SAP helps assess the carbon footprint of 35,000 Danone products

Food company Danone and enterprise software supplier SAP are working together to analyse the carbon footprint of Danone’s products. It’s part of the food company’s goal of a 30% reduction in its global carbon footprint by 2012, including factories, packaging, end-of-cycle disposal, transportation and storage.

The new solution is fully integrated with Danone's SAP infrastructure: 80% of the product life cycle data is automatically collected. The SAP solution was tested out initially on two Danone companies in Spain, followed by two other dairy businesses in Belgium and by Stonyfield Farms in the United States. By the end of 2012 it will be in 40 of Danone's business units, covering around 70% of its revenues and over 35,000 products. The plan is to roll out the solution to all of the company’s businesses globally.

The aim is that the software will provide operations managers with actionable information so they can analyse options and take the more sustainable action, whether it relates to product development, ingredient selection, sourcing and transportation options or even investments.

"Existing solutions do not allow carbon footprint measurements to be integrated within IT operations systems across the whole product life cycle, for each and every product," said Jean-Marc Lagoutte, CIO, IT Systems, Danone. "Danone has designed a unique carbon footprint measurement model and deployed a dedicated SAP platform globally”.

Danone and SAP have agreed to make the results of the project more widely available, so SAP plans to offer the solution to new customers.

 

SAP has come a long way since I first spoke to the company five years ago about its plans for incorporating sustainability in its solutions. Back then it seemed to me that the company was ideally placed to take on a carbon counting role for its enterprise customers but was reluctant to get involved, adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude.

But with this solution SAP seems to be getting closer to realising its destiny. There’s no one better placed to count corporate carbon emissions than the company who’s solutions track pretty much every other aspect of the business.

As it happens, SAP released its 2011 sustainability report on Monday, which wasn’t all good news. In terms of carbon emissions, three years of absolute reductions came to an end with an 8% rise, although SAP says that at 490 kTons it’s still below the year’s target of 501 kTons. Emissions per employee were also up more than 3%, although related to € revenue they were down more than 5%. Despite the figures, SAP says it’s still on course to achieve its target of reducing emissions to year 2000 levels by 2020.

Uptime Institute Server Roundup – reducing power use, but what about emissions?

Last October I reported on the launch of the Uptime Institute’s cowboy-themed ‘Server Roundup’ competition to see who could remove most unused servers from their data centre.

Well the winner was announced a couple of days ago and the prize went to AOL. The company apparently decommissioned 9,484 servers, 26% of its total. AOL saved $5.05m from reduced utility costs, maintenance, and licensing costs, and received $1.2m from asset sales and reclamation. ‘Environmental benefits were seen in the reduction of almost 20 tons of carbon emissions’ according to the Uptime Institutes blog.

 

The AOL numbers bring home just how much unused equipment is sitting in data centres around the world, using power and costing money.

But I expressed my reservations about this competition when it was announced. It primarily focuses on saving power costs, with little apparent reference to what happens to the servers that are no longer wanted. There is, for example, more carbon generated in the manufacture and delivery of an IBM rack-mounted server than there is in its entire lifetime of use, so, as with many products, the longer they are used the better.

In this case emissions are not actually increasing, since the servers are not being replaced, but the environmental impact of the decommissioned equipment would be much less if they were reused elsewhere, rather than, at best, being recycled.

I would like to see much more emphasis put on what happens to these servers, with the Uptime Institute also making the point that simply replacing existing servers with more power efficient alternatives is not an environmentally-friendly strategy.

In the case of AOL’s savings it’s not clear how the 20 tons of carbon emissions were achieved (and over what period). It would be good if the competition took into consideration how the equipment was disposed of together with details of carbon savings. But it doesn’t seem likely – the competition is being rerun this year with the same rules.

GreenTouch makes fibre-to-the-home 30 times more energy efficient

GreenTouch, the communications and IT industry consortium that has the aim of dramatically reducing the energy used in communications networks, has developed a new technology that will significantly reduce energy consumption in fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks.

Called Bit-Interleaved Passive Optical Network (Bi-PON), GreenTouch demonstrated the technology yesterday. The demonstration showed live video traffic flowing through two separate networks — a standard optical network and a Bi-PON-enabled one — both attached to a power meter that measured the energy consumption. The meters showed that using Bi-PON enables a power reduction of 30 times over traditional XGPON technology, even when XGPON is operating in sleep mode. Bi-PON also improves performance and reduces cost.

As GreenTouch points out, the access network is a significant contributor to the total power consumption of communications infrastructure, so it has been a priority for the organisation. FTTH is expected to nearly double over the next five years, reaching 142 million subscribers worldwide by 2016. Using Bi-PON instead of the current optical technology would have the carbon footprint impact of taking half a million cars off the roads

GreenTouch was set up a couple of years ago with the target of reducing communications energy consumption per user by a factor of 1000 from 2010 levels by 2015. It has already made some significant breakthroughs. Last year the organisation demonstrated an antenna system that offers the potential for significant wireless transmission energy savings. The Large-Scale Antenna System demonstration showed that a mobile mast antenna array comprising 100 elements would transmit only one percent of the energy transmitted by a single antenna for the same quality of service.

