Sprint has announced ambitious e-waste targets

Last Thursday Sprint announced the creation of what it called its Electronics Stewardship Policy, which outlines a number of commitments and goals in handling electronic waste. These are:

• To design and procure electronics that are more environmentally sustainable. Specifically, at least 70% of Sprint-branded devices launched annually will meet the company’s environmental scorecard criteria by 2017.

• Maximize the useful life of equipment. The company will provide service and repair for most Sprint-branded
  handsets for three years or more after they are introduced.

• The company will boost collection of equipment for reuse and recycling. There are two goals; by 2017 to collect 90% of all phones they sell for reuse or recycling; by the same time, collect all of Sprint’s annual e-waste for reuse and recycling.

• Maximize reuse of electronics through redeployment and remarketing.

• Ensure the responsibly recycling of e-scrap by keeping it out of landfill, separating materials for recovery and making sure e-scrap is not shipped to developing countries.

• Use environmentally and socially responsible vendors for recycling and remanufacturing. The aim is that all of Sprint’s electronics recycling vendors will be certified by end of 2012 and all electronics remanufacturing partners certified by the end of 2013.

 

Well, first of all Sprint is clearly making an effort in environmental sustainability and has done well in rankings and awards from Newsweek, Frost & Sullivan and the CDP. It’s not the company’s fault that coverage of these plans have been hailed by some as a ‘zero e-waste’ goal, whatever that might mean. As far as I’m aware it’s not something the company has claimed.

There’s no such thing as zero e-waste, of course. All anyone can do is eliminate wastage in manufacture, give the product as long a working life as possible and, when it’s no longer of any use, ensure that materials are reclaimed and the remainder disposed of in as environmentally friendly a manner as possible.

All the company commits to do is “collect all of Sprint’s annual e-waste for reuse and recycling”. As far as I can tell this is little more than what all EU companies are obliged to do under the Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) legislation. In any case, Sprint points out that it will only maximise the material recovery from e-scrap “to the extent technically and economically practical”, which means not all.

For me the real surprise in the announcement is that the company is “committed to providing service and repair for most Sprint-branded handsets for three years or more after they are introduced”. Didn’t they before? I’ve had my phone longer than that already.

Alert Me gets a new Chairman and gears up for expansion

UK Home Energy Management (HEM) company AlertMe has announced the appointment of a new Chairman and is gearing up for expansion in the UK and overseas.

AlertMe provides home energy management and smart home services to consumers both directly and through channel partners such as utilities, telcos and OEMs. Based on a Home Area Network (HAN) and cloud-based platform, AlertMe’s products let users monitor and control energy use, heating, solar PV, security and other devices and services online and via smart phones.

The new Chairman is Ron Mackintosh, who brings experience from management consultancy and the IT industry. He was President and Chief Executive of the European business of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) between 1992 and 2000. Currently he’s chairman of wireless technology company Cambridge Silicon Radio and a non-executive director with financial trading software services company Fidessa.

BusinessGreen reports that the company is also gearing up to expand into Europe and the Americas. Trials in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, US and Mexico are underway and the company could move into these markets by the summer. AlertMe is also looking for partners to grow its UK presence.

 

What drew my attention to this is the fact that the ex head of CSC in Europe is getting involved, adding weight to the importance of the HAN/HEM market in the future. There’s a way to go in terms of market maturity, with agreement on standards one stumbling block. It also depends on smart meters and smart grids to really show its value, but it’s set to be a potentially very large market worldwide.

Nujira raises funds for its smartphone power reduction technology

UK-based Nujira, which develops technology to reduce power consumption in smartphone transmitters, has landed a further £10m of funding. The investment round will help Nujira’s achieve its ambition of installing its Coolteq wideband Envelope Tracking technology into 800 million energy efficient 3G and 4G devices by 2016.

Nujira supplies ultra-high efficiency RF Power Amplifier (PA) technology for the mobile infrastructure and handset and broadcasting markets. Half of base station power is used by the PA and up to 85% of that power is wasted as heat. Nujira’s technology can significantly improve the efficiency of the PA, reducing radio network power consumption by up to 50% and reducing typical network power costs by $20m per annum. That could mean a reduction of 20 million tonnes of CO2 emissions globally every year.

Nujira's technology is currently being trialled by twelve major mobile infrastructure vendors and two broadcast infrastructure vendors. The company is selling the technology to manufacturers of 3G and 4G base stations, broadcast transmitters and mobile device OEMs and semiconductor companies. The company believes there is a total addressable market of over $1bn by 2013.

 

Based on the information provided on what the technology can do and the savings it can make, it’s no surprise that Nujira has raised the money. (The investment was led by a new investor, Climate Change Capital Private Equity and supported by existing investors Amadeus, NES Partners and Environmental Technologies Fund).

The telecoms sector is, in any case, actively looking to significantly reduce its emissions (see info on GreenTouch and LightRadio initiatives), so Nujira’s green ICT offering looks to be in the right place at the right time.

A word on comments

I welcome any comments on what I’ve posted - the more of a dialogue the blog becomes the more valuable it is to everyone.

However, comments are moderated. They will not appear if they are anonymous, rude/unpleasant or a blatant plug for a product or service.

Having said that, if you have something to say that’s not for publication, then email me at the address on the web site. It’s always good to get the inside story.

