ITS News

Filed under: Green business

There’s a remarkable graph in the first chapter of Andrew Winston’s book “Green to Gold.” It’s the kind graph that would likely capture the attention of the most skeptical of CEOs who has discounted the growing interest in more sustainable, greener business practices as little more than the a passing trend, the “blood-type diet” of the corporate world.

But sustainability certainly isn’t just a new and passing trend; like eating right and getting exercise, it’s the real deal. Many companies have been enjoying the benefits for years, but others are struggling to understand just how to embrace it.

If you fall into that group and you’re going to be at the now-greener Interop this week, good news: Winston will be leading a panel on Wednesday, May 23 called “Green to Gold : Eco-Advantage Strategies for a Changing IT.” Joined by executives from Intel, Yahoo, Sun, HP, and Google, the group will talking about the business case for embracing greener practices, what to expect in the future — and the top 10 things IT departments can do.

But back to that graph I mentioned: In “Green to Gold,” Winston and co-author Daniel C. Esty identify 100 companies they call WaveRiders: Companies that are riding the “green wave,” acting as “environmental leaders [that] see their businesses through an environmental lens, finding opportunities to cut costs, reduce risk, drive revenues, and enhance intangible value.” Not surprisingly, among them are IT giants like HP and IBM, as well as Dell, Intel, and Xerox.

The graph compares the stock performance of these WaveRider companies over the past 10 years to that of the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100.

Here’s the result (click to enlarge it):



As you can see, the WaveRiders consistently beat the others.

Of course, that’s not to say that “being eco-friendly” means your company’s going to thrive, and high stock performance isn’t necessarily a direct result of environmental consciousness. Winston and Esty are clear on those points in “Green to Gold.”

But they also note that “a number of studies have demonstrated that environmental performance is a powerful indicator of overall management quality.”

The WaveRiders have, at least to a degree, found ways to circumvent some of the obstacles Winston told me about, and that he discusses in his book.

One of the challenges: changing corporate culture to keep up with new green objectives. Winston describes a phenomenon he calls the middle-management squeeze: The high-level execs announce that the company is going green. The lower-level employees get excited. But the middle managers are tasked with these new environmental goals, lumped on top of their old goals. “Reconciling those goals is very challenging. [Upper managers] don’t change the culture. They don’t build it into any incentive programs. They just say they’re going to become green. It’s a problem.”

For more about the panel, and to hear an interview between Winston and Curtis Franklin, go here. You can also check out Winston’s blog at
www.eco-advantage.com/blog.

Filed under: Green business, Yahoo

Yahoo’s “Greenest City” Challenge requires more commitment to the company’s services than to the environment

It can be difficult to pinpoint the greenest company of them all. There’s just so many ways to measure an organization’s greenness: its products, its practices, its propensity to spill oil, etc.

It also can be difficult to choose the greenest city of them all. If you want to be thorough, you can look at variety of criteria, such as air quality, electrical usage, environmental policy, as National Geographics or Homestore has done.

But not everyone has the time or inclination to be so thorough. You could take Forbes’ approach and simply measure a city’s ozone pollution and particles.

Or you might consider the approach Yahoo has devised: See which city’s residents can earn the most “‘green’ credits” from using certain Yahoo services over the next three weeks or so, as part of the search company’s “Greenest City in America” Challenge.

I’ll explain how spending extra time on your computer and mobile device can earn you green credits in a moment. First, though, the rewards: There are, of course, the bragging rights for being deemed the most eco-friendly U.S. city in eyes of Yahoo. But the company is also offering a more tangible first prize in the name of conservation and environmental stewardship. No, not a green makeover for your local government buildings or schools. Not new trees for your local parks and public lands. Not even supplying new, energy-efficient buses for the local schools.

No, Yahoo made quite a bit of noise about the big top prize it’s put on the table: a fleet (up to 10) of new hybrid taxi cabs — perfect for the eco-conscious individual who doesn’t want to walk or bike or take the bus or subway or train or carpool.

To demonstrate what a boon a fleet of hybrid cabs can be for a city’s environmental well-being, Yahoo donated a bunch of them to New York City when announcing this promotion earlier in the week.

Of course, you might be thinking that more cars on the roads of NYC means more traffic congestion, which means more pollution — but have you considered that it that might also have the eco-friendly effect of getting a few more people on the subway or bus?

Or perhaps there won’t be an increase in traffic, because the hybrids are going to be displacing existing NYC cabs. Those, in turn might be sold off to a cab company in, I don’t know, New Jersey, or somewhere in South America. (I found that American school buses go to places like Guatemala to retire.)

The point is, NYC will be a greener city, by golly, thanks to its shiny new gas-sipping hybrids.

Importantly, Yahoo won’t make your town take the hybrid cabs. You can opt for $250,000 “to support eco-friendly programs in the city’s region.”

