fact that IBM is helping create a data centre degree course, which is highly commendable, but that it is headlined in the press release as the 'First Green Data Center Degree'. The degree title doesn't reflect a green element and nor do the course modules mentioned. It seems to me that this is a data centre course that just covers some aspects of being green, e.g. virtualisation and energy efficiency.

If it were truly a green data centre course then there would be more on the facilities management (e.g. LEED construction), cooling systems and alternatives, energy tracking, renewable energy use, location considerations, legislation, etc. in fact a more holistic view as to energy efficiency than is implied by the course description. Perhaps it does, but apart from the labelling it a 'green' data centre degree there's not much evidence from the press release.

AMD global protection plan

Along with its CSR report, AMD has just released its ninth annual (and rather pretentiously named) Global Climate Protection Plan which "presents AMD’s strategy, goals, and commitment to continually reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to global climate protection efforts". The report is here.

Just focusing on greenhouse gas emissions, AMD has already been successful in achieving targets. In 2004 the company set an EPA Climate Leaders goal to reduce emissions by 40% by 2007 against a baseline year of 2002 (as measured by kilogram carbon equivalent emissions per manufacturing index, which relates to the number of wafers processed, the complexity of the fabrication process and the wafer size - i.e. 'normalised'). By year-end 2006 AMD had achieved its goal by decreasing normalised emissions by more than 50%.

The company is now working towards two goals:

- A new Climate Leaders greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal of reducing normalised emissions 33% by year-end 2010 relative to the 2006 baseline. By the end of 2008 the company had already achieved a 22% reduction.

- An operational energy efficiency to reduce normalised energy use by 40% by year-end 2010 relative to the 2006 baseline. By the end of 2008 a reduction of 27% was already in the bag.

The chart shows the emissions reductions against targets, but the text points out that the 13% reduction in 2008 over 2007 was mainly due to achieving a higher productivity rate (as expressed by increases in the Manufacturing Index) at a slightly lower level of GHG emissions relative to 2007 (my italics).

AMD is clearly working hard at reducing emissions (and there are a number of other initiatives in the report) but just talking about 'normalised' emissions does bother me. We're not going to save the planet unless we reduce absolute emissions and the report would benefit from acknowledging this point more.

On the other hand, AMD does have two factors in its favour when using these normalised views:

- What the company produces is an essential part of reducing emissions in other parts of the economy.

- The company is also using (and promoting the use) of renewable energy. In April 2009 it was listed as the 19th largest Fortune 500 purchaser of renewable energy.

Sprint smart grid support

Just to round off this spate of smart grid coverage, telecoms company Sprint Nextel recently put out a press release detailing its offerings in the market. The company expressed its intention of playing a role in US smart grid developments, the focus of the US Department of Energy's Smart Grid Investment and Development Grant Programs (part of the stimulus funding package).

The company is supporting customers in the power sector with some of the underlying requirements of smart grid initiatives, including advanced communications, information technology, distributed sensing and data management, all of which can help with grid reliability, optimised energy delivery, consumer control and minimising environmental impact. Key areas include Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition), Demand-Response (DR) Distribution Management System (DMS) and M2M (machine-to-machine) applications.

Sprint also pointed out that it's involved in several environmental programmes including:

- Use of hydrogen fuel cells as back-up power to cell sites (which we reported on earlier in the year).

- Wireless recycling. Since 2001 the company has collected more than 17 million phones, with a goal of achieving a 90% recycling collection rate by 2017 - in 2008, the company's wireless recycling collection rate stood at 34%, apparently three times the national average.

- Eco-friendly products and services. Sprint recently announced the availability of Samsung Reclaim, the first phone in the U.S. constructed from eco-friendly bio-plastic materials and 80% recyclable. Sprint also says it's the first major U.S. wireless carrier to offer a solar-powered cell phone charger.

Siemens acquires Energy4U

Siemens IT Solutions and Services (SIS) is acquiring a 60% stake in Energy4U, a company that specialises in providing consulting and implementation services for SAP-based customer information and billing systems for utility companies. The deal, which is subject to final approval by the German antitrust authorities, should be effective from October 1st.

The acquisition will expand Siemens' intelligent metering and billing (meter-to-bill) solution and services portfolio for utilities. The partnership gives the companies a leading market presence in German, with plans for further growth in other parts of Europe.

Energy4U is quite a small company, founded in 2000 and with 90 employees, but is one of Germany’s leading SAP service providers in this market segment, focusing on the needs of deregulated energy markets. Siemens SIS offers utility solutions across the value chain, from energy generation through to metering and billing. The company is also stepping up its focus on smart grids and already has a portfolio of IT services, including solutions for Enterprise Asset Management and for sales and service processes – in addition to outsourcing. Apparently Siemens environmental portfolio, which includes smart grids, generated sales of just under 19 billion euros in 2008, around a quarter of total company sales and, the company claims, makes Siemens the world’s largest infrastructure provider in environmental technology.

Siemens is certainly in a very strong position in this market, given its existing energy businesses around power generation and distribution and its separate IT services capability. I would expect to see further acquisitions in the coming years as the company looks to consolidate around this market.

Smart grid co-operation and alliances

OASIS (Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) has formed a new group (Energy Interoperation Technical Committee) to develop Web services-based information and communication models for exchanging pricing, reliability, and emergency signals. The group's work is also expected to extend to information on energy market participation, load predictability and generation. Basically, it's about agreeing the information standards for smart grides.

"Our work at OASIS will enable consumers to take advantage of lower energy costs by deferring or accelerating usage," said William Cox, co-chair of the new committee. "By enabling consistent data communication technology, the same model will be able to be used for homes, small businesses, commercial buildings, industrial facilities, and electric vehicles. The same communications could be used inside and outside microgrids in office parks, college campuses, and green neighborhoods."

Anyone can contribute and current participants include IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Grid Net, and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Meanwhile Trilliant, the smart grid solutions company, has announced it's integrating its technology with IBM WebSphere and Tivoli products. The idea is that Trilliant will integrate the IBM products with its UnitySuite smart grid management software solution. Trilliant and IBM will also pursue joint solutions development and integrated offerings to the global utility market, as well as cooperate on industry standards development.

Guido Bartels, General Manager of IBM's Global Energy & Utilities industry, said. "This combined offering sets a high standard for enterprise integration and management of advanced Smart Grid networks." Clearly Trilliant is going for the de facto standards approach in integrating its solutions within enterprise systems.