The government indicated yesterday that a raft of new environmental regulations and taxes are on the horizon in the wake of Sir Nicholas Stern's report into the potentially disastrous economic impact of climate change.

The 700-page report from the former World Bank chief economist warns of a global economic downturn worse than the Great Depression if moves are not taken to limit climate change.

The report warns that failure to limit carbon emissions and reduce the level of global warming would wipe out up to 20 percent of global GDP as floods displace up to 100 million people, one in six become affected by water shortages and droughts lead to hundreds of millions of "climate refugees".

The study predicts action now will prove far more cost effective than attempting to maintain economic growth when faced with these apocalyptic scenarios. Stern argues that investing just one percent of global GDP in green initiatives now could head off the global economic collapse.

Tony Blair endorsed the report claiming that "Investment now will pay us back many times in the future, not just environmentally but economically as well… For every £1 invested now we can save £5, or possibly more, by acting now".

The report has won praise from environmentalists for its hard headed approach, eschewing talk of moral imperatives in favour of the economic necessity of action. Stern's focus on economics undermines previous objections (which stopped the US ratifying Kyoto) that action on climate change would damage the economy, arguing instead that inaction will cause far more economic harm.

The big question now for firms is what does this report mean for them?

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the study is its analysis of how environmental damage represents a market failure. Stern argues that green house gasses are what are known in economic terms as an externality, meaning that those producing gasses impose costs on the rest of the world in the form of climate change, but do not directly face the consequences of those costs themselves.

As the environmental costs are not borne by the producer they are not incorporated in the end-product or service and as a result those products or services are more attractive to the consumer than they should be. If market mechanisms were working perfectly the costs of pollution would impact the producer and they would be forced to raise prices, prompting the consumer to look elsewhere for cleaner, and cheaper, products.

Stern argues that if you put a price on carbon - either explicitly through taxes, or implicitly through regulation – then those market mechanisms will kick in and force businesses and individuals to switch away from high carbon goods and services.

There is nothing new about this analysis (I remember being taught about externalities and the tax mechanisms that can correct them during A-Level economics classes) but what is new is that the government is being recommended to lead corrective market action on a global scale.

The government has all but fully endorsed Stern's recommendation and that means one thing – more taxes and regulations.

A leaked memo from environment secretary David Miliband has revealed the scale of some of the green taxation measures being considered, including increasing fuel duty, taxes on high emission vehicles, road pricing, increased tax on air travel and fuel, and increased VAT on high energy consumer products. Chancellor Gordon Brown has said taxes would be just part of a wider green economic programme but many of these green levies now look inevitable.

Politically, Brown has timed his green push to perfection. By waiting a year for his rival David Cameron to fully tie the Tories to green issues Brown can launch any green tax initiatives with a guarantee of cross party support.

The Tories or Lib Dems may be keen to contest the measures for political purposes given the Sun and the Mail on Sunday have already attempted to whip up populist opposition to what many see as stealth taxes. But any move to do so would allow Brown to accuse Cameron of supporting green causes while being unwilling to take the tough decisions to bring about change.

These imminent green taxes represent a cost and an opportunity for UK firms.

Firstly firms must act to minimise the costs. That means adopting business models that limit carbon emissions and doing so as quickly as possible. Waiting until the taxes are in place will be too late to avoid increased costs and will result in your company looking to invest in lower carbon technologies at a time when similar interest from rivals is likely to push up prices.

Any firm that has already considered investing in more energy efficient products - be they new servers, green energy suppliers, video conferencing systems, or a fleet of low carbon corporate cars – and decided that the cost could not be justified, should urgently revisit their ROI calculations, because with green taxes forcing the cost of business as usual higher the returns on these investments will look far more attractive.

However, it is not all about costs, a major opportunity also comes in the huge lobbying power held by business leaders.

The government is right to pioneer green taxes in an attempt to rectify the market failure Stern has outlined and lobbying against them is likely to prove fruitless – particularly as long as this rare period of political unanimity lasts. However, businesses should note that taxation and regulation are not the only ways of correcting market failures. Incentives can also manipulate markets and businesses should be pushing hard for not just taxes that hit when they damage the environment, but incentives for when they develop sustainable processes.

UK governments have developed a congenital distaste for incentives over the past few decades, tending to associate them with the subsidies that Thatcher so fiercely eradicated in the 80s. This disapproval for properly instigated incentive schemes was highlighted recently when the Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP) – a grant scheme for installing renewable energy generators on your home – saw its annual budget run out after six months. The budget has since been topped back up but the overall three year allocation of £80m for the LCBP is remarkably small given the government's desire to drive adoption of solar panels and wind turbines.