Also, as part of this promotion, Yahoo is giving out 150,000 energy-efficient CFL bulbs to individuals who participate, a move that I certainly can’t knock.

So those are the stakes in Yahoo’s search for the greenest city in America. Now, here’s how it works: First, you register with Yahoo, providing your ZIP code so they know which city you’re representing.

Next, you can check out Yahoo’s newly unveiled green portal, Yahoo Green, where you select from a list of green pledges, like recycling or eating less meat or taking shorter showers. Choosing no fewer than one will earn your city 100 green credits. (Don’t worry, Yahoo’s going to take you at your word; no need to send them this month’s and next’s water or butcher bill.)

From there, you can mosey over to Yahoo Answers. For every “best” answer you provide to a question in the Environmental section of the site, your city earns 75 more “green” points. Taxing eco-conundrums posed by users include “What are the most effective yet simple ways people can save energy?” (Matt Dillon wants to know!) or “Who owns Marriott Hotels?” (That last one is really in the Environmental section.)

Not an environmental expert? No matter. You can earn 10 green points by simply providing a best answer for any question on Yahoo Answers. Now, you might be wondering why answering questions such as “What is the average life span of a fruitbat?” or “What kind of bear is best?” (Answer: black bear) or “OMG is my bf cheeting on me?!??” should bring your city closer to being deemed the greenest in the nation. Well, maybe it’s like a “carbon offset” reward for not providing your answer on a piece of legal-sized paper, written in toxic waste and delivered via a non-hybrid taxi cab?

Finally, if you have a mobile device with wireless access, be sure to keep that battery charged so you can earn green credits performing daily searches for “eco-friendly” terms on Yahoo’s oneSearch service. Each search reaps you 10 credits — but Yahoo is limiting the number of points to 50 per day, no doubt in the name of energy conservation.

Notably, there are only five terms to choose from — Organic Food, Public Transport, Recycle Center, Bike, and Ride Share (Hybrid Taxi Cab isn’t on the list, for some reason), so be prepared for some redundancy. (Hey, no eye-rolling. It’s not always easy or fun to be environmentally responsible. But maybe you can mix up the order each day to keep things fresh.)

So there you have it: If you and enough people in your community pledge to Yahoo to do at least one “green” activity in the next year, then spend time each day at your computers on Yahoo Answers, and on your mobile devices performing daily searches for the same five terms on Yahoo oneSearch, your city may just earn the title “greenest in America.” Who knew being green was so easy — and had so much to do with using Yahoo?

(Apologies to Green Wombat. After completing this post, I found your similar take on the contest. Glad to know I’m not the only one who’s a bit skeptical.)

Filed under: Green business

Government regulations, both national and international, impose a fairly high green bar for hardware vendors, limiting the toxic substances their wares can contain and the energy they can consume. But more IT vendors, such as IBM, HP, Dell, and Xerox, have been raising that bar even higher, scrutinizing not only suppliers’ materials and manufacturing processes, but their overall environmental practices.

For companies aspiring to land a potentially lucrative deal with some of the more environmentally conscious, big-name tech vendors, that means you can’t simply ensure those components you’re hawking comply with the fine print of ROHS; you must have strategies in place to reduce energy consumption, conserve water, and e-waste, as well as to meet social-responsibility criteria such as those spelled out in the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC) and ISO 14001.

At a minimum, insisting that suppliers comply with various e-waste and energy regulations makes abundant business sense. After all, the last thing a company wants to endure is being forced to shelve millions of units of some product because one of its cables contains traces of cadmium. Not only does that sort of snafu cost a lot of money; it doesn’t make for great PR: The public won’t remember the supplier that delivered the toxic component so much as the high-profile vendor that got stuck with it.

But as long as a supplier is producing pieces and parts that conform to the strictest of environmental regulations, why should companies such as HP or Dell or IBM care that said supplier, for example, keeps the lights lit and faucets flowing all night? For starters, it’s a matter of being consistent in your adherence to your business principles. “It reflects our own standards,” says Judy Glazer, director of HP’s global social and environmental responsibility operations. “We’ve minimized our own environmental footprint. We expect suppliers who are working on our behalf to do the same.”

Indeed, a green-haloed company talking up its energy-efficiency while ignoring its supplier’s wasteful ways would be like PETA having its annual dinner catered by Outback Steakhouse. (That’s neither a knock at PETA nor at Outback, by the way.)

Of course, values are just part of the picture. Reducing waste throughout the supply chain means lower costs all around. “By working with suppliers on programs and initiatives to reduce environmental impact, we not only contribute to conservation and sustainable development, we can often see substantial cost reductions,” writes John Gabriel, manager of supply chain social responsibility at IBM.