Defra opens carbon reporting consultation

The UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs (Defra) has issued its consultation document asking for views on whether it should be mandatory for UK companies to report on their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The Climate Change Act 2008 requires the Government to make regulations by 6 April 2012 requiring the directors’ report of a company to include information about GHG emissions, or if not explain the reasons to Parliament. No decision has yet been made and the consultation is aimed at helping Ministers make up their minds (if they’re not made up already).

The consultation document includes four options:

• Enhanced voluntary reporting, i.e. not mandatory at all, but providing support and encouragement to voluntary reporting

• Mandate under Companies Act for all Quoted companies, i.e. reporting of GHG emissions in the director’s report from all quoted companies

• Mandate under Companies Act for all large companies. This option would require all large companies, public and private, as defined by the Companies Act to report on their GHG emissions in their director’s report. Between 17,000 and 31,000 large companies are expected to be included.

• Mandate under Companies Act for all companies whose UK electricity consumption exceeds a certain threshold. It’s proposed that this would be linked to the qualification criteria in the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. Under the CRC, organisations who are supplied with more than 6,000 MWh of qualifying electricity must register as participants. There are approximately 4,000 companies who come under the scheme. If the energy threshold was to be lowered – it could potentially cover up to around 15,000 companies.

 

There is a lot more detail in the consultation paper, which is at http://www.defra.gov.uk/consult/2011/05/11/ghg-emissions/. They want your views on the questions at the end of the document on the four options. Closing date is July 5th.

Given the Government’s view on red tape – in which category much climate change regulations was initially placed – it’s important to make your views heard. Voluntary reporting should not be an option at this stage in the game, and linking mandatory reporting to the CRC might be an option if the future of the CRC itself was clearer.

Personally, I would like to see a combination of the second and third options, i.e. mandatory for all quoted companies AND all large companies (so that private companies and public bodies are also included). But let them know what you think.

Certainly mandatory reporting will help focus minds, but it’s only really bringing forward the inevitable - there’s not much excuse for not doing it now. There’s also a wide selection of carbon emissions management software to help.

Ford looks to Google to optimise energy efficiency

Ford has been working on ways to anticipate a driver's destination so that the information can be used to optimise vehicle performance in fuel efficiency and driveability. After a lot of their own research they are now adding the Google API into the mix. Google’s Prediction API can convert information such as historical driving data – where and when a driver has travelled – into real-time predictions of where they are headed at the time of departure.

The Google solution is cloud-based, which means it has more computation power, information storage and external data to bring to bear in converting historical driving data into real-time predictors.

Using the service a vehicle owner’s usage profile is built-up online based on routes and time of travel. Using this data, Google Prediction will anticipate the most likely destination and how to optimise driving performance to and from that location. To confirm the destination the vehicle’s computer could ask the driver for confirmation. A predicted route of travel could, for example, include an area restricted to electric-only driving, so a plug-in hybrid car could program itself to optimize energy usage over the total distance of the route in order to preserve enough battery power to switch to all-electric mode when travelling within the EV-only zone.

An another example is driving in cities that have lower emissions zones, which already includes London, Berlin and Stockholm. If a vehicle could predict exactly when it might be entering such a zone, it could optimise itself in a way to comply with regulations, for example switching the engine to all-electric mode.

 

It all sounds fascinating and at first sight somewhat futuristic. But when you think that the UK has just confirmed its targets of reducing carbon emissions by 50% by 2025 (on 1990 figures) then the future is very close. Incremental gains in reducing emissions will be important, so this sort of technology could well be essential.

Personal information security is going to be a big issue, which Ford acknowledges – who will have access to the data? Slightly more spooky is the idea that when you get into a car at 7am in the morning it asks whether you are going to work. Will you have to provide it with a note to get a day off?

Environmental management software company Hara raises $25m in funding

Environmental and energy management software company Hara has raised $25m in new funding. It’s the company’s largest financing round and brings total investment to $45m. Hara says the additional funding will allow it to accelerate global expansion and product innovation to meet growing demand.

The finance comes from a number of ‘strategic’ investors who will help expansion across industries including manufacturing, utilities and oil and gas. Hara, has apparently already secured more than 50 leading industry and government customers. Just looking back through The Green IT Review reveals that I’ve reported on wins at News Corp, Reed Elsevier and Hasbro.

 

Hara certainly seems to be pushing hard for the enterprise market for energy and environmental management software and this funding should help give it added weight against some more familiar named rivals. The finance is not surprising, given the market growth expectations. Back in February Groom Energy Solutions released a study that predicts a 300% growth in the Enterprise Energy and Carbon Accounting (EECA) software market in 2011, after an even higher growth in 2010 when more than 200 corporations purchased EECA software. It’s certainly the fastest growing green IT sector at the moment. While the largest markets are the US and Europe, Asian and South American companies are steadily becoming part of the sales mix.

The Green Grid completes its energy efficiency measurement and reporting recommendations

The Green Grid Association together with The Data Center Metrics Coordination Taskforce has published a new report, entitled “Recommendations for Measuring and Reporting Overall Data Center Efficiency: Version 2 – Measuring PUE at Data Centers”, which completes the guidelines for applying the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric. The new information includes specific recommendations for how to measure and calculate PUE in mixed-use data centre facilities.