But whether the government approves of subsidies and incentives or not there is hardly a single industry that did not rely on handouts early in their development – indeed the agricultural sectors in France and the US still do, but that's another issue. Business leaders should be making this point and arguing that if the government wants behaviour to change quickly there needs to be a big carrot as well as a big stick.

They should also articulate that a failure to offer incentives as well as taxes would play into the hands of the right wing press who have already attempted to paint the Stern Report as a harbinger of higher taxes. Brown must be willing to take with one hand but give back with the other.

Developing and policing effective incentive schemes is tricky but tax breaks, grants, interest free loans and subsidies should all be made available to firms to help them make the long term investments required to implement green technologies. Fail to do this and the Stern Report's legacy is likely to be higher taxes and little impact on global warming.

Posted by James Murray on October 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Janet Blake, head of global corporate social responsibility (CSR) at BT, reckons CSR is delivering real and measurable financial value for the telco giant. In an exclusive interview with GBN she explains how the company measures the impact of its CSR work, details BT's plans to reinforce its position as a green business leader, and argues that the government must do more to help firms tackle climate change.

GBN: Why is CSR important to BT?
Janet Blake: BT has transformed as a company over the last ten years and service is very much key to our marketshare. As a service company brand, reputation, values and image are essential to our success and CSR activities help in all these areas.

But can you make a firm business case for CSR?
We believe there is a clear a business case for CSR – and there has to be because you have to ask if any form of investment you make is the right thing to do for the business and its shareholders. We've done a lot of work to make the case for our CSR investments. The main point is that it is good for the bottom line. We tracked new business and evaluated the proportion that is CSR driven. We found that £2.2bn of revenue a year had CSR credentials.

How did you come to that figure?
We looked at the value of our deals then identified the value the customer put on the CSR record of its suppliers. This assessment backs up the nice words about CSR, quantifies the value people place on it and highlights the business we could lose if we didn't have these initiatives. You do need to quantify it – we spent £21m on charitable efforts last year and if you are spending that kind of money a business needs to be it is getting a return.

What other benefits do you see from CSR?
Another big benefit is the cost savings we gain from environmental initiatives. We've saved £290m from improving energy efficiency and reformatting the way our staff work. We now have 11,000 home workers and a further 64,000 flexible workers who work from home some of the time. As a result we've been able to cut back on office real estate and reduced our business travel budget. Another benefit is in customer satisfaction, which as a service firm is critical to our competitiveness. We've looked at the proportion of a purchasing decision that comes down to reputation and the proportion CSR efforts contribute to our reputation. We've used customer panels and surveys to estimate that a 10 percent increase in customer awareness of CSR leads to a 1 percent increase in overall customer satisfaction.

Should firms have a separate CSR department or should CSR activities be embedded into everything they do?
It is a pertinent question. Long term CSR can’t be done as a single department running alongside day to day operations. It has to be embedded and for that to happen you need senior executives willing to push the agenda. Our CEO, Ben Verwaayen, has been very vocal about his support for our CSR initiatives and that really helps. However, at a practical level it helps to have CSR activities under one banner. If you are managing change in any business you need targets and specific objectives if you want that change delivered and having a department responsible for that change makes it easier to drive forward.

Why do you think firms have suddenly started taking a bigger interest in environmental issues?
For business managers the agenda has shifted from the environment to climate change. The environment is quite a passive concept, people feel they need to do their bit, but there is no burning platform for the issue. Climate change has provided that burning platform and forced itself up the agenda. The science is better understood by businesses while publicity, like the Al Gore film, has meant that people are getting it. It is focusing people's minds on the steps that can be taken. The challenge now is to keep this platform alive because it is the best way of driving change.

What efforts have BT made to become greener?
Ten years ago the environment was about complying with regulations but not doing anything radical, but in 2003 we looked at the issues we were facing and decided to do something radical. In 2004 we signed the world's largest renewable energy deal with npower and British Gas. That means all our exchanges, satellite networks and offices are powered by renewable energy.

Didn't that drive up costs?
It actually worked out cheaper for us. It was a good deal for BT. Now it is not so lucrative, but because we moved first we got a good deal.

What other steps have you taken?
Next we ramped up our agile working initiative. We have replaced three quarters of meetings with virtual meetings, which have eradicated 1.5m journeys a year. That equates to 55,000 tonnes of CO2 and has saved us £120m a year in travel, accommodation and lost productivity.

