GEMI launches an interactive sustainability solutions tool

The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) has launched a new environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability solution tool called the GEMI Solution Tools Matrix.

GEMI was formed in 1990 by a group of companies dedicated to fostering global environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability excellence. There are 22 member companies representing more than 15 business sectors. Famous name members include 3M; Duke Energy; DuPont; Eastman Kodak; FedEx; Johnson & Johnson; Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble.

The organisation’s approach is to provide a forum for global corporate environmental leaders to work together and to create and share tools and information to help businesses worldwide improve their environmental, health and safety achievements.

To that end, GEMI has created an interactive web solution to guide users through all of the tools the organisation has developed over the past twenty years.  “The new GEMI Solution Tools Matrix serves as a how-to/where-to solution for professionals seeking guidance on addressing environmental sustainability issues” said GEMI Chair, Moe Bechard, of Diversey, Inc.

The collection of 30 solution tools offers guidance and examples for addressing challenges and opportunities across the sustainability continuum. The Matrix also provides an historical context by indicating some of external drivers and prevailing environmental management themes along the timeline with the tools.

IT helps greener travel in France

GreenIT.fr has recently reported on a couple of interesting green IT-based travel initiatives in France:
• www.vadrouille covoiturage.com is a long distance car pooling service for people going away for weekends or holidays. The web site enables potential passengers to book and pay for a seat with drivers who are going to the same place. (It sounds a bit like Shiply.com, the UK equivalent for goods).
It’s the online booking and payment that are expected to make the process easier and more reliable – apparently the main problem with this sort of carpooling is people changing their minds at the last minute. The online payment will, hopefully, concentrate minds.
Prices are set by the driver and the passenger pays via the online secure system. Within seven days after the journey the passenger confirms the trip was as promised and assesses the driver. The driver is paid the ticket price less the commission for using the service.
• Rapides Val de Loire (RVL), a French bus company, has equipped 25 of its buses with an 'eco-driving’ system. It’s based on technology designed by Viveris Technologies known as FMS ECO.
The system analysis driving behaviour in real time, including acceleration, braking, engine speed, etc, and gives feedback to the driver on eco-driving performance. Apparently, when a specific warning light comes on the driver must change gear and if they don’t an alarm sounds.  The only way to disable the alarm is to drive more smoothly.
A total of 50 buses will be fitted between 2011 and 2012 at a cost is 750 euros per vehicle, but the bus company expects to reduce annual fuel consumption by 5 - 10%, as well as helping to save the environment.

They both sound like good initiatives, although I would be concerned about alarms going off that force drivers to drive differently! Maybe something was lost in translation.

ZenRobotics collaborates with SITA on robotic recycling

It’s old news now, but a couple of months ago SITA Finland, a subsidiary of Europe’s largest environmental services provider, and ZenRobotics, a Finnish environmental high technology company, announced their collaboration on a robotic artificial intelligence recycling system. The ZenRobotics Recycler that SITA will receive is the first of its kind in the world. 

ZenRobotics has developed a sorting system which separates raw materials from waste. The control technology utilises multiple sensor inputs in real time, reacts to changes and learns from its mistakes. The sensors can include various camera types (visible light, spectrometric cameras), 3D scanners, haptics (touch), transillumination, metal detectors, etc. The company claims that it provides a more comprehensive view of the waste stream than previously possible.

 

 

The company takes its environmental concerns seriously. The corporate headquarters are in downtown Helsinki, to allow employees to commute by bike or public transport, and the company only uses repurposed office furniture and recycles office waste. In selecting robot manufacturer partners, emphasis is placed on their environmental responsibility and it also actively supports the WWF's Operation Mermaid and the Clean Baltic Sea projects.

 

ZenRobotics is a start-up company, formed in 2007, but looks like it’s going places. Apart from the technology itself, the two most impressive aspects for me are, firstly, that of the 18 employees, nine have PhDs. Secondly, it’s clear that this is a company with a sense of humour, a rare and wonderful thing!

Green IT maturity assessment in Korea – but what about enablement?

The (South) Korean National Information Society Agency (NIA) and Accenture have produced a report entitled ‘Assessing Green IT Maturity among Korean Companies’. It’s based on survey carried out in September 2010 across 52 Korean companies and puts the Korean efforts on par with companies worldwide, but behind the global leaders.

In 2008, the Korean government announced ‘low-carbon, green growth’ as a vision for national growth. The idea is to “create new engines for economic growth and jobs by fostering promising new energy and environment-related industry
sectors and developing related new technologies and converging these industry sectors with traditional industries…”. The long-term plan is to join the global top seven green countries by 2020 and the global top five by 2050.

IT-related government agencies, including the Public Administration and Knowledge Economy Ministry and the Korea
Communications Commission, have established a green IT policy, while the the Presidential Committee on Green Growth has drafted a national green IT plan to effectively coordinate the efforts.

IT maturity is assessed across five areas; corporate citizenship, work practices, data centres, office environment and procurement (see the diagram above for more details). Maturity stages are from ‘incomplete’ – a process is in place but not used – through to ‘optimised’, where the process closely reflects business goals.

The study showed that the average green IT maturity score of the Korean companies was 2.4 points out of the five-point maximum, similar to Accenture’s figure of 2.4 for the average maturity of companies globally. However, the score was 0.9 points lower than the average of leading companies (3.3 point average). (The global leading firms cited in the report are; Google, Microsoft, HP, IBM, BT, Intel, Williams-Sonoma, Inc and DuPont.)