Back in January 2010 a group of organisations in the US got together to agree on data centre energy efficiency measurements, metrics and reporting conventions. Among others they included The Green Grid, US EPA’s Energy Star programme, US Green Building Council and the Uptime Institute. In July the first report was published, providing recommendations on measuring and publishing values for PUE at dedicated data centre facilities.

The reports came about because while PUE, which determines the amount of energy used by a data centre facility and the IT equipment inside of it, is widely used as a measure of data centre efficiency, the metrics are not always applied clearly and consistently. This is an issue when data centres are compared with each other or over time. The documents set out what should be measured, how and when.

In terms of assessing data centre energy use the organisations agreed the following principles:

• PUE, using source energy consumption, is the preferred energy efficiency metric for data centres.

• When calculating PUE, IT energy consumption should, at a minimum, be measured at the output of the uninterruptible power supply (UPS), although the industry will continue to aim to directly measure the IT load (e.g. servers, storage, network, etc.).

• For a dedicated data centre the total energy in the PUE equation will include all energy sources to the data centre. For mixed-use data centres, the total energy will be all energy required to operate the data centre, similar to a dedicated data centre, and should include cooling, lighting, and support infrastructure for the data centre operations.

 

The misuse of PUE, particularly in comparing data centres, has threatened to bring the metric into disrepute, so the clarification contained in these two reports is to be welcomed. I doubt it will stop bad comparisons being made, but at least it makes it very clear that it’s not the result of the measure itself.

Open Virtualization Alliance formed – IBM, HP, Intel, BMC

In the first week in May I reported that IBM and Red Hat were to partner around open source virtualisation. Well that collaboration has been extended to BMC Software, Eucalyptus Systems, HP, Intel and SUSE with the formation of the Open Virtualization Alliance.

The aim of the consortium is to promote the adoption of virtualization technologies, including Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). They plan to do that through publicising customer successes, encouraging interoperability and the expansion of the third-party ecosystem of solutions. The Open Virtualization Alliance will also provide education, best practices and advice to help businesses with their virtualisation options.

 

The press release says that “By providing an open virtualization alternative, (the Alliance) are offering their clients choice and enabling them to select the ideal virtualization products for their business needs”. When I reported on the IBM/Red Hat partnership I commented that open source virtualisation was faced with some powerful proprietary opposition, particularly VMware. But with HP, Intel and BMC Software part of the collaboration, the open source solution is now looking much more like an alternative to be reckoned with.

Green driving – with the help of an iPhone app

DriveGain has released a free iPhone application, called CarEconomy, that shows your average fuel economy as you drive.

CarEconomy, which works on the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4, doesn’t need any user input apart from selecting your car model from a list. Once you’re driving the app can display fuel usage in MPG (US or UK gallons), l/100km, l/100miles or km/l.

The basic download comes with a simple average fuel consumption figure, but an optional upgrade adds an instantaneous fuel economy meter that shows how much fuel you are using at any given moment.

 

The company also has the paid-for DriveGain app that helps you save fuel while you are driving by providing visual and audio feedback on what changes you can make to your driving style to help you save more fuel.

The display has an acceleration and braking meter that shows how fuel efficient current braking and acceleration is. A speed meter is colour coded to show fuel efficiency. And a Smoothness reading shows how smoothly you have been driving over the last few minutes - the higher the number the better

The company maintains that using DriveGain should save you, on average, £170 per year in the UK/$205 per year in the US. On this basis, for an average driver the application will pay for itself within 2 weeks.

 

I’m not sure how useful the basic free version would be. The app would make you aware of fuel consumption but not much more. You would need to upgrade to the ‘instantaneous’ meter version to get some real feedback on driving – although is it close enough to real time to be meaningful?

The paid for, DriveGain app may well be worth the investment, though - cost is not given, but based on the expected savings it must be c£6.50/$7.90.  As one who tries to practice ‘green’ driving it takes a while to get used to it. The app would help, but you wouldn’t need it for more than a few months.

Toshiba has acquired leading smart meter company Landis+Gyr for $2.3bn

Toshiba has won the chase for Landis+Gyr with an agreement to buy the smart metering infrastructure company for $2.3bn. Toshiba sees the acquisition as the basis from which to build its business targeting the global smart grid market.

Toshiba emerged as the purchaser after several weeks of speculation as to who would buy the Swiss company. Among those said to be bidding were ABB, General Electric, Honeywell and Siemens.

Toshiba will retain the Landis+Gyr brand and there are no plans for job reduction or restructuring as a result of this transaction.

 

It looks like a good fit for Toshiba (although that’s probably true for several of the bidders). Toshiba is a diversified manufacturer, covering electronic devices and components, power systems, industrial and social infrastructure systems and home appliances. Smart grids and smart meters sit pretty much in the middle of all that and promise a lot of spin-off business in the coming years. Given its 100+ year history and industry-leading position, Landis+Gyr would have been particularly attractive to the Japanese company.

‘Highways in the Sky’ could save 13 million tons of CO₂ emissions worldwide

GE Aviation has released a study that illustrates the potential for significant economic and environmental benefit from using technology that allows aircraft to fly precisely-defined trajectories without relying on ground-based radio-navigation signals.