 

Well it’s great news for FTTH networks. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be much benefit to the UK, where Fibre-To-The-Cabinet (FTTC) is the best most can expect in BT’s current round of broadband upgrades (not even that if you’re anywhere off the beaten track – and 40 minutes from London seems to be too remote). The last I heard FTTH will reach no more than 25% of the population (if that).

Griping aside, GreenTouch does seem to be achieving dramatic power savings – although the target to reduce network energy consumption by a factor of 1000 is still someway off. But the organisation is apparently actively working on 25 projects and aims to have new demonstrations in the coming months that will help the consortium reach its goal.

By the way, if you want the technical detail of Bi-PON there’s more on Alcatel-Lucent’s web site.

The Software Improvement Group (SIG) measures software energy use

The Amsterdam-based Software Improvement Group (SIG) and the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA) University of Applied Science have come together to create the Software Energy Footprint Lab (SEFL), opened in February this year.

The lab enables researchers to investigate questions such as:

• How do different database management systems compare with each other in terms of energy consumption?

• How do different programming languages compare with each other in terms of energy consumption?

• How does asynchronous requests compare to synchronous requests in terms of energy consumption?

• How does unsigned integer arithmetic operations compare to signed arithmetic operations with respect to energy consumption?

• How accurate are software energy profiling tools?

SIG is a consultancy firm that provides quantitative assessments of risks related to corporate software systems. It started out as a spin-off of the Dutch National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, conducting research into software quality using source code analyses. According to the company, its analysis software can measure quality, reveal the underlying architecture and assess the risks related to a solution.

To measure the software energy footprint the new lab has computers specially rigged with sensors to measure the electric current into each of its components. While special programs or generic benchmarks run, the sensors report on how much current is flowing to each component. This brings together the electronics knowledge of the HvA students with the software expertise of SIG.

The SEFL is hoping that other researchers and practitioners will join in defining more research questions, designing better experiments or in discussions around this topic. The SEFL is open to anyone interested in software energy use.

 

There’s an increasing amount of focus on the energy used by software. It’s not just about the efficiency of the application itself, but also the extent to which it keeps disks spinning and other peripherals running for no good reason. The software can even prevent PCs and servers from going into a power-saving mode when not in use.

So assessing software on the energy it uses is important. It would be even better if the results for companies and solutions were publicly available so that potential purchasers could add energy used as a purchase criteria. We already have it for hardware (Energy Star, etc) so why not software? Solutions providers could quote low energy use as a product feature, or explain what the functionality is that means it uses more energy, and let purchasers decide.

Green Button initiative will help US consumers reduce power use

A number of major utilities and smart grid/meter firms in the US have come together in a commitment to provide more than 15 million households with access to data about their energy use with the click of an online ‘Green Button’. The idea is that providing easy-to-understand information about how they’re using energy in their households will help consumers save power and reduce bills.

The Green Button initiative is an industry-led effort that allows electricity customers to download their household or building energy-use data in an easy-to-use format. It’s the result of a White House call to use technological innovation to help reduce energy costs for consumers while also protecting health and the environment.

In all, 15 electricity suppliers have committed to basing their Green Buttons on a common technical standard. A number of smart grid companies have joined them, including Itron, OPower, Oracle, Silver Spring Networks, Aclara and Tendril.

Adoption of a consensus standard means that software developers have a sufficiently large market to support the creation of applications that can help consumers make the most of their energy information. Green-Button-enabled web and smartphone applications could help consumers choose the most economical rate plan; provide customised energy efficiency tips; provide easy-to-use tools to size and finance rooftop solar panels; and deliver virtual energy audit software that cuts costs for building owners. 

Companies that have already announced that they are developing applications or services using the industry data standard include Belkin, Efficiency 2.0, EnergySavvy, FirstFuel, Honest Buildings, Lucid, Plotwatt, Schneider-Electric, Simple Energy and Sunrun.

The US Department of Energy has also announced an ‘Apps for Energy’ contest to spur the invention of tools and services that will help consumers save on their utility bills.

 

Hopefully, once the US utilities have set the example, this initiative will spread to Europe and elsewhere in the world. With scepticism and concern about smart meter implementation threatening to slow down their roll-out, what’s needed now is better ways for consumers to get access to their power usage data and benefit from it. More useful applications built round these standards should help.

In the long run, though, only when we have fully-functioning smart grids in place will consumers really see the benefits of managing their energy use. That’s likely to be the case in the US ahead of Europe, or at least the UK where there are, as yet, no smart grid plans. So hopefully the Green Button, or something similar, will appear in the UK.

‘Greenest data centre in the world’ is now being fitted out

In January I reported on the Green Mountain data centre planned for a former NATO ammunition depot inside a mountain beside a fjord in Norway. Well the fitted out of the facility is now under way.

In what is described as the ‘Greenest data centre in the world’, the use of the cold water is a significant factor in making it very efficient in its use of power. The heat from the servers is removed using the cool water (8^oC/46^oF) which is available year round from the nearby fjord.

In any case, the cost of power in Norway is around 40% less than in the UK, and can be fixed long term, which significantly reduces operational expenditure. Just as significantly, the power is hydro generated so has no carbon emissions. There are no carbon taxes in Norway, such as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme in the UK (although after the Budget this week it seems that the CRC may well be abandoned anyway) nor is there a need to pay for carbon offsets.