The processes vendors undertake to assess and help develop suppliers’ environmental and social responsibility are quite extensive. The good news for suppliers: Vendors aren’t going to make you figure it all out for yourself, nor will they simply tell you what to do. Rather, HP’s Glazer describes it as a collaborative effort. “We start by introducing the code to our suppliers. We have an on-site auditing process to help them understand what the code really means in practice. Where there are gaps, if any, we ask them to develop corrective actions,” she says.

It doesn’t end there: Like IBM and other EICC members, HP offers training for managers at its suppliers, such as “interactive workshops on particular elements of the code of conduct,” Glazer says.

The process is an ongoing one, too, which means suppliers don’t get to reset on their laurels once they’ve reached a certain benchmark: “We’re looking at suppliers to be continuously addressing areas of greatest opportunity,” says Glazer.

Vendors are continuing to develop new ways to encourage suppliers to become more environmentally and socially responsible. “Our suppliers are reviewed quarterly in a business review that looks at a number of performance criteria including quality,” writes Dell spokesman Bryant Hilton. “We have begun to include additional ‘points’ the suppliers can earn through environmental programs. The number of points affects the volume of business [we give them], so there is great benefit to the supplier to gain points.

“One new thing we are asking for is that suppliers report their emissions data annually,” Bryant adds. “This will help Dell reduce our indirect climate impacts, and help our suppliers when we can work with them on reduction strategies.”

Ultimately, of course, these efforts to green the supply chain aren’t just to satisfy the demands of IT vendors. “IBM’s clients — including both companies and governments — are increasingly seeking to procure from environmentally responsible companies and [are] including requirements for the environmental attributes of the products they procure in their bid specifications or preferences,” writes IBM’s Gabriel.

Or to put a figure to that interest, HP reports that “we had six billion dollars’ worth of RFPs in 2005 that included socially or environmentally responsible criteria. It has only grown since then.”

Filed under: Green business

Vendors are pouring more green into their sales pitches, but their messages aren’t reaching the right ears clearly.

That’s one of the findings in a Forrester report released today titled “Tapping Buyers’ Growing Interest In Green IT.” According to the study, 85% of respondents from the U.S. and 93% of those from Europe said that environmental concerns are “important” in planning IT operations. However, just 15% of respondents said that they have a high level of awareness of vendors’ green initiatives.

“Vendor information about green characteristics is not moving up the chain of command to affect management decision-making. Maybe vendors should be revisiting their communication approaches,” the report quotes an anonymous IT worker in the insurance industry saying.

The problem might not just be communication barriers, but also a problem with the message: The connection between going green and saving green isn’t clear, at least to those who are in charge of writing the checks: “Show the long-term or even short-term cost savings, and people will buy. When you start saving energy, you save cost, also. It’s win-win,” an anonymous IT work from the energy industry is quoted as saying in the Forrester report.

Forrester Senior Vice President Christoper Mines, who authored the report, says that vendors’ salesfolks may have to lead the charge in getting their respective company’s green message across. “People like the corporate affairs types and lab types … are the ones who are talking this up. But think about [vendors’] main channel to their customer base: The sales force. That’s where the enterprises are going to get most of their information as to what the vendors are doing,” he says.

The report also cites some misconceptions about sustainable IT, which vendors will need to erradicate. “Our interviewees clung to a number of old notions about computer operation, such as “It’s better to keep equipment running 24×7″ or, more generally, “Green means more expensive.”

(One fascinating nugget from the report, on that note: “HP did a 2006 internal audit of some 183,000 PC monitors and found that a third of them were not set for energy saving - presto, $600,000 in annual energy savings.”)

The haziness surrounding vendors’ green pitches might explain why only a quarter of the companies Forrester surveyed said that “green criteria” were part of their IT purchasing decisions.

That percentage is bound to increase, though, and not for reasons I find particularly surprising: “Looking a few years ahead, though, our interviewees expect green to hold more sway in their decision-making, pushed by growing public awareness of environmental issues, ,anticipated government regulation, and greater need for energy efficiency,” the report says.

Forrester’s “Tapping Buyers’ Growing Interest In Green IT” report is available here for $279.

Is your company clearly getting, or delivering, the message about going green?

Filed under: Nokia

Tired of people preaching, er, gently encouraging you to think green? Well, your cell phone might soon be doing the same.

Nokia this week announced that some of its forthcoming phones will be programmed to “include alerts encouraging people to unplug the charger once the battery is full,” according to the company.

That capability will first appear in the Nokia 1200, Nokia 1208 and the Nokia 1650, but the alerts will be rolled out across the Nokia product range down the road.

Remarkably, Nokia estimates something so simple as an alert telling people to unplug theirs phone “could save enough electricity to power 85,000 homes a year” (presuming users heed the alerts, I suppose).