The study - Highways in the Sky – found potential for significant economic and environmental benefit from using Required Navigation Performance (RNP) landing approaches. RNP allows aircraft to fly more accurate paths by using GPS and onboard computer technology. It means shorter, more consistent and more efficient flight paths which can reduce flight delays and help alleviate air traffic congestion.

The study focused on 46 mid-sized US airports and found that RNP deployment would save 12.9 million gallons of jet fuel a year, worth $65.6m, and 274.6 million pounds of CO₂ emissions, equal to the carbon absorbed by 1.3 million trees. ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, believes that efficiencies made possible by RNP can cut global CO₂ emissions by 13 million metric tons per year.

RNP is already being tested and implemented in some places. In Brisbane, trials have demonstrated that RNP instrument approach procedures saved aircraft operators 882,000 pounds of jet fuel a year, even though only 18% of the aircraft were capable of flying the procedures. Based on the results, Airservices Australia is implementing RNP at 28 airports across Australia which it expects will save operators nearly 86 million pounds of jet fuel each year.

ICT investment brings environmental benefits to cities

In their Networked Society City Index, which ranks 25 cities according to ICT maturity and development, Ericsson and Arthur D. Little point out that cities with a high level of ICT maturity are better able to manage issues such as environmental management, infrastructure, public security, health-care quality and education.

The three best-performing cities in the index - Singapore, Stockholm and Seoul - have successfully met many social, economic and environmental targets. Singapore is aggressively driving innovation in e-health and is a pioneer in traffic-congestion management. Stockholm sees ICT as a major enabler for research collaboration and knowledge transfer, while Seoul is using ICT to realise green high-tech initiatives.

 

 

Erik Almqvist, Director at Arthur D. Little Nordic, says: "Although this analysis should be seen as a humble starting point to explore the link between ICT investments and sustainable development, it is our joint hope and intention that this report can serve as inspiration for cities that do not settle for the status quo."

 

Well there you have it. IT investment leads to sustainable development. If only it was that simple!

But there does seem to be a correlation and it supports the view that ICT has a significant part to play in enabling cities and economies to become more sustainable. It’s also a ringing endorsement for IBM’s ‘smart everything’ (particularly cities) approach.

MasterCard reports card users’ travel-related carbon emissions

Businesses that use MasterCard corporate cards will soon be able to access automatic reporting and analysis of estimated travel-related carbon emissions data based on their card transactions. Due for launch in the US later this year, the MasterCard Carbon Emissions Reporting feature was developed in response to the nearly 80% of companies expressing an interest in green travel initiatives.

MasterCard and Brighter Planet, the carbon management solutions company, have come together to offer the service. Estimated data on flights, rental cars, hotels and other travel purchases will be processed by Brighter Planet’s carbon calculation platform, which will integrate carbon scores into MasterCard’s web-based expense management and reporting solution. The carbon scoring will let companies benchmark, track, compare and report various emissions metrics.

MasterCard believes the service comes at a critical time, with consumers and businesses becoming more sensitive to both costs and carbon footprints. According to the National Business Travel Association, US business travel generates $240bn billion in annual spending and as much as 30-40% of operational costs for some companies. At the same time, companies are striving to benchmark sustainability goals and initiatives and address the environmental concerns of stakeholders.

 

What’s encouraging is the demand for the travel-related carbon data that MasterCard/Brighter Planet will produce. It may not be that accurate (although MasterCard says it uses independently validated, standards-compliant calculation methodologies) but it will at least provide companies with a benchmark and the means to track progress.

The UK’s e-waste is flooding Africa

According to a report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a toxic flood of discarded technology is illegally leaving the UK for Africa.

The NGO’s report, entitled ‘System Failure: The UK’s harmful trade in electronic waste’, was the result of an 18-month undercover operation. While the European Union regulations e-waste to be properly recycled, either here or in other developed countries, the investigation found that the chance to profit at the expense of the developing world is too tempting for some to resist.

In Africa the illegally exported waste is stripped down to bare components using primitive and dangerous methods. For example, copper wires are set alight to remove flame-resistant coatings and CRT monitors are smashed with hammers, with potential health consequences for workers as well as toxic impact on the environment.

The undercover investigation was the basis for a BBC programme ‘Track My Trash’ broadcast on Monday.

As a result of the investigation the EIA has made a number of recommendations to the UK Government, including:

• The Government should ensure continued funding for the Environment Agency (EA) to develop its intelligence-led enforcement. The EA should also tighten its procedures for the licensing of treatment facilities and contractors, including increased spot-check visits.

• The right to award Producer Compliance Schemes contracts should be taken out of the hands of local authorities and centralised in the relevant Government ministry. The Government should conduct a review of the system to reduce their number and set a realistic price for recycling.

• The Government should commission a review of existing contracts between local authorities and Producer Compliance Schemes to ensure the schemes actually have the infrastructure to carry out recycling.

• All unwanted electronic and electrical equipment left at Designated Collection Facilities, such as civic amenity sites, should be quantified and recorded.

• A company being investigated by the authorities for suspected illegal trade in e-waste should be barred from further export activities until the case is resolved. Also, Producer Compliance Schemes holding the contract for sites from where e-waste has been illegally exported should lose their contract after a successful prosecution.

 

 

Having seen the TV programme based on the research, its hard not to agree with all the EIA’s recommendations.