Within the various categories, data centres and work methods scored 2.7 points, a little higher than the global average (2.5/2.6 points, respectively), which the NIA puts down to Korean companies having higher-level IT infrastructures and computerisation systems. Doing less well is office environment, which scored 2.3 points compared with a global average of 2.4 points, while procurement scored 1.9, compared with 2.2.

By business, logistics/distribution and petroleum/chemicals scored well, 2.8 points compared with a global average of 2.4, while public corporations and agencies only scored 1.7 points against a global average of 2.2 points and utilities/construction 1.8 points compared with 2.8 points.

 

It’s interesting addition to the published reports on green IT maturity - I reported on Fujitsu’s assessment of the US, UK, Australian and Indian markets back in September. Clearly Korea is taking the issue seriously, is matching performance from around the world and setting itself ambitious targets. There’s a lot more in the report, including details of improvement measures across the various categories.

Unfortunately though, unlike the Fujitsu model, this assessment uses a narrow view of green IT, which seems to be primarily about the sustainability of the IT operation. It’s important, but IT has a much bigger part to play, particularly related to climate change. IT is at the heart of all business so has a very significant ‘enabling’ role, i.e. helping the rest of the business reduce emissions. A number of reports have made the point, starting with the smart 2020 report back in 2008.

What we need is a universal agreement on what constitutes green IT and a common means to measure it’s maturity. But then we also need world peace.

Streetline wins IBM’s Global Entrepreneur of the Year award

IBM has announced the winner of its Global Entrepreneur of the Year award. In total, 600 young companies competed in the 2010 competition through multiple ‘SmartCamp’ contests around the globe. The winner was decided at the World Finals in Dublin, a three-day forum of academia, venture capitalists, government and industry leaders.

IBM sees the competition as a key way of working with a new generation of entrepreneurs on issues such as water, transportation, healthcare and the environment.

Anyway, this year’s winner is Streetline, a method of combining traffic sensing and an existing parking management network. It integrates ultra-low power sensing with web-based solutions to manage traffic and parking as one integrated system.

City parking operations have become increasingly complex and parking management has assumed a central role in the economic health of cities. But the quality of information hasn't kept up. Streetline’s solution can show traffic patterns in the city as well as the true status of every parking space - either at the curb side, in lots and in garages – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Apparently 30% of urban traffic congestion is caused by drivers looking for parking, so the Streetline system can help reduce congestion and make finding a parking space easier.

Streetline apparently won the award because the judges liked the impact that their solution would have – making parking easier and simpler - as well as the environmental impact by reducing pollution. 

 

Well congratulations to Streetline. It does seem like an interesting solution, but there seems to be a bit of a paradox here. IBM seems to have refined its green solutions down to anything with a ‘smart’ label in front, on the grounds that smart=efficient=green (I paraphrase, but you get the point). It’s very often true, but not always.

Here we have a solution that makes it easier for people to drive into big cities.  It may reduce some carbon emissions by cars looking for parking, but the net effect will be to allow more cars into the cities.

Surely, if there’s any situation where cars can be dispensed with it’s in city centres where public transport is most readily available and creates much less emissions than cars.

So a good solution, but is it what should be emerging from SmartCamps?

Capgemini launches the CapgeminiGreen web site

Capgemini has launched CapgeminiGreen, a web site that brings together all the company’s information on its green, sustainability and environment offerings.

The web site comprises two tools:

Green Cube is a consolidated view of all the green capabilities the company offers to clients. It includes information about how green issues are impacting business, the company’s internal achievements and examples of how Capgemini’s services can help clients. It covers a variety of business areas, from office IT through to smart energy solutions and is split into six areas; Thought leadership, Success stories, Capgemini’s approach, Services, Achievements and Drivers.

Green Office is an interactive guide that gives background and information on a variety of specific offerings from the company, including such things as cloud computing, printing solutions, PC power management, software as a service and video and voice conferencing.

 

Nothing particularly revolutionary here, but it is good to see the client-facing content brought together so concisely. It does bring home the various areas of business that can, and should, be addressed and how ICT can help. It allows Capgemini to easily show of the broad range of its green IT offerings – for that reason I would expect others to follow.

Data Centre Infrastructure Management software company Nlyte secures $12m in funding

Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) company nlyte Software has raised $12m in funding which it says will be used for expanding its operations, accelerating product development, strengthening its partner relationships and attracting talent.

The company has received $12m in Series C funding from investors, led by cleantech investor NGEN Partners – NGEN’s Managing Director will join nlyte’s Board of Directors.

nlyte Software’s DCIM solution helps data centre and facilities managers optimise data centre power, cooling and space. The company claims that it enables users to make capacity planning decisions that can result in up to 20% annual reduction in operating expenses, 50% reduction in the time to deploy new assets, extend data centre life by up to 75% and helping attain a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating of 2.0 or less.

Rosemary L. Ripley, managing director of NGEN Partners said; “nlyte Software is a clear leader in the rapidly growing, multibillion dollar DCIM segment. This, together with a proven ability to help organisations significantly reduce their energy spending, makes the Company an exciting new investment for NGEN.”