Where BT take its green agenda next?
We have just decided on three CSR priorities for the future: climate change, sustainable economic development and social inclusion. With climate change we want to take another radical step and make a bigger impact by changing some of the things that are intrinsic to the way we do business. We will make more detailed announcements in January, but one of the main focuses is on making our new 21st century network as environmentally friendly as possible. We are also working on our datacenters to ensure they are up to the latest environmental specs. Thirdly, we will look at how to make our whole product set more environmentally sustainable. One thing we want to do is work out the CO2 emissions of our product set and let our customers know what it is. We see that as helping to secure business because as our customers get more carbon aware having that data will help them better manage their carbon footprint.

Is there the customer interest to justify these investments?
Look at Innocent Smoothies. People will pay more for something that they perceive as better. It is consumer power that will ultimately drive these green business models. I think we need a few big wins to make that apparent to everyone, but I believe we will see widespread increase in the value placed on firms' environmental record.

BT is a member of the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change and signed the letter earlier this year urging the government to do more to tackle the problem. What would you like to see the government do?
The government has taken some positive steps, but there is room for improvement. Governments can do more and none of them are really taking a leadership position. Overall, I believe it is market forces that will do the most to drive change in business models, but the government has to put in place a better framework to enable change. Of course there needs to be basic legislation, but I’d also like to see incentives that find ways of awarding those companies that get it right and make investments in green business models.

Posted by James Murray on October 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Steve Forbes is not a man you'd expect to agree with environmentalists. As the laissez faire economists' laissez faire economist of choice, the CEO of the Forbes media empire is a staunch Republican from the Right's economic old school who has called for the axing of environmental regulations and remains fiercely committed to free trade principles of low tax, low government spending and even lower red tape.

But speaking yesterday after a far reaching keynote at SAS' BetterManagement Live conference in Las Vegas - he lamented the US' slow progress on broadband; marvelled at the innovation of Wal-Mart; called for flat tax rates while citing how Irish tax breaks have delivered the country's economic boom (he failed to mention the role of EU investment based on other countries' taxes, but never mind); and urged action on Iran - Forbes outlined why he believed green business models made increasingly good sense for firms.

Forbes conclusion is driven not by a panic stricken realisation that firms and politicians must act or face environmental disaster (as believed by the man he would have faced for the presidency in 2000 if he'd had his way, Al Gore). But by a belief that global economic growth means environmental considerations are now good for the bottom line.

He argued that economic expansion, even in emerging economies like China and India, means businesses need to consider their environmental impacts if they are to keep customers and look after the bottom line. "I don't think many businesses will go in the opposite direction and say we are polluters, therefore buy our products and stocks," he joked.

According to Forbes the emergence of a middle class in a country - as a direct result of economic growth - will naturally ensure good environmental practices are enforced.

"One of the phenomenons you will find is that as a country becomes more affluent people want a better quality of life," Forbes explained. "In the last 30 to 35 years here in the US the environment has improved immeasurably. 35 years ago the air, for example, was full of lead... that has been virtually removed. On the east coast of the US there are more trees today than there were 80 or 90 years ago."

This trend will be, and indeed already is, being repeated globally, Forbes said. "In China the growing middle class is not going to tolerate breathing bad air," he predicted. "[This trend] is not just a handful of companies saying 'we are environmentally friendly'. I think it is a broader thing of emerging middle classes wanting a better quality of life and if you are in a free country, or even an unfree country, then that pressure will be increasingly brought to bear."

This customer pressure will force firms to do what they do best, according to Forbes, innovate. He cited improvements in emmissions from motor vehicles compared to 30 years ago as a prime example of how companies will almost inevitably develop cleaner and cleaner products over time.

Now, there is no doubt this interpretation is simplistic. It ignores the environmental pressures that the emerging middle classes of developing economies will place on countries with already fragile ecosystems (an issue discussed at length in Jared Diamond's excellent book on sustainability Collapse).

It ignores the fact that developed world economies are far cleaner now because they have outsourced many of their dirtier industries to countries like India and China.

It ignores the fact that sadly some innovations are not cleaner than their predecessors.

And it ignores the fact that Forbes' bete noires - regulations and taxes - may well be needed to get those firms that can't see commercial value in green business models to modify their behaviour.

However, Forbes also makes the valid point that firms can not ignore the environmental concerns of their customers; that those concerns will become more vocal as economic growth continues; and that commercial innovation is the best way of developing greener business models.

And, perhaps most encouragingly for firms making green investments, the fact that thought leaders from the political and economic Right now see these investments as commercially beneficial further confirms that the hard nosed business argument for environmental responsibility has been well and truly won.

Posted by James Murray on October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The growing importance of environmental initiatives to employees was again highlighted last week as a YouGov survey found that almost two thirds of British workers regard it as important that their employer is environmentally friendly.