Climate change will impact Wi-Fi – UK government warning

Caroline Spelman, the UK Environment Secretary, has warned that climate change will impact the capabilities of ICT in the UK.  In particular, a warmer climate will have an impact on wireless transmission, which is directly dependent on temperature. More wireless masts may be needed to cope, but tower structures themselves may also be impacted by flooding damage to foundations and storm damage to above-ground infrastructure.

The comments came at the launch of a cross government report which outlines the challenges to the transport, energy, water and ICT sectors. ‘Climate Resilient Infrastructure’ sets out what action needs to be taken by infrastructure owners and operators, regulators, insurers and Government.

The impact on ICT as a whole is critical, since a recent study from environmental consultancy AEA on the interactions of infrastructure said that five sectors (energy, ICT, transport, waste and water) were all, to some extent, interdependent but that each was absolutely dependent on the provision of energy and ICT.

 

 

But Spelman’s report points out that the ICT industry has an opportunity to play a leading role in increasing climate resilience by developing new technologies. One example given is a project by the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London to use wireless sensor networks to assess the condition of existing infrastructure. 

 

The report is a useful reminder of the role of ICT in climate change. The industry is at the centre of business so has a significant role to play in reducing climate-changing emissions across the economy. But the central role of ICT also means that it needs to be resilient to the inevitable change in climate. Not only does the basic infrastructure – primarily communications capabilities - need to stand up to the changes, but there is going to be huge demand from companies to ensure their ICT-dependent businesses can withstand the short-term events and long-term implications of changes in weather and their consequences.

UK government finally approves the carbon budget through to 2027

According to the Observer newspaper yesterday and subsequent reports this morning, the UK government has agreed to abide by the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change for its fourth carbon budget, which takes us through to 2027.

The independent Committee was set up by the Climate Change legislation, which requires Parliament to set carbon budgets for the maximum emissions in a series of five year periods through to 2050. The Committee on Climate Change is required to recommend the level of these budgets, and a proposal must then be put before Parliament.

In its first report - Building a Low Carbon Economy – published in December 2008, the Committee proposed the first three budgets through to 2022, on the road to achieving an 80% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050.

The latest proposal, for the 2022-2027 time frame, were published last December and aimed to effectively achieve a 60% reduction in emissions by 2030, based on 1990 levels. It’s the recommendations in this report – available here – that the government has now agreed to.

It seems that after some disagreement about the cost and impact on the economy of the proposals, Energy Secretary Chris Huhne is expected to confirm agreement in Parliament tomorrow. If so, the UK will apparently be the first country to have a legally binding carbon emissions reduction target past 2020.

 

Hopefully, confirming the budget will provide increased confidence in green investment in the UK. There’s going to have to be a lot of it. Just taking one example, the report says that to achieve the necessary 44% reduction in surface transport emissions, 60% of new cars could be electric in 2030. It also anticipates a 5% reduction in car trips through smarter travel choices. It’s clear that green ICT has a significant part to play in achieving these targets.

Carbon Trust Standard launches online assessment tool for certification

The UK’s Carbon Trust has launched an online assessment tool to make it easier for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to achieve Carbon Trust Standard certification. SMEs using the tool have, on average, cut their energy costs by £2,000 per year, and their carbon footprints by 13 tonnes CO2e. 

The Carbon Trust Standard online application process is available for companies who are not already covered under the government's CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. They must have an annual energy spend of no more than £50,000 with only, 'simple' UK-based emission sources, i.e. utilities, owned/leased vehicles, on-site fuel consumption.

Companies completing the assessment need to input information about their organisation and its carbon footprint (including details of energy consumption) and answer a series of questions about  carbon management policies and procedures, providing evidence to support responses. When done, the application is submitted for initial review and, after the final submission, companies are told whether they have achieved certification.

The Carbon Trust is a not-for-profit company supporting the move to a low carbon economy. The organisation claims that SMEs can save £400m a year and over 2.5 million tonnes of C02e through carbon footprint reduction and certification.

 

Sounds like a good idea. While the certification is a nice-to-have, just getting SMEs to start looking at the process of carbon management could have a significant impact.

According to the Carbon Trust there are 4.8 million SMEs in the UK accounting for 45% of UK business energy expenditure. Collectively, the smaller organisations that fall outside of existing legislation - the CRC, the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) and Climate Change Agreements (CCA) - account for a quarter of all non-domestic emissions.

The more aware smaller companies are of their energy costs the more they’re likely to take some action to reduce power usage. It’s an opportunity for green IT solutions, such as carbon and energy management software, to help them do it better.

Paris launches CD/DVD recycling scheme

GreenIT.fr reports that the City of Paris has launched a new collection system for recycling CDs and DVDs.

Conducted in partnership with Coldisk , the operation is based on 15 containers placed for six months in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. Nine of them will be placed in specific locations, such as colleges, while four will be freely available in public places.

More than 200 million CDs/DVDs are sold each year in France, almost all of which ends up in landfill. A CD of 23 grams is 90% polycarbonates, which recyclable, as is the plastic case. The polycarbonate is made into granules that become plastic cards, jewellery, lamps, etc. while the boxes are turned into pellets that can be converted into new polystyrene boxes or buttons.

 

It’s one way of saving a lot of recyclable waste - we don’t have any easy means to recycle CDs and DVDs in the UK, for example (as far as I’m aware). On the other hand, it is a decreasing problem as more and more music and videos are downloaded. CD album sales have decreased for the last six years in a row in the UK as downloads have increased - HMV have announced the closure of 40 stores over the next year as a result.