 

nlyte Software was founded in 2003 and is already making a name for itself in this market. It’s a competitive environment, though. As I mentioned when I reported on the launch of the Open Data Centre Alliance, there are a number of incompatible and proprietary approaches to managing data centre power and other resources and companies are springing up all the time with new ideas, but it can only really be effective if there is a greater integration and co-ordination. nlyte is going to come up against some powerful competition, but then the investment exit strategy is probably to sell out to one of them.

The smart grid data challenge – Teradata’s response

One of the real challenges for smart grid operators is going to be in leveraging the massive amounts of data that smart grids will generate. Arguably, most of the challenges round smart grid developments are more-or-less straightforward. The network engineering, ICT information and communication elements and the necessary process change can be seen as extensions of existing technology and expertise. But the data smart grids will generate will take utilities into unexplored territory.

I had a chance to talk to Teradata last week, a company that believes it is well placed to help with the challenge. The data warehousing company has introduced its Utilities Logical Data Model (uLDM) to help address the challenge. It’s the latest in a range of industry logical data models with 250 implementations across industries and geographies. The uLDM is a platform, rather than a complete toolkit, but there are specific solutions available from other industry logical data model implementations, some of which may be appropriate for utilities/smart grids.

The company sees four approaches to the utilities market, reflecting the market structure:

Retail: While utilities are not the same as telcos, when smart meters are installed they will generate similar data, so will be very open to CRM solutions. The telco sector is where Teradata has made it’s name in recent years, so has solutions available.

Distribution: The near-real-time active network management required for smart grids is complex. A great deal of network monitoring and control will be required, hence the need for data storage and analytics.

Generation: It’s a difficult time for power companies. On the one hand many of the power generation assets are at, or beyond, their expected life and at the same time new forms of energy generation are coming on stream. So the generation infrastructure is already performing differently to the way it has done in the past. Teradata’s offering is to provide active asset maintenance solutions which can schedule maintenance, take out assets when necessary, predict failure, etc. The company only provides the platform, the front-end analytics are through providers such as SAS, Business Objects, etc.

Data brokerage: There will be a requirement for data collation and sharing between utilities and other organisations. Not very exciting in itself, but there is the potential for more value-add, optional services and new market participation, so Teradata wants to be there.

While Teradata sells direct to utilities, it also works with partners, the main ones being:

1) Business Objects (part of SAP). Early next year SAP Netweaver Business Warehouse will run on the Teradata platform and will be included in the SAP sales list.

2) Itron, which provides meter data management solutions. Working with Teradata’s Active Smart Grid Analytics extends Itron’s solution into the enterprise to provide asset data management, billing, CRM, GIS, etc. It has already been successful in the US.

3) Capgemini - also big in utilities and a Teradata partner around its Smart Analytics for Utilities (in which SAP is also involved). Capgemini has the integration skills using the Teradata platform.

Of course Teradata isn’t the only company looking at this market, the main competition comes from IBM and Oracle (via Exadata, which it bought with Sun). But it’s interesting to see the company’s approach to the significant smart grid market opportunities ahead.

The smart grid offering was only recently brought to Europe, having been running in the US for a year or more. Teradata says it is in ‘serious and advanced’ talks about smart grid offerings with most of the world top-ten utilities (who are mostly Europe-based).

CDW 2010 Energy Efficient IT Report

CDW, a US technology solutions provider (38th on Forbes’ list of America’s Largest Private Companies) has just released the latest of its  annual Energy Efficient IT Reports. The report series was launched in 2008 to study attitudes, identify successful cost-saving measures and understand barriers to the adoption of energy efficient IT. The full report is here.

The 2010 study surveyed 756 IT professionals in medium and large businesses and public sector organisations in the US. Headline results include:

• 39% of IT managers believe that energy efficiency is a very important consideration when purchasing new IT equipment.

• Two-thirds of IT managers say understanding best practices in energy efficient IT is critical to their profession.

• 79% of organisations currently have or are developing a data centre consolidation strategy.

• 76% report they are deploying some kind of innovative approach to reducing energy use, including deploying more power efficient switches and using the network as a platform to manage energy use.

• 74% of organisations have or are developing programmes to manage and reduce IT energy use.

 

But underneath these headline figures the data is less positive. For example, the main data centre consolidation reason is to reduce expenditure on hardware, software and operations, rather than reducing energy consumption. And of those that have or are developing programmes to reduce energy use, only 56% have reduced their costs by 1% or more, which means that just 41% of the sample as a whole have reduced energy use by 1% or more – not a great achievement.

The study also found that percent of IT managers who know what portion of their IT budget is spent on energy increased from 50% in 2009 to 57% in 2010, but that only 48% are incentivised to reduce IT energy costs with awards, bonuses and/or rebates.

The top energy-saving measures used by the 41% of the sample with a power-management programme that have reduced IT energy costs by 1% or more were:

1 Migrate monitors from CRTs to LCDs (65%)
2 Buy servers and other data centre equipment with lower- power processors (64%)
3 Buy computers with low-power processors (59%)
4 Make full use of the power management tools in desktop computer operating systems (51%)
5 Redesign data centres to balance equipment and cooling needs (43%)

 

The research gives the impression of a wide, but fairly thin level of concern and action around green IT. The main measures being taken seem to be a fairly minor adjustment to business as usual – moving from CRTs to LCDs is a product evolution rather than an energy-saving choice, and almost any new IT equipment will be more energy efficient than previous models.

The majority of those taking action say they are using PC power management tools to the full, whereas the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) has estimated that no more than 22% of users overall are using PC power management effectively.