It’s a nice start, Nokia, but hopefully it’s just that: a start. I agree with the folks over at TreeHugger : Phones and other devices that need charging should have a built-in kill switch that forces the charger to turn itself off when the battery is sufficiently powered.

To take it one step further, as recommended by TreeHugger’s Matthew Sparkes: “If a device sits inactive for a certain period of time, then it should shut itself down.”

Filed under: Carbon emissions, Government, Green business, Green business, Green standards, Green technology, HP, IBM, Power consumption

Consensus continues to grow among political leaders around the world that global warming is a very probable threat that needs to be addressed. The latest evidence of this shifting mindset is the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, released last week. The report is a major one, given its scope and number of countries involved, representing a large drop in a bucket of governmental studies and legislation aimed at addressing climate change.

Whether or not business leaders take seriously the threat of global warming, they would be well served to start finding ways to reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions at their companies — both in terms of their operations as well as their products. Acting sooner rather than later means they can stay ahead of stricter laws, as well as on top of the energy crisis that’s already being felt in some datacenters.

“Energy grids are being constrained such that they can’t deliver the energy that companies needs. Legislative schemes are being put into place to control [carbon emissions],” says John Frey, manager of corporate environmental strategies at HP. By not acting, companies themselves will be “inhibited from a growth perspective, or find themselves legislated or taxed into a corner. Most companies don’t want to find themselves in that situation.”

Frey concedes that legislation can help spur a change in a company’s operations and its products, but waiting for laws to guide you isn’t a prudent approach. “Legislation is not going to drive innovation. It is going to bring the high bar up a little bit for those that have not sought a leadership position and gotten in front of the issue.”

Another benefit to staying ahead of the legislative curve: You get to participate in how legislation evolves: “As legislators are looking at whom they can invite in for a dialogue, it’s interesting and satisfying that companies like HP are the ones that get invited to the table first,” Frey says.

A member of the WWF’s Climate Savers Program, HP has long employed sustainable IT practices, according to Frey, which has positioned the company well to stay ahead of legislation. Most recently, the company announced ambitious plans to reduce its energy consumption by 20 percent by 2010. And driving these company’s efforts is indeed green — both of the monetary and environmental perspective. “This is the right thing to do, just looking at energy efficiency from a cost of ownership perspective… When you look at it from the environmental perspective, it becomes an even better decision. It’s not a logical leap a lot of companies make: ‘Hey, our IT group can contribute to reducing our environment footprint.’”

Indeed, the IT industry has a major role to play in a day and age where servers, PCs, networking gear, storage, and applications are vital organs for just about any business, keeping that essential data flowing and operations moving. Frey observed that IT was not explicitly referenced in the IPCC report: “When this issue is talked about in a legislative framework … the assumption is that all these segments, from power generation to general industry, all have an IT component.”

That puts the IT industry in a potentially powerful and influential position as businesses worldwide adapt a greener, more sustainable state of mind, says Edan Dionne, director of corporate environmental affairs at IBM. (Dionne sent me some very thoughtful answers to my e-mail questions, which I am posting here for you to read.)

“Improving the energy utilization of IT equipment and datacenters is important because the application of IT to business and societal energy-efficiency challenges offers us the opportunity to transform the way that society uses energy,” Dionne says.

“For example, IT applications can manage power grids to reduce losses and enable distributed generation,” she continues. “IT can introduce congestion-pricing schemes that reduce road traffic and encourage the use of carpooling and mass transit. IT enables businesses to improve manufacturing processes and supply chain efficiencies to reduce waste and energy usage. IT allows people to work remotely to reduce commuting requirements.”

Big Blue, like HP, is a participant in WWF’s Climate Savers Program, and it, too, has been tackling energy-efficiency issues for years. Just this week, the company announced its Big Green initiative, a $1 billion-a-year service initiative aimed at building and redesigning datacenters that consume less energy. The company also recently garnered recognition from the EPA for pledging to reduce total global GHG emissions by 7 percent from 2005 to 2012.

Dionne offers this advice for companies struggling with how to tackle reducing their energy costs and environmental footprint: “Do what IBM and some other leading companies have done: Assess their own potential impact on the environment; change the necessary policies, processes, and procedures; set benchmarks for achievement; establish a management system to monitor and report progress on those benchmarks; and take corrective action when needed.”

Filed under: Carbon emissions, Government, Green standards, Green technology, IBM, Power consumption, Sustainable IT

Political leaders and business leaders alike are scrutinizing causes of global climate change, as we saw in the recently released IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. And they’re devising solutions to the problem. And just as some countries are ahead of the game insofar as devising regulations to combat greenhouse gas emissions and reduce energy waste, so too are some tech companies out there.

Among them is IBM, which has had its eye on the green prize for years now. While social responsibility and environmental stewardship have played a role in its leadership, the business opportunities and potential cost savings have been there, too.