There is a cost in carbon from downloading – something around 7kWh per gigabyte, according to an article in the Guardian last year, - but downloading is still 40-80% more carbon efficient than buying a CD, let alone the recycling advantage.

Charge your mobile phone by talking!

The latest idea for powering mobile phones is a technique for turning sound into electricity. It means that the device can be charged simply by using it to hold a conversation. According to the report in The Telegraph, even background noise and music will charge a phone while it is not in use.

The idea comes from Dr Sang-Woo Kim, at the institute of nanotechnology at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea, who is quoted as saying "The development would have the additional benefit of reducing noise levels near highways by absorbing the sound energy of vehicles."

 

Novel devices for charging phones seem to be the focus for a lot of research. Only a couple of weeks ago I reported on ‘self-powered’ mobile phones that incorporated screens using transparent photovoltaic film to charge the phone’s battery.

The Telegraph article also mentions devices that can use the heartbeat to power MP3 players and a Nokia patent for a device which harvests energy from movement.

Given the advances in ‘free’ charging and in reducing the power used in devices, there may not be much use for the ‘universal’ mobile phone charger that the EU is introducing, which was always too little too late.

Business video conference is one of the fastest growing markets in ICT - Ovum

Ovum has published a report that forecasts global spending on business video conferencing will hit $3.8bn in 2016. With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue of 5.8% from 2011 to 2016 it is one of the fastest growing markets in ICT. High end video conferencing (telepresence) will grow even faster, at a CAGR of 19.5% over the same five-year period to become a $1.1bn.

The analyst company’s report - Enterprise Business Video Forecast: 2011-16 – says that the market is driven by an increasing focus on cost-cutting and productivity. Even the executives of major companies are using telepresence - where participants can see each other in life-size images in highly interactive sessions - as a replacement for travelling to face-to-face meetings.

Richard Thurston, author of the report, said: “(Enterprises) are starting to use video conferencing much more frequently because of ongoing economic concerns, continued efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, enhancements in video technology and price reductions that are improving the business case. The next five years will see solid increases in expenditure from businesses in every region around the globe”.

Ovum predicts that businesses will opt for third-party managed services to help them with their telepresence installations - business spending on managed services will increase at a CAGR of 11.5% from 2011 to 2016.

 

Video conferencing is one area where improvements in technology have come together with business efforts to reduce costs and an increasing green ICT focus. What used to be a poor quality and/or too expensive experience is now a real alternative to travelling to meetings.

Cost cutting may still be the primary reason for implementation, but it won’t be long before companies that don’t make extensive use of teleconferencing and video conferencing, to replace business travel, will come under the spotlight. The need to be a good corporate citizen will drive this green ICT sector in the long term.

Electronic health records are more environmentally friendly, study shows

US health care services company Kaiser Permanente has released a report that concludes that the use of electronic health records (EHR) reduces carbon emissions, waste and water consumption. The study, published in the May issue of Health Affairs, estimates that electronic health records could lower carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 1.7 million tons across the US population.

The study is based on a model that evaluated the effects of EHR use on greenhouse gases, waste, toxic chemicals and water use within the Kaiser Permanente system, which serves more than 8.7 million members. The analysis found that the company’s use of health IT:

• Avoided the annual use of 1,044 tons of paper for medical charts

• Eliminated up to 92,000 tons of CO2 emissions by replacing face-to-face patient visits with virtual visits

• Avoided 7,000 tons of CO2 emissions by filling prescriptions online

• Reduced the use of toxic chemicals by 33.3 tons by digitising and archiving X-ray images and other scans

• Resulted in a positive net effect on the environment despite increased energy use and additional waste from the use of personal computers

“There is a strong correlation between environmental health and the health of our communities. As health care providers, it is our responsibility to reduce our negative impact on the environment and ‘do no harm,’” said study co-author Kathy Gerwig, vice president for Workplace Safety and environmental stewardship officer at Kaiser Permanente. “The results of this study show that the health care sector is on the way to improving our environment through the broader adoption of electronic health records.”

 

This is one area where the UK’s National Health Service falls down. Patient records software was at the heart of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS, the multi-billion pound programme which is now in disarray, for various reasons that would take too long to detail here. It certainly won’t be completed in the form originally envisaged.

In the US the private health sector is subjected to the same pressures to be environmentally friendly as any other business. In the UK, the government sees the more immediate benefit from cost cutting, so the IT programme has been cut back. I doubt whether the environmental benefits have ever been a significant part of the NPfIT strategy. 

A new product lifecycle analysis software package from Industrial Design Consultancy

Industrial Design Consultancy (IDC), the product development firm, has launched a software package called LCA Calculator, which helps designers and engineers understand, analyse and compare the environmental impacts of products and their design decisions.

The LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) Calculator analyses the effects that a product or service has on the environment over its lifetime. The analysis covers the extraction and processing of raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, marketing processes, use, maintenance, re-use and eventual recycling or disposal.

 

The software means designs can be adjusted to answer 'what if' questions until they achieve the optimum specification. Given the time and cost, this is an exercise that, in the past, has often only been done after the design decisions have been finalised. Stephen Knowles, Managing Director of IDC, said, "The LCA Calculator will enable companies to understand the environmental impact of design decisions and is a first step towards putting sustainable design at the heart of the development process."