Overall the savings in carbon when the 20 megawatt facility is fully operation will be in the region of 76,000 tons CO₂ a year, compared with a similar facility in the UK.

 

The Green Mountain data centre has a lot going for it, but much of that comes from the fact that the buildings already existed in an ideal location in a country where hydro electricity is widely available. It’s really a one-off, but likely to attract some major companies to its very green facility. I suspect the green aspect will be the main attraction – it’s not clear whether the low cost of electricity will be reflected in user costs and it won’t be an ideal location for many.

Laser un-printer – in an office near you soon?

Researchers at Cambridge University have found a way to remove toner from scrap paper so that the paper can be used again.

Dr Julian Allwood, Leader of the Low Carbon Materials Processing Group at the University, and David Leal-Ayala, PhD student, tested toner-print removal using a variety of lasers. The results showed that toner-print can be removed effectively without causing significant paper damage, so that the paper to be reused, rather than thrown away or recycled.

The Researchers worked with The Bavarian Laser Centre to test various laser strengths and pulse durations in the study. The lasers also spanned the ultraviolet, visible and infrared spectrum. The paper used in the experiments was standard Canon copy paper with HP Laserjet black toner. Once the paper was exposed to the laser, the samples were analysed under a scanning electron microscope and subjected to colour, mechanical and chemical analyses to check for any damage.

The bottom line is that not only could the ‘un-printer’ save forests from being used for new paper, but that the emissions produced by the pulp and paper recycling industry could be at least halved as a result of paper reuse. “This could represent a significant contribution towards the cause of reducing climate change emissions from paper manufacturing” Allwood said.

With advances in low-energy laser scanning technology, the research raises the possibility of toner-removing devices becoming common in offices in the future. Not quite yet, though, as the researchers are still looking for someone to build a prototype.

 

Sounds fascinating. In the office of the future there could well be an office un-printer sitting next to the printer. There are a couple of considerations to bear in mind, though. It assumes that there will still be emissions savings after manufacturing and powering the device. Perhaps it would be possible to have a dual function printer/un-printer.

The other aspect to take into consideration is human behaviour. The danger is that the availability of a toner remover will make people more likely to print in the first place. There’s a tendency to be less concerned about creating emissions if you think you can undo the damage later (one of the problems with offsetting). We’ve seen similar issues in the use of videoconferencing. While videoconferencing certainly saves emissions from business travel, there have been persistent stories that when implemented people tend to use the videoconferencing facilities more often than necessary, so reducing some of the environmental benefits.

In terms of office printing, the best option is to reduce the requirement as much as possible – using software to minimise a print job in the first place saves paper, toner and power. Perhaps after that has become an everyday habit an un-printer may bring additional benefit.

Emerson addresses virtual server sprawl in data centres

Emerson Network Power has announced what it says is the first data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) solution to provide tools to control virtual sprawl. The latest version of the Aperture Suite portfolio offers capabilities that help organisations deal with uncontrolled growth in virtualisation and better manage increased data centre complexity.

The rapid adoption of server virtualisation – running several ‘virtual’ servers on one physical device – enables potential reductions in data centre energy consumption. But it also introduces new management challenges in aligning virtual and physical resources. The new version of Aperture Suite provides a better view of the use of virtual and physical resources, so greater benefits can be achieved with less risk.

The new capabilities integrate Emerson’s software with virtual management systems, such as VMware and Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager, to reconcile virtual processes and physical hosts. Data centre personnel can see the relationships between physical and virtual devices and track virtual server sprawl.

 

Virtualisation is often said to be a green IT solution. Well it isn’t. It’s a tool that can help with a green IT strategy, but simply implementing a virtual server capability could end up using more power than it saves.

The trouble is that if it’s quick and easy to implement a virtual server then people will do it with little thought. Often the resource is needed for a one-off job – testing code, for example – but when the test is done the server is forgotten, wasting resources allocated to it as well as receiving updates, virus scans, etc. This virtual server sprawl is an increasing headache for data centre managers.

To implement virtualisation effectively, so that it does increase resource efficiency, means having clear policies and procedures for generating virtual servers and a corresponding process for deleting them again when no longer needed. Software like Emerson’s can help keep track of what’s going on, but there are already solutions out there, such as 1E’s NightWatchman Server Edition, which identifies both physical and virtual servers that are not performing any ‘Useful Work’.

Smart meter rollout in Europe – more talk than action

According to smart grid and metering specialist Sentec, despite the hype, few regions in Europe have made much progress in rolling out smart meters, although that may change by 2015. Based on IMS Research data, Sentec has produced a ‘heat map’ on rollouts to date and predictions for 2015.

Leading the race are Italy and the Nordic countries, with over 94% and 70% of meters installed respectively. In Italy the main reason is a 2006 investment of $3bn in smart meter technology by Enel, Italy’s largest power company. In Sweden the first policy of regulation-driven rollout of smart meters has promoted implementation.