Edan Dionne, IBM’s director of corporate environmental affairs, provided some very insightful answers, via e-mail, to my various questions about the IPCC report and concerns about global warming, as well as how they affect business — and vice versa. Following is our e-interview.

Edan Dionne: Global climate change presents both challenges and opportunities to the business community. As there is strong scientific consensus that global warming is real and is significantly affected by emissions of greenhouse gases related to human activities, it has become clear that all sectors of society, the economy, and governments worldwide must participate in developing solutions to climate change.

Additionally, public awareness about the impacts of climate change is also swelling demand from employees, clients, investors, and other opinion leaders to know a company’s stance on this issue and evaluate how “green” that company is.

Many companies, like IBM, have been taking actions to manage and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions for many years, while others have initiated actions more recently.

The IT industry has the opportunity to play several roles in addressing climate change. IBM has consistently improved the computing power delivered per unit of watt applied with each new generation of products. Over the last several years, IBM has brought its focus on innovation to improving the energy utilization of IT equipment.

While much progress has been made, there is still more work to do. IBM’s announcement of “Project Big Green” details the next critical steps that IBM plans to take to improve the energy efficiency of its datacenters and its clients’ operations.

Improving the energy utilization of IT equipment and datacenters is important because the application of IT to business and societal energy-efficiency challenges offers us the opportunity to transform the way that society uses energy.

For example, IT applications can manage power grids to reduce losses and enable distributed generation. IT can introduce congestion pricing schemes that reduce road traffic and encourage the use of carpooling and mass transit. IT enables businesses to improve manufacturing processes and supply chain efficiencies to reduce waste and energy usage. IT allows people to work remotely to reduce commuting requirements.

Dionne: Let me answer the last part first. IBM has focused on taking concrete actions to address climate change in its operations, products, and services, including: conserving energy (thus reducing direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases); increasing its use of renewable energy; reducing its direct emissions of greenhouse gases from manufacturing and facilities processes; designing energy-efficient products and developing solutions to help our clients reduce their energy use and improve efficiency; participating in voluntary climate protection programs with both government and nongovernmental organizations; and sharing best practices.

Other companies should do what IBM and some other leading companies have done — assess their own potential impact on the environment; change the necessary policies, processes, and procedures; set benchmarks for achievement; establish a management system to monitor and report progress on those benchmarks; and take corrective action when needed.

It is important to take action today, because addressing the challenges of climate change is a long journey. It is not something that can be handled with one or two quick fixes. As mentioned above, all sectors of society, government, and the economy need to be involved and committed.

Collectively, we need to take available actions today — like aggressive energy conservation and efficiency programs and diversification of our energy portfolio to increase the contribution of non-CO2 or low-CO2-emitting energy sources to our portfolio. And we need to encourage research and development efforts to develop the new technologies and innovations that we will need in the future to take the next steps beyond those available today.

Dionne: As I mentioned earlier, climate change presents challenges and opportunities.

Companies need to assess the impact of a carbon-constrained world on their operations, determine the potential risks that carbon and other greenhouse gas constraints represent to those operations, and plan appropriate contingencies and actions. In many cases, the required actions like energy conservation, making logistics or manufacturing operations more efficient, and diversifying a company’s energy portfolio will result in reduced operating costs, more efficient operations, and provide a competitive advantage.

However, a company must make investments to their facilities and operations to realize the savings. IBM estimates that, over the past eight years, annual savings from its focus on pollution prevention and design for the environment have exceeded environmental expenses by an average of two to one, so worrying about the cost required may not be necessary for all companies.

Policy, legislative, and regulatory discussions regarding climate change encompass a wide range of suggested measures including demand side management, energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, nuclear power, carbon capture and sequestration, alternative fuels for transportation, alternative transportation systems, pricing practices, and a host of other ideas.

Early, voluntary actions help companies develop an inventory of their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, develop experience in managing their operations with a focus on energy use and its effect on the company’s emissions, and capture operational efficiencies that improve their bottom line. This early work helps position a company to manage effectively in a carbon-constrained world. It also allows them to analyze the potential impacts of climate change regulations from a position of experience and offer meaningful, substantive commentary on approaches to carbon management.

Dionne: The good news is that responses to climate change offer opportunities along with the challenges. Companies will have to manage effectively in a carbon-constrained world, and there will be a variety of operational and financial impacts that companies will need to address.

At the same time, there are many opportunities to become more efficient, reduce spending, improve competitiveness, and introduce products and services to assist a company’s clients in managing these same issues. These efforts can benefit the environment, enable and promote the global effort to address the challenges of climate change, and strengthen a company’s business results.

Filed under: Sustainable IT

TV has the Emmys. The Internet has the Webbys. And California companies embracing sustainable, green technology and practices have the Flexys.