The software was first trialled by IDC three years ago and customised versions are already in use by some large UK manufacturers. It’s available in three versions: Pro, Business and Corporate Bespoke - the Pro version is suited to individual usage while the Business and Corporate version allows design teams to share and analyse data. Full details at www.lcacalculator.com.

 

We commented earlier in the year on a report from Verdantix that identified 18 companies that offer product lifecycle analysis software. Lots of money has been poured into the market, although as yet demand has been patchy. According to Verdantix, demand will pick up in 2012 due to a growing focus on green procurement, new regulations that require reporting of Scope 3 emissions and evidence of business value delivered by LCA projects. Europe leads the world in setting standards for product sustainability with regulations such as the EU’s REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances) and the French government’s Bilan Carbone which requires Scope 3 emissions data reporting by the end of 2012.

IBM and Red Hat partner around open source virtualisation

IBM and Red Hat, the open source solutions company, have announced that they are working together on open source virtualisation products and solutions aimed at the enterprise market.

The companies will promote adoption of the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine)-based virtualisation technology through joint development projects. The KVM technology allows a business to create multiple virtual versions of Linux and Windows environments on the same server.

KVM-based products and solutions can scale from local servers to large public clouds and mean that businesses can potentially save money by sharing IT resources without the cost and constraints of a proprietary solution. Other benefits include improved performance and better security.

The companies maintain that enterprise clients are already seeing the benefits of combining IBM hardware and software with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, using KVM technology. Lourival Filho at the Brazilian Federal Highway Police (DPRF), is quoted as saying; "After trying four different solutions available in the market, Red Hat offered us just what we needed to build our virtualised system. In the final results, it offered us energy saving, easier management of assets and more availability for services. Compared to proprietary solutions, we saved more than 80% in the overall cost."

IBM and Red Hat will will develop virtualisation and cloud management interfaces and use the APIs in their respective management products, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager, IBM Director and Tivoli software. The APIs will address cloud, data centre automation, virtual storage and networking, virtualization security and virtual appliance management

 

Well open source virtualisation has a lot going for it, but is faced with some powerful proprietary opposition, particularly VMware. From the green ICT perspective, the flexibility and lower cost of open source should mean wider adoption, helping to reduce IT energy use and emissions. In the enterprise market, though, there are a lot of other issues that will be scrutinised before purchase.

There have been rumours in the past that IBM might buy Red Hat. That would be an interesting market development and potentially give a significant boost to open source virtualisation.

EPEAT nears agreement on imaging and TV environmental standards

Printer and scanner standards close.

After two years of discussion and ‘fierce debate’ the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Imaging Equipment and Television working groups have sent their draft environmental standards to the general membership of the IEEE Standards Association for review and voting.

EPEAT’s criteria include design, production, energy use and recycling. It’s taken two years of hard discussion and negotiation to get the hundreds of stakeholders from around the world, including manufacturers, environmental NGOs, recyclers, private and public purchasers, to reach agreement.

IEEE balloting on the draft standards will begin in the near future, with all members of IEEE invited to vote. All going well, the standards will be launched in 2012.

The standards will join IEEE 1680.1, covering personal computers – the original standard which formed the basis for the EPEAT green electronics rating system. EPEAT will use the new imaging and television standards to certify green products in the new categories, which includes computer printers and scanners.

Expansion of registration companies

EPEAT has also reported progress in implementing its expanded registration network (which we reported on last December) and has established a schedule for program rollout over the next few months. The green electronics registry will be joined by multiple “Product Registration Entities” (PREs) working in a pilot capacity with manufacturers to enrol their products in EPEAT’s scheme. Following the pilot phase, EPEAT will begin fully accrediting and engaging PREs.

Jeff Omelchuck, EPEAT’s Executive Director said “The PRE system enables us to expand product registration and verification capacity in EPEAT to meet burgeoning global demand. Yet it also enables us to stay true to the vision stakeholders laid out in the IEEE 1680 standard - of a central registry that allows head to head comparison of products and spurs competition among manufacturers on the basis of environmental performance.”

 

EPEAT is managed by the Green Electronics Council, itself a programme of the International Sustainability Development Foundation (ISDF) which ‘envisions a world where commerce, communities and nature thrive in harmony’. EPEAT is certainly a step in the right direction. There are currently more than 3,200 EPEAT registered products from over 45 manufacturers registered in 41 countries. According to EPEAT, between July 2006 and January 2010 more than 300 million EPEAT registered products were sold worldwide, with environmental benefits equivalent to removing 8.8 million US cars from the road for a year.

Verizon has a new measure for its carbon efficiency – based on data transmitted

Communications company Verizon has come up with a new way of measuring how efficient it is in minimising carbon emissions. The new metric is based on the amount of data transported across the company’s networks, rather than related to revenue.

Verizon’s Sustainability Office developed the measure, known as  the ‘carbon intensity metric’, and tested it over the last year. The tests showed an improvement of approximately 15% in carbon efficiency, from 2009 to 2010.