IMS’ predictions for 2015 show France (49%), Spain & Portugal (73%) and the UK & Ireland (65%) catching up. However there is uncertainty as to whether the UK will reach its potential this fast. According to Mark England, Sentec’s CEO, “The deregulated structure of UK market is uniquely challenging for rapid and coordinated action in a large scale initiative like this and we believe that smart meter deployment in 65% of UK homes by 2015 is not possible. There is a great deal of work still to do to finalise the technical and regulatory framework for smart metering.”

 

Overall, Western and Northern Europe are expected to see over 70% penetration of smart meters by 2015, with Germany and Poland lagging behind with less than 30% penetration by 2015.

 

The research highlights the fact that there is still along way to go in smart meter deployment in Europe. It also points out the difficulties facing the UK, despite having an implementation schedule in place.

In the UK, questions continue to be asked about whether implementing smart meters is good value for money. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has estimated that installing smart electricity and gas meters will deliver economic benefits of £18.6bn between 2011 and 2030 from an initial cost of £11.3bn. But among the figures is the fact that smart meters will save the average customer just £23 a year by 2020. The National Audit Office (NAO), the UK government department that scrutinises public spending on behalf of Parliament, has highlighted the uncertainties of consumer benefits, because of lack of evidence. The NAO believes the risk is compounded by potential cost increases, the challenges of delivering a fit-for-purpose and secure system and the risk that suppliers do not pass on all the savings to their customers.

Add to that the consumer resistance to the use of smart meters, because of hazards to health from wireless devices or because it means ‘Big Brother’ knows when you boil a kettle. Most of the concern comes out of the US, but it does seem to have had an impact in the UK (although less so elsewhere in Europe). As a result, UK energy minister Charles Hendry was recently reported as saying that smart meters would no longer be obligatory, as was the initial plan.

The bottom line is that we have to have power grids that are much more flexible in order to manage renewable power generation from sources that vary in output, such as solar and wind. It also needs to manage micro-generation and different demands on supply, such as electric vehicle charging. All of that can only really work if we have real-time differential tariffs, which needs smart meters.

It would be more effective to introduce the meters with at least a coherent plan for smart grids and their benefits. But in the UK we’ve put the cart before the horse. Smart meters with no smart grids in sight.

BT products are the first to achieve GHG Protocol product standard

BT has become the first company in the world to have product carbon footprints independently verified by the Carbon Trust to the new Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard, launched in October 2011. The independent verification covers the company’s internet Home Hub, the Vision+ digital set-top box and the Graphite 2500 DECT phone.

The Carbon Trust is a not-for-profit company providing specialist support to business and the public sector to help cut carbon emissions. Carbon Trust Certification offers a range of services to allow organisations to certify and verify their product carbon footprints.

BT’s commitment to carbon footprinting is reinforced by its involvement in the initiative to develop guidance on how to assess the greenhouse gas emissions of various information and communication technology (ICT) services, such as telecommunications network services and desktop managed services (see previous coverage here). The ICT Sector Guidance is being developed by a number of ICT companies and other interested stakeholders in collaboration with the Carbon Trust, the World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI).

 

BT has been very pro-active in sustainable ICT in recent years in its move to reduce carbon emissions from the organisation (search the www.thegreenitreview.com for more details). The company aims to reduce its carbon intensity (emissions generated related to profit and employees – not everyone’s favourite measure) by 80% by 2020, compared to 1997 levels.

Carbon footprinting is an important part of BT’s actions, so I hope we’ll see the organisation as an early adopter of the ICT Sector Guidance on lifecycle carbon accounting. BT offers a range of IT services and has large contracts with global companies, so it would be a good example to the rest of the industry to assess its ICT services and make the details available in its CSR reporting. It’s the sort of information that could be an important factor in ICT company and service selection in the future.

Microsoft adopts CarbonSystems’ cloud solution to manage its energy reporting

Microsoft has adopted CarbonSystems’ Enterprise Sustainability Platform (ESP) cloud application as its standard for managing its energy, efficiency and environmental-performance reporting. ESP will be implemented across Microsoft’s global operations, which comprise over 600 facilities in 110 countries.

CarbonSystems, which supplies environmental and energy management solutions, was apparently selected based on its ability to use cloud computing. ESP’s data management engine also allows electronic data interchange (EDI) with other internal systems and third party suppliers.

Microsoft’s strategy is to use the data to make more informed decisions about the company’s resource use and so reduce its energy use, emissions and waste. Using CarbonSystems’ ESP is seen as simplifying and streamlining the process.

 

It’s a big win for CarbonSystems, which should benefit hugely from working with Microsoft around the world. It also gives the company significant market visibility – it’s a new kid on the block compared with others in this market, such as CA, IBM, SAP and Schneider Electric (but then perhaps that’s why Microsoft chose them).

The market for carbon emissions management (CEMS) solutions remains highly fragmented with a range of start-up and established players offering both broad and niche solutions. There’s room for a lot of players, but there are signs that global companies are choosing one-stop, global suppliers as Microsoft has. Verdantix says Microsoft’s adoption of a single software platform underscores a global trend to standardise the capture and management of disparate nonfinancial data. I assume that means internal standardisation, which makes sense. Large companies want a solution that can work across the entire corporation and so streamline the whole process - a significant reason for Microsoft.