OK, so they’re not called Flexys; they’re called the Flex Your Power (FYP) awards, and FYP doles them out each year to organizations demonstrating leadership in energy efficiency, either through in-house initiatives or product innovation. The fifth annual award ceremony took place last weekend at Eco Live 2007, in San Francisco.

Although the awards have been around for five years, there was a striking difference, to me, anyway, between previous years’ recipients and this year’s: the number of IT companies that came away winners has risen. Winners included Adobe, Cisco, HP, Qualcomm, and Sun, while AMD was a runner-up.

The shift toward more IT companies in the FYP winners’ circle shouldn’t be too surprising, though. As noted by Wally McGuire, the director at FYP, tech companies require a large amount of energy, and power costs in this industry are incredibly high — and getting higher. Thus, the ability to use power efficiently, so as to ensure uptime and reduce bills, is central to their success. The California power crisis of 2001 was also a wake-up call for plenty of organizations, McGuire noted.

So IT companies are inventing new ways to deal more effectively with energy costs and usage — not just in the datacenter but with consolidation, virtualization, and the like. Rather, many of these companies undertook an abundance of facility upgrades, including overhauls to increase the efficiency of heating and cooling, as well as lighting and water usage.

Let’s start with Adobe. Last year, as part of its “Greening of Adobe” project, the company earned Platinum-level LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for three of its HQ buildings in San Jose. The company created and implemented a rather sophisticated, integrated building monitoring and control system, allowing staff to handle the controls for various building operating systems from a single UI. Lighting zones, for example, can be turned off and on with a single click of a mouse; HVAC temperatures can be adjusted with another click. Now that’s slick.

Adobe reports that it managed to save some $1,182,000 — and 9,200,000 kWh — from its efforts, representing 30 percent of total electricity use.

According to Randy Knox, Adobe’s senior director of Global Facilities Services, the infamous California brownouts of 2001 indeed helped to spur the 64 projects that comprise the “Greening of Adobe.” “During the California energy crisis, the governor asked large electricity users to reduce energy consumption by 10 percent. From the start, Adobe was determined to go further,” he says. “To date, Adobe has successfully reduced electricity usage by 35 percent, natural gas by 41 percent, domestic water by 22 percent, landscape irrigation by 76 percent, and diversion of solid waste through composting and recycling by nearly 90 percent.”

Like Adobe, Qualcomm’s realized some impressive energy and cost savings with facility upgrades, in this case to its San Diego-based Building W Campus, an LEED Gold candidate building. (Qualcomm also earned an FYP award last year.) Renovations included installing a photovoltaic (solar power) system that supports 60 percent of campus lighting requirements and offsets demand during peak periods.

It also added efficient faucets, flush valves, shower heads, plus an increase in cycles of chilled water circulation, saving 670,000 gallons of water annually. The campus has incorporated high-efficiency lighting fixtures, gas absorption chillers, boilers, and water heaters. All in all, the company reports to have reaped savings of 9,668,000 kWh last year - 30 percent of total electricity use.

According to Alan Ball, Qualcomm director of business services for the company’s real estate and facilities department, the company’s efforts prove downright inspiring to the company’s employees. “We find that employees are proud of our initiatives to reduce energy usage. In fact, we offer facilities tours to interested employees, and some have gone on to install solar power systems on their own homes,” he says.

Also on the list of winners: Cisco. The networking giant completed quite a few upgrades to its San Jose campus, projects which it says will cut electricity usage by more than 14,000,000 kWh and gas consumption by 100,000 therms. Combined, Cisco’s 2006 projects will cut GHG emissions by more than 40 million pounds. That translates to more than $1,500,000 in cost savings.

Cisco has made major upgrades at its San Jose campus, including installing VFD (variable frequency drive) chillers in numerous buildings and upgrading its HVAC controls.

The company also launched an employee education program to encourage energy conservation and a campus-wide recycling program, which the company says saves an estimated 35,000,000 kWh when compared to the energy required for landfill disposal and new product manufacturing.

On the innovative products and services side, HP secured an FYP trophy by producing the first business systems on the market that are configurable to meet the Energy Star 4.0 standards. (For reasons I don’t entirely grasp, HP is making a point of not saying that the systems are compliant with the standard, since said standard isn’t official yet.) Nevertheless, according to the company, these can save as much as 52 percent of power use over traditional machines when properly configured.

HP was also the first company to enable all business PCs with S3 power management to automatically switch machines to standby during times of inactivity. “For every twelve desktop computers that have the energy-savings mode enabled, that’s like taking a car off the road for a year,” according to John Frey, HP’s manager of corporate environmental strategies.