The company has implemented a range of green initiatives, including using alternative fuels and hybrid-engine vehicles in its fleet and deploying more energy-efficient network equipment. Verizon believes that by measuring how many metric tons of carbon emissions it produces to move a terabyte of data it can better assess its sustainability efforts and where it needs to focus more attention.

Until now the company has used a measure based on metric tons of CO2 emitted per $m of revenue. The new metric is calculated by adding up Verizon’s total carbon emissions, including electricity and fuels for buildings and vehicles, and dividing the total by the number of terabytes of data that the company transports across its network.

Verizon is committed to reporting its carbon efficiency each year and has a goal of increasing its carbon efficiency by an additional 15% this year.

 

Using carbon intensity as a means to measure and target carbon reduction has one main flaw – it doesn’t necessarily result in less carbon being emitted, which is the ultimate aim if we are to restrict global warming.

In the case of Verizon, from 2007 to 2009 the company reports that carbon intensity, based on revenue, saw a fall of almost 10%, from 66.5 metric tons of CO2 per million dollars of revenue down to 60.2 metric tons of CO2. But over the same period actual CO2 emissions were up from 6.2 million metric tones in 2007 to 6.5 million metric tons in 2009, a 4% increase. And this is for US operations only.

In fact carbon efficiency can be a useful tool, if it relates back to real CO2 reductions in the long term, which doesn’t seem to be the case here. On the other hand, some aspects of the economy may inevitable increase their carbon emissions whilst helping other businesses to reduce theirs, and communications is a prime example.

In this case though, the question is how the new metric will be applied. By changing to the new methodology Verizon found that its carbon intensity has improved by 15% in just one year – I couldn’t find the data to run a comparison using the previous efficiency metric. The company has targets for improving carbon efficiency, but its not clear if and how the new measure will be incorporated in assessing its achievements against existing targets.

Apple is making record profits, but who pays?

In its second quarter 2011 financial results Apple reported record profits – even ahead of Microsoft’s subsequent quarterly figures. But there is increasing concern that the profit is being made at the cost of Chinese workers.

Recent press articles, include the UK’s Observer newspaper last Sunday, reported the harsh conditions in place in Chinese factories making iPhones and iPads.

On top of the basic 48-hour week, workers generally work well over the limit of 36 hours overtime a month allowed by Chinese law, with 60-80 hours overtime common. They can also work up to 13 days in a row without a break. That’s all for a daily wage as low as £5.20. And if you don’t work well or do as you’re told, public humiliation is possible in some factories.

Workers also live in large, crowded dormitories and, perhaps not surprisingly, some have been asked to sign suicide pledges. As the result of previous incidents 'anti-suicide’ netting has been placed around the dormitories.

The information is based on interviews with workers in factories owned by Foxconn at Shenzhen and Chengdu, which produces large quantities of Apple products. Two NGOs - the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (Somo) and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) - talked to the workers.

The use of chemicals in some Apple factories in China is also causing concern. Earlier in the year, GreenIT.fr wrote a piece entitle “Why I will never buy an iPad” which detailed the exposure of workers in China to toxic chemicals while manufacturing iPhone’s. It said that in 2009 62 people working for Apple Wintek had been poisoned with n-hexane and four had died. The article called for free health checks for workers, safety of plants and respect the Chinese labour laws.

 

What makes all this worse is that early last year Apple rejected two shareholder resolutions calling for the publication of a separate sustainability report and the creation of a Board Committee on Sustainability.

I’m sure the company will have answers for some of the claims above, but it seems that Apple could put a lot more effort in to protecting employees in China. The IT industry will inevitably be at the forefront of a move to more sustainable business. Those that set an example in product and profit have a duty to also set an example in protecting workers.

The British army may soon be defending the environment

Not often does the military feature in environment and climate change stories, but there have been a couple of cases in the UK recently.

In March, Defence Estates (DE), the part of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) responsible for managing land and properties, announced a partnership with the Woodland Trust, a charity championing native woods and trees in the UK.

The idea is that the Woodland Trust plants lots of trees on MoD property, helping the Trust reach its target of doubling woodland cover in the UK by 2050. In turn, the new woodland will help British soldiers train more effectively for military operations and at no cost to the MoD.

The first 160 hectares, 176,000 trees, will be planted at the Defence Training Estate (DTE) range at Warcop in Cumbria.

More recently, the Institute of Mechanical Engineers has reported on an article by Staff Sergeant Graham Thornton, writing in the latest Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) Journal, in which he said that by cutting down on fossil fuels the British army would be a more mobile and effective fighting force. The article gave a couple of examples of the technology that could be in use before long:

• Laser charging, i.e. firing a focused laser at a solar cell array to provide power. The technology could be used for charging Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in flight or, via precise mirrors, could create a point-to-point power link with outlying infantry posts. In the case of the drones, it means they are less vulnerable through having to land to refuel, and for the infantry it means less batteries and other electrical equipment to carry around.

• Hybrid electric and diesel-powered vehicles. Apparently US car maker Millenworks and British defence technology firm QinetiQ are developing hybrid vehicles for use on the battlefield, so the hybrid tank is a real possibility.

 

Well it seems a little odd to talk about the armed forces being concerned for the environment. But the MoD creates 60% of the Government’s CO2 emissions and with ambitious targets to reduce the public sector’s carbon footprint, the MoD really needs to play its part. It’s always going to be some way down the MoD’s list of priorities, though, so likely to be a slow process.