Note that in its 2011 Citizenship report Microsoft owned up to being behind in its plans to reduce carbon emissions. The company said at the time that it was ‘developing new strategies to meet our goal’. Using CarbonSystems seems to be one of those strategies.

GHG Protocol draft standard for ICT product lifecycle accounting open for comment

A draft version of the GHG Protocol’s ICT Sector Guidance for product lifecycle accounting and reporting is now available for public comment. I reported on the progress of the Guidance last year, when a couple of chapters had been completed, now eight draft chapters are available to download from here and comment on. The deadline for comments is April 10, 2012.

The ICT Sector Guidance is being jointly put together by the World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the Carbon Trust and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI). The objective is to provide a consistent approach for assessing the life cycle GHG impacts of ICT products. 

The scope of the Guidance prioritises those areas that have a significant impact in terms of GHG emissions. Services Chapters cover ICT services that a company might supply, or a customer might purchase. Technical Support Chapters cover the ‘infrastructure elements’ that are common to most ICT services.

Stakeholder Advisory Group members can take part in a webinar to give feedback on the draft – dates and times are here. Anyone can be in the Advisory Group, it currently includes over 200 participants from over 45 countries representing government, business, NGOs, advocacy groups, consultancies and academia (I’m one of them).

 

It’s an important process for the industry, with potentially wide repercussions for both ICT users and vendors, so it’s worth taking a look. Better still, get involved as a member of the Stakeholder Advisory Group, which provides critical feedback on draft documents throughout the process.

More products to save printing resources and costs

Adobe has announced LeanPrint, a new printing software solution that optimises document layouts and manages toner output to reduce the use of consumables, and hence cost, by an average of 40%. At the same time, Adobe announced that Toshiba America Business Solutions (TABS) will be distributing LeanPrint across North America. It’s not clear if/when Leanprint will be available in Europe.

The printing software automatically fine-tunes formatting, colours and layout regardless of the printing device. LeanPrint uses less pages in Super Saver mode and providing a Toner Saver option to create less toner-heavy prints. The software provides plug-ins for the most common desktop applications, such as Word, Excel, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader and common browsers, that account for the majority of home and business printing. Final output can be viewed before it’s sent to the printer.

LeanPrint allows customers to choose settings to get a clear picture of the savings for each print job within the print preview and quantify the amount of paper and toner being used. Savings achieved over time can be monitored and tracked, providing an incentive to save. IT managers can monitor all print jobs and costs and can even block conventional printing practices to maximise savings and prevent users from conventional printing.

Raman Nagpal, senior director and general manager, Adobe Print and Scan Business, said “With LeanPrint, we are bringing together our commitment to the environment and a deep understanding of the print industry to further drive down printing costs”.

According to GreenBiz, the software costs $99 per PC user or $36 per user per year through a subscription, and a 30-day free trial of the software is now available via Toshiba.

Adobe says that other solutions set printing quotas or route to a specific printer, while LeanPrint prints fewer pages and uses less toner. That’s not my experience, though, based on the various products I’ve reported on in the past, including Pharos/Preton, GreenPrint and Fineprint.

A more recent addition is PrintEco, a VC-backed company that offers a suite of plug-ins for Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Internet Explorer and Firefox. The plug-ins are embedded in the applications so that you can choose the PrintEco option and optimise the document for printing.

As well as reducing the printing need through eliminating unnecessary images and blank spaces, the software can also help you track the financial and environmental impact of your printing habits through a web-based dashboard called PrintEco Analytics.

A personal copy of PrintEco comes in at a much more affordable $14.99 and an office copy $10.99 per workstation - not sure why the personal copy should cost more. You can also try it free (although you’ll need better luck than me to get it to work).

 

There are a lot of products out there aimed at reducing the cost and environmental impact of printing. Some, like PrintEco, reduce the volume to be printed, others focus on reducing the ink/toner used for standard printing, or even just provide new fonts that use less ink/toner. (Just changing the fonts you use now can reduce your toner bill).

So this is very much a horses-for-courses sector. There’s a product to suit everyone’s needs and the prices reflect the variety. The more the products are aimed at enterprise users the more comprehensive they are and so more expensive (eg Adobe). Home users should be able to find a low-price solution that does the job just as well for them.

Remote tyre pressure gauge saves fuel and tyres

As time goes on it’s increasingly going to be small, incremental steps that help us reduce the carbon emissions that are causing climate change. One of those is a solution from Canadian company Vigia that tells fleet managers when a truck’s tyres are underinflated.

The system integrates tyre inflation information with an existing fleet telematics solution and can pass on the information that a tyre is low on pressure to a computer or mobile device. It also incorporates a digital cab-mounted control panel.

The environmental benefits are obvious. As Vigia points out, for every PSI of under-inflation, a vehicle consumes 0.8% more fuel, so there are significant savings in emissions and fuel costs in getting it right (particularly with European fuel prices – in the UK we have just reached an all-time high).

There are also savings in tyres themselves. Apparently improper inflation accounts for 80% of retread separations, cuts, flats and blowouts. Under-inflation of only 5 PSI reduces tyre life by 25%, so that’s a lot of tyre manufacture that could be saved.

On top of that, under-inflated tyres are a major cause of accidents.