And one last figure from the CDW survey – just 15% of the survey respondents tracked their Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) the most widely-used metric for measuring data centre efficiency.  If you don’t measure it how can you gauge any improvements?

Verdantix names the potential winners in the carbon and energy management software market

Verdantix, the sustainable business analyst firm, has come up with a list of ten carbon and energy management software providers that it believes will benefit most from the growth in market spending in 2011. The ten are CA Technologies, CarbonSystems, Enablon, Enviance, Hara, IHS, ProcessMAP, SAP, TRIRIGA and Verisae.

The list comes from a study based on 28 live product demonstrations involving 99 assessment criteria that went into the Verdantix’s Green Quadrant Carbon And Energy Management Software report. The products included were those offered by suppliers with at least five named $1 billion revenue customers. As well as things like data capture, supply chain emissions, organisation modelling, workflow, carbon emissions calculation engines, etc. the assessment also scored each supplier on market vision, product strategy, architecture, customer momentum, value delivery, financial resources and implementation partnerships.

Peter Charville-Mort, author of the report, said; “According to our customer interviews, the biggest change with corporate buyers in 2010 has been a shift from tactical carbon accounting to strategic energy and carbon management. Buyers also want advanced carbon management tools for target setting, forecasts and audits. This explains why some carbon management software deals exceeded $10m in 2010.”

Other report findings were:

• Many potential buyers only need basic functionality but expect suppliers to offer a roadmap for more advanced functionality.

• Some firms have more sophisticated requirements for use by Chief Sustainability Officers and CFOs.

• Software suppliers are raising funds to out-innovate the competition with greater ability to address energy reductions.

• Aside from C3 and Oracle, no new entrants will succeed in an over-crowded and intensely competitive market.

 

As the report points out, this is a highly competitive market so consolidation is expected, with the market leaders pulling away from the field. This report will help that move.

An interesting comment is that suppliers are trying to out-innovate each other, pushing product functionality and capabilities. But as yet, users don’t really want that functionality, but think they might need it in the future. It’s not a recipe for making money in the market if you’re not one of these leaders.

FirstCarbon launches energy savings services subsidiary

Carbon-management company, FirstCarbon Solutions (part of outsourcing provider ADEC Solutions) has announced that it has established a subsidiary aimed at helping organisations improve energy savings programmes.

Called FirstCarbon Energy Solutions, the new company will provide a range of services consisting of energy savings programmes, auditing and verification, rebate programme processing and support, and energy management software.

Like its parent, FirstCarbon Energy Solutions will offer outsourcing services to clients, particularly around rebate processing services to utilities and municipalities. The company will oversee all rebate call centre operations, document management, reporting and payment processing.

 

This seems to be part of a pragmatic move out of ‘pure’ carbon management services into an area that may have more obvious bottom-line appeal to clients. So the focus is on energy and also the cost-savings aspect of outsourcing, e.g. the utility rebate programmes. (In the US and Canada many utility companies offer rebates to clients for reducing energy use – it’s a driving force in the PC power management market in the US, for example).

This move from a carbon focus to energy could be a trend. Earlier this year Carbonetworks changed its name to ENXSuite. The company used to say that its software platform helped companies create carbon emissions strategies, but the new identity is aimed at reflecting ‘the company’s broad customer adoption as an energy performance management provider’.

UK companies are ignoring DECC’s advice on carbon footprint reporting

Last week Deloitte released a study looking at how 100 UK listed companies report their carbon footprints. It seems that only a handful were even close to the GHG accounting guidance from DECC (Department for Energy and Climate Change), which has taken over responsibility from Defra (Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). The report is called Carbon Reporting to Date – Seeing the wood for the trees, and is available here.

We reported on the DECC guidelines when they were completed last year. Basically, the methodology is based on the GHG Protocol and defers to it for any missing emissions factors. It seemed like a very clear document to me, with examples and case studies, but it doesn’t appear to be good enough, particularly bearing in mind that the UK Climate Change Act requires the government to introduce mandatory business reporting of GHG emissions by April 6, 2012 or explain to Parliament why not.

Highlights from the survey include the facts that:

• 57% of companies reported carbon information to some degree, but only 37% reported numerical data on their carbon footprint;

• 20% of companies reported a specific target in relation to carbon reduction;

• Only 9% of companies disclosed that information on carbon had been reported in line with the DECC guidance and only 8% of companies stated that their reporting information had been assured by a third party.

Jenny Harrison, director in Deloitte’s energy practice and carbon reporting and assurance team, commented: “The wide variety of both formal and informal carbon reporting practices identified does not facilitate comparison between companies or industry sectors, making it difficult to evaluate the relative performance of companies in monitoring and reducing their carbon footprint, a primary goal of the government in publishing the Defra guidance.

“Few companies made disclosures explaining year-on-year movements in sufficient depth to enable readers to gain a real understanding of a company’s performance in the year in reducing their carbon footprint, or the appropriateness of targets set”.

 

The survey was based on the annual reports or CR or equivalent published in 2010 from these companies, so much of it would have been before the CRC legislation kicked in. It may well be that some now have the experience, and tools, to do a better job. It certainly looks like the legislation will need to be changed or a much better education process put in place if the 2012 deadline is to be effectively met.

As yet, though, its hard to tell quite how hard the coalition government will be pursuing the climate legislation, so it may well be that the deadline will be pushed back, which would be a pity.