Finally, Sun came away with an innovative products and services award, apparently for its energy-efficient Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers, with CoolThreads technology, released back in 2005, as well as for its Open Work program, through which nearly half of Sun’s 40,000 employees work from home whenever possible to avoid commuting. The company provides consulting services, instructing other organizations on how to implement flexible work programs.

For more information about the Flex Your Power awards, go to
www.fypower.org/feature/awards/.

Filed under: Hardware, Power consumption, Servers, Sustainable IT

Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a truly plug-and-play world, where, for example, you could quickly and easily pull out the old gas-guzzling engine in your otherwise-functional automobile and swap in a hybrid engine you bought off the shelf at the local auto-parts store — and maybe a hydrogen engine (or whatever replaces hybrid) down the road? Think of the cost and time savings, as well as the environmental benefits, of that modular model.

The automotive industry isn’t there, but there’s a hardware company delivering that level of flexible modularity to the server market: Open Source Systems, which today is announcing the Green Series of its 2U Gemini Server line. And in a day and age where data-center managers are keen on finding ways to make the most out of their rack space as they grow, while reducing soaring energy and cooling bills, I think this line’s design holds a lot of promise.

So what makes the Gemini Green Series green? For starters, the company has added a high-efficiency power supply that runs at 93 percent efficiency. As a result, the company says the machines use between 30 and 50 percent less power than typical servers and emit up to 50 percent less heat. Chew on that for a moment: It can represent a dramatic reduction in your energy and cooling bills –and it also means you can add more servers to your data center if your problem wasn’t lack of space but rather insufficient cooling.

Speaking of cooling, OSS strives to make the most of the system’s 2U form factor, which houses two motherboards. The company says it’s able to cool the two boards with four large 80mm fluid-bearing fans, which consume far less power (and make less noise) than the smaller five-plus wind-tunnel fans used in 1Us.

Because the system has two discrete servers, it’s possible to simultaneously use an Intel processor and an AMD processors from the same chassis. That means you can choose the hardware platform that’s best suited to run your services.

For example, a small company could run its Web server on an Intel processor and its database server on AMD, from one machine, and divide the duties of the 12 drives as needed. (The company notes that other 2U servers have only eight drives.)

But the real beauty in the OSS system, again, lies in its approach to modularity. “Because of its unique modular design, users can swap out major components as needs change or as technology advances so it is a truly future-proof solution,” said Eren Niazi, chief executive officer and founder of Open Source Systems.

Not only can the system’s major components — the motherboard, the disk drives, power supplies, and memory — be swapped out; they can be swapped while the system is still on the rack. The system’s twelve hot-swappable disk drives can support SATA, SCSI or SAS. Mix and match as needed.

And, in a couple of years when a new crop of faster motherboards emerge with superior features that are better suited for your needs, you can easily cold-swap your existing ATX or E-ATX board simply by ejecting it via a rear-loading tray and popping in a new one. (Loosening a screw is required in this process.)

That strikes me as such an elegantly simple, straightforward, and sensible approach. From a business perspective, you’re saving time and money by not having to replace the entire machine, or investing the man-hours and dollars in doing it manually.

And from an environmental standpoint, you’re prolonging the lifecycle of the other perfectly good parts that you might otherwise end up shipping back to your hardware vendor for recycling when you need a system upgrade. “It’s great for the environment. You’re able to reuse these metal chasses without buying new servers every five year,” said Niazi.

Of course, seeing is believing, and I’m looking forward to having one of the Test Center analysts give one of these babies a spin to see if they’re really as good as they appear on paper. Stay tuned.

The 2U Gemini Server Green Series systems start at $10,000, but can reach $105,000, according to Niazi, depending on the tailored configuration. For more information, check out the OSS Web site at
www.opensourcesystems.com.

Filed under: Carbon emissions, Green business, Green technology, Power consumption, Sun, Sustainable IT

Just in time for next week’s JavaOne show, Sun Vice President of Eco-Responsibility Dave Douglas arrived in San Francisco yesterday afternoon. His first stop: the InfoWorld office to chat with me about his first year-plus in his green role; data-center issues confronting IT admins — and solutions; and dealing with carbon emissions. You can watch the video right here.

Dave’s been the VP of eco-responsibility at Sun for just over a year now, and judging by our conversation, he has a pretty full plate. No surprise there: Reining in energy waste entails far more than reminding employees to shut off the lights before going home at night.

Rather, Dave appears to be involved in multiple areas of Sun’s business, from product development to internal IT operations. (It sounds rather like the chief sustainability officer position I wrote about a while back.) That’s a lot to keep a watchful green eye on, but as he tells it, plenty of folks at Sun believe in the benefits of being environmentally conscientious, so it doesn’t sound like he has to struggle with a corporate culture that’s resistant to making necessary changes toward sustainability.

As an example of Sun’s commitment to sustainability and waste reduction, Dave talked to me about how the company has made the annual JavaOne show a little greener this year.