 

This Vigia solution shows that it doesn’t have to be particularly sophisticated technology to improve sustainability. Green IT can be just about providing the right information to the right place at the right time.

A methodology to quantify smart grid projects and their benefits

A paper detailing a methodology to quantify smart grid projects in Europe and interpret the results has been developed by the European electricity sector industry association, Eurelectric. The document, The Smartness Barometer, is based on a previous paper by the EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) developed to estimate the costs and benefits of smart grid demonstrations. The Eurelectric version is adapted to the smart-grid work underway in Europe.

The Eurelectric paper details the challenge facing the electricity industry in evaluating smart grid investments, both small-scale projects and evaluations and large-scale deployments. It explains the need for a consistent framework for evaluation and cost-benefit analysis so that informed decisions can be made on the benefits and effectiveness of a ‘smart’ investment.

The proposed evaluation methodology consists of seven steps:

• Characterization of the project:

  Step 1 – Describe the technologies, elements and goals of the project

  Step 2 – Identify the smart grid functionalities

• Quantification and monetization of benefits:

  Step 3 – Map each functionality onto a standardized set of benefit types

  Step 4 – Establish the project baseline

  Step 5 – Quantify and monetise the identified benefits and beneficiaries

• Comparison of costs and benefits:

  Step 6 – Quantify and estimate the relevant costs

  Step 7 – Compare costs to benefits.

The paper describes each step and then gives practical examples from the InovGrid project, an open platform integrating end users, public standards and vendors’ interoperable solutions, led by the Portuguese distribution system operator EDP Distribução.

The report maintains that the methodology can help electricity companies and regulators evaluate and compare different types of ‘smart’ investments, communicating their results and developing investment strategies. The methodology can also help show which technological solutions work and which do not and allows for meaningful comparisons between different types of projects installed in different systems across Europe

Where it breaks down is that the methodology provides no clear answer as to how, when individual project results have been evaluated, their combined contribution can be extrapolated to national and European levels.

Eurelectric says the methodology is now being further developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.

 

As Eurelectric points out “realistic business cases based on intensive pilots are vital to raise awareness of smart grid investment needs among public and private stakeholders at national and European level.”

If it also helps to allay fears about the costs and the benefits (a big issue in the UK in particular) it can only be a good thing, although it sounds as though there is still some work to be done. The sooner the better, given the potential importance of smart grids to helping us move to a more sustainable energy infrastructure. The IT industry has a lot riding on their implementation as well, not just in building the things but in the technology that is likely to hang off of smart grids in the future.

New TCO certification covers social responsibility in manufacturing

Sweden-based IT certification organisation TCO has updated its programme to move from a pure product focus to include social responsibility requirements in the production phase of products. The organisation has opened the way for manufacturers to test and certify products in advance of the official worldwide launch to IT buyers - May 2012 for PC categories, with September targeted for computer displays.

The TCO’s view is that with increasing interest in sustainability, it’s important that IT products are not only designed for the environment and performance, but also that there are fair working conditions and other social aspects during manufacture.

The TCO certification programme has been around for almost 20 years, during which time sustainability has grown in significance, alongside high performance and ergonomic design. Certified products – displays, desktops, notebooks, tablets, all-in-one PCs, projectors and headsets - are tested by an independent lab, according to internationally accredited test methods. There is an even higher level of certification – TCO Certified Edge – for displays, all-in-one PCs, notebooks and headsets. The scheme is managed by the Swedish TCO Development company and is seen as one of the most demanding.

TCO says that its certification helps professional purchasers reach their sustainable IT goals by offering them a reassurance of products that are designed with the social, economic and environmental aspects in mind.

 

The new social responsibility requirements are based on the eight International Labour Organisation (ILO) core conventions and labour laws in the country of production. These set minimum standards for working conditions in production facilities. Manufacturers will need to show that they are improving working conditions in accordance with the ILO conventions if they want to receive the TCO certification. Independent audit reports from production facilities will be required annually and will be independently assessed.

Soren Enholm, CEO of TCO Development, said “The increasing demand for sustainable IT solutions among purchasers, along with the recent attention to socially responsible practices in the electronics industry, makes the new TCO Certified a highly relevant tool in advancing sustainable IT.”

 

The last comment is a veiled reference to the issues that Apple is facing with the reports of poor working conditions at the Foxconn factories in China, where large quantities of the Apple’s products are manufactured. It does make a lot of sense to take these sorts of social responsibility issues into consideration when sustainability is a factor in product certification.

In my blogs in the past I have primarily referred to EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) and Energy Star as the main environmental certification criteria. That’s mostly been based on the fact that they emerged in the US, the home of most major IT hardware manufacturers. EPEAT also got a head start through its adoption by public sector purchasers in the US. It has since gone international and is increasingly the choice of the public sector in  Europe.

But the TCO shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s been around longer and well-recognised for its assessment of quality and, increasingly, sustainability. As I’ve always said, though, that I wish these organisations would all get together, agree a set of universal certifications for sustainability and promote them round the world. Multiple choice in sustainability certification just confuses the market.