Gartner/WWF report on the sustainability efforts of ICT companies

Gartner and WWF Sweden recently completed an assessment of 28 global ICT providers in terms of the environmental aspects of their internal operations and the low-carbon solutions they offer.

Actually, while 28 were invited to participate, only 19 did: Accenture, Alcatel-Lucent, BT, CSC, Cisco, Dell, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, SAP, Sun Microsystems (pre the Oracle acquisition), TCS, Verizon, Wipro and Xerox. (The press release doesn’t say who refused, except Oracle).

The survey looked at the companies’ commitment to managing the environmental aspects of their internal operations and their supply chain. It also looked at how they are developing products and services that will help them and their customers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions or increase their energy efficiency.

Simon Mingay, research vice president at Gartner summarised the findings thusly; "We now have a clear group of market makers formed by BT, IBM, Cisco, Ericsson, HP, Fujitsu, and SAP who we believe are beginning to build a distinguishing capability. However, at this stage they have not really taken the issues associated with climate change and sustainability into the core of the business and their strategies, and they continue to deal with it within the mindset of incremental improvement and short-termism."

Selected findings included:

• IBM, Fujitsu, HP, Cisco and BT ranked in the top five positions (I assume in that order)

• SAP, ranked No. 8 overall, did substantially better than any of the other large software and services organisations. ‘SAP has put sustainability at the heart of its communications and closer to its strategy over the last 18 months’.

• Doing less well are Microsoft (13th), Lenovo (17th) and Verizon (19th)

• Fujitsu, ranked No. 2, is the only ICT provider to set a long-term context to its initiatives. Fujitsu has set itself a carbon reduction goal in terms of its impact on its customers versus a target related to their own emissions.

• ICT providers in Asia (not Japan) are still lagging overall, but making some dramatic improvements.

• Inter-industry partnerships are starting to emerge. This is a significant factor in ICT's ability to develop commercially viable solutions for a low-carbon economy.

"We were surprised at the lack of disruptive innovation, with the majority of responses essentially focused on the incremental 'client-driven' development," said Dennis Pamlin, co-author and independent consultant working for WWF Sweden on this project. "If the ICT industry is to deliver on its promise of making a significant contribution to enabling a transformation to a low-carbon economy it is going to require substantially more than marginal incrementalism."

 

I don’t think there’ anything particularly new here, although the detail in the report might be more interesting (for instance, who else refused to participate?). In any assessment of the top five ‘green’ ICT companies you would expect to see IBM, Fujitsu and BT, and probably Cisco.

There certainly has been ‘short-termism’ in the industry, though, and the software companies have been more guilty than the hardware players. That’s more to do with the nature of their businesses. ICT equipment uses power, so there’s an easy target for vendors to address – make the hardware more energy efficient. For software companies the savings are less obvious. Two or three years ago I sat in various rooms with representative of major software companies who pretty much denied that they generated any CO2 emissions worth talking about.

That may have changed, but they still see limited responsibility towards their customers in terms of environmental solutions. They’ve been reactive – responding to customer demands - rather than proactive, which is why, in my opinion, the ‘enabling’ part of green ICT, i.e. helping the rest of the business to reduce emissions, has been so slow. By now I expected to be reporting and commenting on a whole range of new and modified solutions aimed at making businesses more energy efficient, but it just hasn’t happened.

One last word on the ‘inter-industry partnerships’ mentioned above. There is going to be some interesting developments in this space in the coming years, particularly in relation to data centres. Companies and products are going to have to work very closely together to produce the sort of comprehensive energy monitoring and management solutions that users will be demanding. That’s going to be a challenge when you have a spectrum of vendors involved ranging, for example, from VMware at one end to Schneider Electric at the other.

Interesting times.

APC provides power monitoring software with its Smart UPS

APC has announced what it claims is the first Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) software to provide energy reporting for IT equipment.

The PowerChute Business Edition 9.0 software goes beyond system shutdown and UPS management by calculating the electricity used, the cost in the local currency and the emissions generated by all the equipment protected by a Smart UPS.

Using APC Smart-UPS with switched outlet groups and the latest PowerChute software, users can configure the sequence by which equipment shuts down and restarts. It is also possible to power off less critical equipment under certain conditions, which means that servers can be powered down when not in use to reduce running costs and CO₂ output. The company maintains that turning off unessential servers outside business hours using this capability could save enough money to cover the cost of purchasing an APC Smart-UPS product in about two years.

The next generation of the Smart-UPS family is planned for release in Q4 in the US and will include a high efficiency ‘green’ mode (no details at the moment).

 

The data centre is becoming a battlefield for various companies offering the means to monitor and manage power use. With this announcement ACS has joined the fray. But with so many other devices, from virtualisation solutions to facilities management software, it’s hard to see who is going to control this green IT space. APC is part of Schneider Electric, though, which is likely to be one of the suppliers that others will have to integrate with. Integration, compatibility and standards will become the name of the game – particularly since the launch of the Open Data Centre Alliance.

Xerox launches a new recycling programme in the US

Xerox has launched a new return and recycling program in the US in partnership with Australian company Close the Loop, which recycles imaging supplies around the world.

Customers can place used supplies into a collection box, print a free shipping label and send the box to Close the Loop. The return instructions are printed on the boxes which can be ordered through the recycling website, http://www.xerox.com/gwa.  The site also includes instructions and other information to help with the choosing and using of a returns process.