For example, Sun saved 4.63 tons of paper by going with virtual direct mail campaigns, online surveys and feedback forms for the show. It also stepped up the use of recycling, and plus Dave noted that site for the show, the Moscone Center, has a 60,000 square foot photovoltaic array on the roof (designed to generate energy savings of 4.8 million kWh annually).

The company has made “green” purchasing decisions to keep food-trash compostable. Also, as swag, the company is handing out organic t-shirts, and notepads made from recycled paper and printed with soy ink. Read more about it here.

OK, so that alone isn’t going to, say, reduce global warming, but it’s a nice example of relatively little things companies can don’t cost much (or perhaps even save money) and that are good for the environment. And Dave said that next year, the conference will be even greener. I’m curious to see how. Maybe it will take place in Second Life?

Like any other high-level techie in the IT industry, Dave is keenly attuned to the data center crisis companies are facing, and he shared some of the strategies he’s been looking at, including consolidation and virtualization.

Just in time for next week’s JavaOne show, Sun Vice President of Eco-Responsibility Dave Douglas arrived in San Francisco yesterday afternoon. His first stop: the InfoWorld office to chat with me about his first year-plus in his green role; data-center issues confronting IT admins — and solutions; and dealing with carbon emissions. You can watch the video right here.

Dave’s been the VP of eco-responsibility at Sun for just over a year now, and judging by our conversation, he has a pretty full plate. No surprise there: Reining in energy waste entails far more than reminding employees to shut off the lights before going home at night.

Rather, Dave appears to be involved in multiple areas of Sun’s business, from product development to internal IT operations. (It sounds rather like the chief sustainability officer position I wrote about a while back.) That’s a lot to keep a watchful green eye on, but as he tells it, plenty of folks at Sun believe in the benefits of being environmentally conscientious, so it doesn’t sound like he has to struggle with a corporate culture that’s resistant to making necessary changes toward sustainability.

As an example of Sun’s commitment to sustainability and waste reduction, Dave talked to me about how the company has made the annual JavaOne show a little greener this year.

For example, Sun saved 4.63 tons of paper by going with virtual direct mail campaigns, online surveys and feedback forms for the show. It also stepped up the use of recycling, and plus Dave noted that site for the show, the Moscone Center, has a 60,000 square foot photovoltaic array on the roof (designed to generate energy savings of 4.8 million kWh annually).

The company has made “green” purchasing decisions to keep food-trash compostable. Also, as swag, the company is handing out organic t-shirts, and notepads made from recycled paper and printed with soy ink. Read more about it here.

OK, so that alone isn’t going to, say, reduce global warming, but it’s a nice example of relatively little things companies can don’t cost much (or perhaps even save money) and that are good for the environment. And Dave said that next year, the conference will be even greener. I’m curious to see how. Maybe it will take place in Second Life?

Like any other high-level techie in the IT industry, Dave is keenly attuned to the data center crisis companies are facing, and he shared some of the strategies he’s been looking at, including consolidation and virtualization.

One certainly inventive solution that Sun has devised to help companies deal with the lack of data center real estate is Project Blackbox, a project Dave was involved in developing, and he’s clearly excited about it. For those who aren’t the know, Project Blackbox is a portable data center that can be located just about anywhere, designed to support 10,000 simultaneous desktops without requiring an administrator. (It was also one of InfoWorld’s 12 “crackpot technologies that could transform the enterprise.”)

Carbon emissions are gathering more attention in the IT realm, and they’re certainly on Dave’s radar: He’s written about the topic at some length on his blog. Tracking emissions is pretty important, as we’re seeing increasingly strict regulations emerging.

We’re also seeing some companies, such as Dell and Yahoo, embracing the notion of carbon offsets and neutrality. On that subject, Dave diplomatically said that Sun is looking at internal ways to reduce its carbon footprint as best it can — in ways that are directly beneficial to business — before exploring something like offsets. In addition to watching the video clip, you can check out Dave’s comments on the topic here in his blog.

There was one question I’d meant to ask Dave, but we were running a little short on time (and frankly, I forgot): Earlier this year, Sun joined a bunch of other companies in calling on the federal government to help” achieve sizable, sensible long-term reductions of greenhouse gas emissions” from 60 to 90% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050. Why the wide range of 60 to 90%? Why 1990 levels as the baseline? And why wait until 2050? In other words, is this a sufficiently ambitious goal? I’ll have to ask him next time I see him, I suppose.

One last thing: If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend (perhaps in town for JavaOne), you might want to check out Eco LIVE 2007 on Saturday, May 5. Dave will be one of the speakers, talking the challenges of reducing energy and resource consumption within IT. Robert Kennedy Jr. will be delivering the keynote. The event takes place at the Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 8th Street in S.F., and after the keynote, entrance is free.