Standards for refurbished wireless devices are on the way

A group of mobile phone companies and organisations have come together to form the Device Renewal Forum (DRF), with the aim of establishing a common certification for refurbished wireless phones. The DRF certification process will help to ensure that only high-quality and properly functioning devices re-enter the marketplace. The idea is that having a common standard will expand the growth of the renewed wireless devices market.

The DRF has been formed by Sprint Nextel, Brightstar Corp., eRecyclingCorps, ModusLink Global Solutions and the CDMA Development Group (CDG) trade association. The group will work across all the wireless interface technologies including, but not limited to, GSM, CDMA2000, EV-DO, HSPA and LTE.

The organisation will provide a global forum to address issues related to renewing wireless devices. A subcommittees will establish a ‘gold standard’ for testing and certifying renewed devices, using best practices from around the world to extend the lifecycle of mobile phones already in market. 

By renewing and certifying refurbished wireless devices the DRF believes that demand for affordable phones in markets can be fulfilled, while preserving the environment, conserving materials, minimising pollution and eliminating waste.  The group points out that mobile telecommunications has become the largest consumer industry in the world, with more than 1.68 billion wireless devices produced each year. But less than 1% of these devices are recycled and even fewer are renewed.

Any company or organisation that wants to make a positive and significant impact on the environment and future of the wireless industry can join. The organisation is hoping for support from wireless service providers, device OEMs, collectors, distributors, trade-in resellers, retailers and government agencies that share common goals on device recycling.

 

Well the news is timely, given my comments yesterday on IBM’s new remanufacturing centre in China. What we have here is a more ambitious, industry-wide approach with what seems to be a clear focus on limiting the impact of the huge, and increasing, mountain of disposed mobile phones. The need for affordable phones is mentioned, but the sheer volume of devices involved seems to be the incentive for action.

It will certainly be more effective at an industry level. Creating a level playing field of devices that are certified to a common level for reuse creates a real second market where all brands can compete. That competition will create awareness and help promote these reconditioned devices as a real alternative.

It really is what we should be doing with all forms of e-waste – reuse is the most effective form of recycling. Let’s hope the Device Renewal Forum gets the support it deserves.

IBM remanufacturing centre opens in China

Last week IBM announced what it says is the first ever server remanufacturing centre in China. The Shenzhen facility will initially remanufacture mid-range IBM Power Systems, which are reconditioned, tested and certified, or rebuilt to meet specific customer requirements. The facility will expand to refurbish 100,000 PCs and low-end and mid-range IBM and non-IBM servers a year by 2014. IBM already has similar facilities in Australia, Singapore, Japan, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany and the United States.

The idea is that the centre will extend the life of IT equipment and help reduce the environmental impact of e-waste that would otherwise go to landfill. But it’s not just about saving the planet. Richard Dicks, General Manager, IBM Global Asset Recovery Services, a unit of IBM Global Financing, said "The demand for IT products in emerging markets is growing; however, not all businesses want to purchase new products". China represents an opportunity for IBM Certified Pre-owned Equipment, especially for small and medium-sized businesses that want to keep IT costs down, or for clients that need to meet short-term IT project requirements, find emergency replacements or expand existing IBM infrastructure with a model no longer in production.

 

Sustainability comes into its own when it coincides with making money, as is the case with IBM here. By reusing and/or recycling equipment the company is doing its environmental bit, but the ‘remanufacturing’ of equipment also helps to service a user market need, with the IBM label attached. It’s a good way for the company to address the huge, emerging market in China as well as establishing the brand for all other products.

The trouble is, IBM will be understandably wary of undermining its new product business. Re-use is by far the best solution for end-of-life equipment and should be encouraged, but the dynamics of pricing, supply and demand threaten to be a limiting factor. What’s needed is for remanufactured equipment to be actively promoted not just on price, but on the sustainability benefits. For companies that track and report the life-cycle carbon of equipment (not many now, but it will grow) refurbished hardware represents a real benefit – more than half of the lifetime emissions of an IBM server are in the manufacture. It would be nice to see IBM promoting its remanufactured equipment as much for this market as for lower-priced solutions.

Data centre week – green awareness is growing

Data centres have been the hot IT topic in the UK over the last week or two, mainly driven by the Data Centre World exhibition and conference on this week in London.

Prior to the event, data centre solutions provider Digital Realty Trust released the latest findings of its annual European market survey. The interviews with over 200 senior decision-makers in £500m businesses in six countries across Europe found that 85% of respondents intend to expand their data centre resources in the next year, compared with  82% at the end of 2010. Demand for new data centres is highest among UK and Spanish businesses (35% and 32%), with the French and Dutch companies displaying the lowest interest in expansion (14% and 12%).

The survey also revealed encouraging signs that organisations are making greater efforts to improve the efficiency of their existing data centres, with a greater proportion aware of the power usage effectiveness (PUE). Only 12% didn’t know their PUE, against 18% last year. There was also an increase in companies actively monitoring their power consumption: almost three-quarters (73%), compared to 68% in 2011.

I went along to the Data Centre World exhibition to see for myself and sat in on some seminars. This is the heavy engineering end of the IT world and not for the fainthearted (I’m more of a software and services man myself) but green shoots are everywhere. It may not be described as green, but the primarily cost cutting exercises have the same impact. For example, modular data centres are clearly a fast-growing trend with the ability to save significant amounts of power (and hence carbon) and money, compared with the previous generation of monolithic facilities.