Close the Loop will manage the recycling on behalf of Xerox, using a process that recovers used materials for reuse in new printer cartridges and other products.

This service is an extension of Xerox’s Green World Alliance program, launched in 1999. "During the past 12 years, our collaboration with customers has kept more than 143 million pounds of cartridges, bottles, and waste toner out of landfills,” said Patricia Calkins, vice president, Sustainability, Environment, Health & Safety.  “As we continue to make it easier for customers to participate in our remanufacturing, reuse and recycling efforts, we get closer and closer to our ultimate goal of zero waste.”

 

Apparently this US service is “Similar to Xerox’s popular Eco Box program in Europe”. I searched for more details but drew a blank. It would be interesting to know how successful the European service has been to draw comparisons with what happens in the US.

NASDAQ OMX launches Green Indexes, including Green IT

Over the last month NASDAQ OMX has launched a range of Green Economy Indexes to track the performance of companies across the Green Economy. The indexes are intended to cover the entire green economic landscape, with constituents from industries closely associated with sustainable development. The Green Economy Index family is split into 13 different sectors: Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy Generation, Healthy Living, Advanced Materials, Green Building, Bio/Clean Fuels, Pollution Mitigation, Natural Resources, Recycling, Lighting, Water, Transport and Financial.

The overall index is comprised of more than 350 securities from a universe of over 460 companies. The companies included are those involved in the shift to sustainable practices in business and infrastructure and have been selected by Rona Fried, Ph.D. of SustainableBusiness.com, LLC. The green Indexes were announced on September 22nd and, in all, 46 New NASDAQ OMX Green Economy Sector Indexes have been launched since October 13.

Anyway, within the Energy Efficiency sector there is a Green IT Index. It tracks companies that provide solutions to help with the reduction of energy consumption through online collaboration, efficient data centres, computer networks, and virtualisation software. It’s a fairly narrow view of Green IT, but in the context of a stock market index I guess it needs to be.

 

It’s going to be interesting to see how the index develops – you can see progress here. It’s been less than a month since it started tracking, but up until yesterday it was making steady progress, although I don’t know how it compares with the tech market in general.  There was a sudden fall yesterday, though, to take the index to 972.37, down from the 1000 level at launch on October 13th. The fall just seems to be the result of a generally bad day on the NASDAQ, not helped by a disappointing outlook from Cisco, which hit the tech sector in general.

Hosting company UKFast is carbon neutral

Manchester-based hosting company UKFast has announced that it’s operations are carbon neutral. The company says that:

• UKFast is 100% carbon neutral both at its offices and data centres

• All client solutions are also 100% carbon neutral

• All new clients will automatically gain carbon neutral hosting

• UKFast is the first hosting provider to achieve PAS 2060 certification

• UKFast Energy has started work on a series of Hydro electric power plants

• The company’s new data centre is designed with energy saving in mind, including reducing the power requirement and using free cooling systems that use the external air.

PAS 2060 is the Publicly Available Specification 2060 for the demonstration of carbon neutrality, published in June 2010 by The British Standards Institution (BSI.) PAS 2060 helps businesses reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, meet their environmental objectives and validate their carbon neutrality statements. In this case, UKFast’s certification demonstrates that the company has offset all CO2 emissions from head office, data centre operations and the energy used by commuters. UKFast says it is the first certified 100% carbon neutral hosting company in the UK.

But the offsetting is only an interim measure, according to the company. UKFast is looking to generate its own clean energy through the production of hydro electric power plants in Wales and Scotland. It has set up a separate company, UKFast Energy Limited, to provide the hydro energy services to both UKFast and other businesses. The company has already identified eleven locations with the potential to create up to 1MVA per plant. A selection of sites are already in phase three of development, with energy production a potential eighteen months away.

In the meantime, to achieve carbon neutrality straight away, UKFast has invested in a series of existing hydro electric plants in South America and Europe, offsetting more than 2000 tonnes of CO2e.

 

I’m seriously impressed with this because it seems to be a well thought through strategy to achieve carbon neutrality. If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that I have reservations about carbon offsets, and just buying in renewable energy could be seen as jumping the queue, because there isn’t enough to go round (although it does promote the renewables industry). But UKFast seems to answer all the questions. The offsetting is certified and is only until they build their own renewable sources, meanwhile they are reducing power use in a new data centre (with help in financing from the Co-operative Bank, which also claims ethical credentials). All it needs is some retro-fitting of power saving in other data centres (although apparently averaging a PUE of 1.6 they’re not doing badly now) and it would look like the perfect strategy – they may be doing that already for all I know.

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative turns its attention to networks

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) has launched a new industry workgroup to develop energy efficiency targets and best practices for networking technologies.

CSCI is a global consortium dedicated to reducing the energy consumption of end-to-end computing. The organisation was set up in 2007 and is led by Cisco, CSC, Dell, Emerson Network Power, Google Inc., HP, Intel, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, and the World Wildlife Fund, but now has a total of 650 members. It’s aim is to reduce the environmental impact of IT equipment through energy efficiency, with an initial goal of reducing annual CO₂ emissions from the IT sector by 54 million metric tons by June 2011. I reported on their progress to date back in August (briefly, they’re unlikely to reach the target because of the slow adoption of PC power management, a subject I shall return to in the near future).

Anyway, this new workgroup takes the organisation into improving the energy efficiency of networking equipment such as routers, switches and connected devices. The workgroup includes Cisco, CompTIA, Emerson Network Power, Finisar, HP, Intel, Juniper Networks, and Sony Electronics.

According to the CSCI, a study in 2008 showed that networking equipment used 18 billion KWh in the US and is expected to grow by more than 6% a year as the number of networking devices in use by consumers and enterprises increases. The organisation estimates that 38 million metric tons of CO2 emissions can be saved globally by 2015 by using more energy efficient networking equipment, enough to avoid the use of more than nine coal-fired power plants.

The workgroup’s charter specifies that the organization will:

• Leverage current industry metrics to develop targets and best practices.

• Work to increase commercial awareness and adoption of higher efficiency networking equipment technology and practices.

• Utilise the networking device results to advance end-to-end network energy efficiency.

Microsoft report spells out the cloud advantages

Accenture and WSP Environment & Energy — a global environmental and sustainability consultancy – have produced a report for Microsoft into the environmental impact of cloud computing. It’s called Cloud Computing and Sustainability: The Environmental Benefits of Moving to the Cloud and the idea was to assess the environmental impact of cloud computing by comparing the energy use and carbon footprint of Microsoft cloud offerings compared with the on-premise versions.

The analysis focused on three Microsoft applications that can be supplied on-premise or via the cloud; Exchange, SharePoint and Dynamics CRM. The comparison was made on a per-user basis and considered three different deployment sizes—small (100 users), medium (1,000 users) and large (10,000 users).

The study found that, for large deployments, Microsoft’s cloud solutions can reduce energy use and carbon emissions by more than 30%. For small deployments, energy use and emissions can be reduced by more than 90%.

But the report points out that several key factors make the lower energy use possible:

• Matching server capacity with actual demand through Dynamic Provisioning.
• Avoiding load peaks by serving large numbers of organisations and users on shared infrastructure (since they won’t all have peak usage at the same time).
• Higher server utilisation rates.
• Using advanced data centre infrastructure designs that reduce power loss through improved cooling, power conditioning, etc.

The report also flags up issues around embedded carbon in hardware, tailored hardware components, and application code and configuration, all of which can be contributing factors to cloud computing’s environmental advantage.

 

The Executive Summary of the report goes on to say that although large organisations can address some of these factors, providers of public cloud infrastructure are best positioned to reduce the environmental impact of IT because of their scale.

 

This is a useful report in the way it lays out very clearly where the potential environmental advantages of cloud computing are. However, the benefits may be true for Microsoft’s offerings, but will not all apply for all cloud providers in all circumstances, so it’s not quite as black and white as the report sometimes seems to imply.

To be fair, the Summary of Findings does say “Note that, because Microsoft applications and data centres were the basis of the study, the specific carbon reductions from running other applications from other software providers on a cloud model may vary. However, the trends shown here are instructive and may be used as directional indicators for decision makers in corporate IT and sustainability leadership positions when considering a switch to cloud computing with any provider”.

Bear that in mind when reading the report.

Facebook launches a ‘green’ page

Facebook now has its own ‘green’ page where the company will ‘highlight our efforts to be a green and sustainable global citizen’.

On the page (which is here) the company says that it is taking steps to implement responsible sustainability practices, including efforts toward energy efficient computing, better business practices, advocacy and partnerships and leveraging the social sustainability of its platform. Partners listed on the page include the Alliance to Save Energy, Digital Energy Solutions Campaign and The Green Grid.

The page gives a recent example of Facebook’s actions. A programming language designed by Facebook engineers enabled the company to reduce the CPU usage of its web servers by half, saving energy. To spread the benefit the software has been released as open source.

 

The green page gives details of other green activities by the company. It all sounds great and it’s a good reference point for Facebook’s green efforts. The part I would query, though, is the bit about ‘leveraging the social sustainability of the Facebook platform’. The company’s view is that just by enabling people to easily connect and share, Facebook can ‘help unleash innovative environmental initiatives across the globe’.

I hope so.

Emerson reduces data centre power consumption by 50%

Emerson Network Power has reduced its data centre power consumption by more than 50% and floor space by about 75% after moving IT operations to its new global data centre at the company’s corporate HQ in St. Louis. It has closed data centres in Chicago and Cincinnati and will shortly close a legacy data centre on the HQ site.

The facility also has a 7,800-square-foot rooftop solar array which produced an average of 11,400 kVAh per month during the first year, enough energy to power nine average homes for a year, saving the emissions from 20 cars.

 

Worth a mention because, as the name suggests, Emerson Network Power is a major global player in supplying power and business continuity, particularly to ICT companies for telecommunications networks and data centres.

What’s new is that there is now increasing focus on where that power goes, which is why the company made a couple of significant acquisitions in the last couple of years:

• In 2008 it acquired Aperture, which provides software for managing the physical infrastructure and improving efficiency of data centres.

• Avocent, bought in 2009, is in a related area, supplying technology that gives better visibility into, and management of, data centre infrastructure.

The two companies have been brought together within Emerson Network Power to form a new division specifically focused on data centre infrastructure management, so it’s no surprise that the expertise has been used in the company’s own consolidated facility.

The only odd thing about this announcement is that, as far as I can see, there was no figures given for the PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), which is the usual yardstick for data centre efficiency. The new facility may use a lot less power than the previous disparate sites, but how energy efficient is it?