In the same theme, it was the seminar on evaporative cooling in data centres that had standing room only. The presentation, from EcoCooling had the title ‘How evaporative cooling can reduce cooling costs by 90% and achieve a PUE of less than 1.1’. You can see why people would be interested.

Nonetheless, IDC presented research results that showed that sustainability is still a long way down a list of IT priorities. But I believe this will change.

I don’t normally make predictions. (‘Forecasts are hard, particularly about the future’ has been my watchword as an Green IT/IT analyst). But until now what’s made the IT operation more sustainable has been primarily the cost-cutting exercises by the IT department/data centre managers.  Now, though, the green agenda is being adopted at the highest level within companies as an integral element of business strategy. It is increasingly part of the corporate mission, where IT has a pivotal role, and as such is gaining significant visibility. Within 18 months or so IT departments will be out and proud about their green/sustainability strategy, and not just for their own operations but for the benefit of the business as a whole.

 

One last word. As part of a week primarily immersed in the data centre industry I also visited Panduit, which provides a lot of the physical infrastructure for data centres. Some forthright discussions ensued with David Palmer-Stevens and also some revealing insights.

But the most interesting part was off subject. He mentioned an MIT researcher that has taken computing away from computers. Doesn’t sound like much, but it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck when you see what it means. It has to be the real-world future of computing, and by doing away with a lot of physical devices also has sustainability implications.

 

 

Here’s the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vX-TjUnovk&reason=0

EU Energy Efficiency Directive – why we, and the IT industry, need it

Hopefully you will have heard of the EU’s 20-20-20 plan to address climate change. There’s three objectives:

• reducing carbon emissions by 20% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels

• ensuring that 20% of energy used in Europe comes from renewable sources

• reducing energy use by 20% through energy efficiency measures.

What’s odd about the plan is that while the emissions reduction and renewable energy targets are backed up by EU Directives that are legally binding on member states, the energy efficiency aim is not. In the case of carbon emissions, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme covers 10,000 heavy industrial plants across Europe that account for almost half of all European emissions. There are also binding targets for the use of renewables, including the 10% biofuel usage, with different targets for different EU countries depending on development to date.

For energy efficiency? Nothing except the 20% target - you would have thought that becoming more energy efficiency would underpin everything else. Not surprisingly, while the emissions and renewable targets are on track, the EU is expected to achieve only 9-10% of its energy efficiency target by 2020.

 

 

Anyway, this omission is now starting to be addressed. On Tuesday a European Parliament committee approved (by 51 votes to 6) a plan to implement a binding framework for energy efficiency across Europe. Among the requirements of the legislation would be that public buildings would need to achieve 2.5% energy savings through renovations by the end of 2013, energy companies would have to spend 1.5% of sales on helping customers save energy, there would be energy performance requirements for public sector housing, and energy audits every four years for large enterprises.

The only measure that UK government clearly supports is the 1.5% supplier obligation, although this is unlikely to ensure the energy efficiency target is reached. The UK’s position is that effort to date should be taken into account, but that’s going to limit progress. Anyway, also on Tuesday there was a panel session at the House of Commons to discuss the legislation and to encourage support from the UK government in getting the legislation through the various other stages before it can be adopted across Europe.

The session was organised by the European Alliance to Save Energy (EU-ASE) and included its CEO, Monica Frassoni, as well as Caroline Lucas, the only Green MP in the UK. Also speaking were representatives of building insulation companies and Sumir Karayi, the CEO of IT energy efficiency company 1E (it was 1E, a founding member of EU-ASE, that invited me along).

It was an interesting discussion and a reassuring number of people turned up – the room was crammed. The panel discussions raised many reasons why the UK should support the legislation, including the fact that it helps to achieve energy security – the less we use the less we need – it’s the most cost-effective action to take, the money saved in energy costs could be re-invested in the renewable energy infrastructure (including smart grids) and it creates jobs in implementing the measures.

Ed Davey, the coalition government’s recently appointed Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, popped in to say his piece and answer a few questions. He made the right noises, but much of it surrounded by ifs and buts.

 

There are many reasons why the UK government should support this legislation but it seems to me to be intuitively obvious that if you’re concerned about how much energy the country needs, what we are spending on it and what it’s doing to our environment, then the obvious answer is to use less. Why it’s not already a legally binding commitment across Europe is a mystery to me.

It’s interesting to note, though, that much of what the IT industry has been doing in recent years sets an example. Data centre power costs are high and in some areas it’s increasingly difficult to ensure sufficient supplies. The industry has responded by addressing energy use through better designed equipment, virtualisation, more efficient cooling, hierarchical storage, and many other energy saving actions. The race for ever better Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratios in data centres makes the point.

And there’s much more that the industry can contribute to energy efficiency across the economy as a whole, not just in building energy management systems, but also through things like smart grids, more efficient transport solutions – all the things I have been bleating on about for years now.

The EU Energy Efficiency Directive is something I would hope, and expect, that IT companies would be loudly supporting. It’s the right thing to do, the industry has the means to help make it happen, and there is much more that IT can contribute to energy efficiency in the long run.