1E updates its NightWatchman PC power management software

Leading power management software company 1E has released version 6.0 of its NightWatchman PC solution. The main enhancements are:

• A new web-based dashboard to provide a high-level view of power use. It can also show information from other 1E products, including  NightWatchman Server and WakeUp (a wake-up-on-LAN tool).

• Location-based energy tariffs, which means that reporting on energy saved can be that much more accurate. The software already calculates energy consumption specific to the exact make and model of a machine.

• Enhanced sleepless client detection to make sure that PCs are put into a low-power state when not in use.

1E subsequently announced that insurance company Aviva will be using NightWatchman. The software is being deployed across Aviva’s UK estate of around 30,000 PCs and the expectation is that each year it will save CO2 emissions equivalent to 500 cars.

 

These new product enhancements reflect 1E’s efforts to stay ahead in a market where it has a significant competitive lead against its direct rivals. These new capabilities reflect some of the main issues in the market, i.e. knowing when a machine is doing nothing (idle detection) and the need for comprehensive and clear reporting. The accuracy of the data will increasingly become an issue, particularly if the data is fed into carbon management solutions.

1E will need to keep enhancing its products because this is an increasingly competitive market with low barriers to entry. There’s a quote from Gartner in the press release saying that they believe by 2012, more than 50% of midsize and large organisations will centrally manage desktop power states. That’s an optimistic figure (the Carbon Saving Computing Initiative puts the current figure at around half that) and with PC lifecycle management products from BigFix (now part of IBM) and Dell Kace, for example, offering more basic power management capabilities at significantly lower price, competition will be fierce.

WeatherBug comes to the aid of smart grids

US Weather forecasting company WeatherBug has announced the launch of WeatherBug Smart Grid Solutions, a suite of applications that provide of real-time, local weather intelligence designed to maximise smart grid efficiencies.

The various applications offer weather information, monitoring capabilities and forecasting intelligence, including:

• Demand Forecasting based on weather information.

• A Demand Response program that provides real-time insight and analysis for peak-demand reduction.

• Consumer Engagement through the WeatherBug EcoConnect portal, an educational energy resource portal covering weather information, energy consumption information, home energy audit information and energy smart tips to engage consumers in demand response programs.

• Power Outage Management, in terms of understanding the problem and managing the solution.

 

There’s going to need to be something of a revolution in providing weather information in the future. Smart grids are a good example. They only really come into their own if they can be used effectively to spread the load (supplier) and reduce costs (consumer) and that can only happen if all parties have real-time information on supply and forecasts, which mainly means the weather.

It’s not just about making forecasting better – although they will need to be – but also getting the information out there in a way that it can be read, understood and used effectively - ultimately by other IT systems.

The ‘Fate of the World’ – can be in your hands

UK company Red Redemption has released ‘Fate of the World’, a global strategy game that puts you in charge of the world’s future.

The game is based on a set of science-based scenarios stretching out for 200 years into the future. Players are put in charge of balancing the conflicting requirements of protecting the Earth's climate and resources against the needs of an ever-growing world population, which needs more food, power, and living space.

There are a number of pre-set missions in 12 different world regions and as well as the headline challenges they face, players may nurture endangered animals, cure (or cause) global pandemics, plan future technologies such as geo-engineering, fusion power and genetic modification, and deal with disasters such as sea level rise, flash-fires, mass-migration, and super-hurricanes.

The game has an impressive pedigree – for this production Red Redemption had the help of climate scientist Dr Myles Allen (University of Oxford) and writing from David Bishop (Dr Who), among many others.

Fate of the World is certainly available in the UK to pre-order now (and possibly generally available from today – details unclear). It works on PCs with a Mac version due shortly. More info here.

 

It sounds interesting. There are other games that touch on social issues, but this seems to be the first full-blown environment-based title to hit the market.

It could certainly be a great educational tool simply by raising all the issues that it covers, but as with any computer game it will stand or fall on how good it is to play. Given the thought that seems to have gone into it and the people involved, it has a very good chance. (I’ve ordered mine).

FM:Systems integrates with the Energy Star building performance rating system

US facilities management software company FM:Systems has announced that its FM:Interact solution now integrates with the EPA’s Energy Star energy performance rating system.
The direct integration means that organisations can get an Energy Star rating for a building, benchmark its performance and calculate carbon footprint.

The FM:Interact Sustainability Module helps users manage information on energy performance, building certifications and sustainability projects like energy retrofits from a standard web browser.

The Energy Star performance rating system is a benchmark for assessing how efficiently buildings use energy, relative to similar buildings. The rating system has a 1–100 scale of performance — a rating of 50 indicates average energy performance, while a rating of 75 or better indicates top performance.

So the new FM:Interact capability enables the software to send building energy usage information direct to the EPA’s Portfolio Manager software, which calculates the building’s Energy Star rating and carbon footprint and returns that data to FM:Interact.

It means that facility managers and real estate professionals can quickly benchmark their buildings against similar facilities, see which ones in their portfolio rank well and which need improvement, and recognise good performing buildings with the Energy Star label. 

 

Bill Von Neida, senior program manager with Energy Star pointed out that “With almost 5 million commercial buildings that annually consume $107.9 billion for energy and contribute 17 percent of all US greenhouse gas emissions, just a small percentage reduction in consumption could produce dramatic results”.

This sort of benchmarking approach seems to be the best way to do it. It shows just what can and has been achieved elsewhere and introduces an element of competition to do even better. Unfortunately not every country has an EPA/Energy Star rating process.