The survey of almost 2,200 UK workers was carried out for web conferencing specialist WebEx and found that 63 percent would be happy to change working habits in order to limit their carbon footprint suggesting that firms can count on widespread support for green initiatives.

However, the report also highlighted the challenge firms developing green business models face, confirming that there is a lack understanding amongst workers about environmental best practices.

Only 17 percent of respondents were classified as Office Environmentalists committed to green best practices. Meanwhile, almost one in three said they would like to be greener but don’t want to invest the extra effort required, while 19 percent said they would like to take environmental steps but were unclear about what to do. A further 16 percent said attempts to implement green practices were constrained by lack of resources. Finally, one in twenty respondents said they had no interest in environmental schemes.

The report also provided a reality check for those who believe green business models are already widespread, highlighting that it is still only high profile early adopters that are exploiting green technologies such as web conferencing.

Only six percent of workers said their employer encouraged people to work from home, while the same small proportion said they were regular users of online meetings. Moreover only four percent said their company had switched to a renewable energy supplier and over a third said their employer had taken no steps to limit its impact on the environment.

Bert van der Zwan, vice president for EMEA at WebEx, said in a statement that it was encouraging that so many workers were interested in green business models but added that firms need to do far more to develop the kinds of environmentally sustainable business models that will keep these staff happy.

Posted by James Murray on October 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

The United Nation's CSR initiative, the UN Global Compact, is preparing a series of measures designed to encourage both multinationals and governments to do more to tackle climate change.

Speaking exclusively to GBN, Georg Kell (pictured), executive head of the UN Global Compact, said that a recent survey of 150 of the largest companies signed up to the scheme - which asks firms to adopt best practices on human rights, the workplace, the environment and anti-corruption – found environmental issues were now their number one CSR priority.

"Good progress has been made by many firms on the environment," he said. "But now climate change has emerged as the single biggest issue they face and business leaders are telling us to put it top of our list as well."

In response to these calls, the UN Global Compact is considering making the development of a corporate strategy on climate change a condition of membership for firms signed up to the initiative.

Kell said that the UN could also step up its lobbying of national governments to better integrate their environmental regulations. "The firms we work with want regulatory clarity and a level playing field," he said. "There is a call for legislators to get their act together on a global basis. Firms don’t mind [environmental] regulations if they are transparent and predictable."

Kell added that the UN Global Compact would also look to throw its weight behind successful small scale environmental schemes and try and encourage its members to adopt them on a wider scale. "There are a lot of good corporate initiatives, like carbon emission disclosure, that deserve to be scaled up and we want to give our support to," he said.

There is a growing realisation amongst business leaders that coherent CSR and environmental strategies are core to their operations, according to Kell.

"Transparency is now critical to how businesses operate and it is vital to have an environmental and ethical platform," he said. "Failure to develop one is to neglect your strategic responsibilities."

"These 'soft' issues are the same as any economic issue and they play out as either a risk or an opportunity," he added. "Having a proactive policy helps you mitigate those risks or exploit the opportunities. For example, without a clear ethical policy for your supply chain your brand is at constant risk of damage."

This growing support for CSR is evident in the fact that the Global Compact has this year had its best recruitment year since the initiative was launched in 2000, with 1,000 new members signed up.

However, Kell said the body had recently kicked out over 300 members for failing to report on the progress they had made in adhering to the programme. "We need to protect the brand and ensure no one is getting a free ride," he said.

Posted by James Murray on October 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

News that many business travelers regard business trips as a "necessary evil" and are keen to move over a quarter of face-to-face meetings online will be welcomed by IT directors keen to deploy the technology in order to cut costs and limit their firm's environmental impact.

But according to video conferencing technology specialist Tandberg - which commissioned the Ipsos MORI survey of business traveler attitudes - there are a number of steps IT directors should take to ensure they maximise returns from any investment in online communication tools.

Perhaps the single most important factor, according to Paul Gullet managing director for the UK and Ireland at Tandberg, is to get a senior business executive to "champion" the technology. "You need cross departmental support for video conferencing if you are going to get people using it, and you neeed a senior exec to drive that," said Gullet.

The next step is for the IT department to perform its core function and ensure the technology is rock solid and reliable.

But once that is achieved IT chiefs will find themselves having to break out from their traditional skillset and turn marketer, according to Gullet. "The technology adoption will have been driven by the technologist, but then they have to get the message out there that the technology is available," he said.

Tandberg offers a usage and adoption framework service for customers, designed to help them maximise their investment through internal marketing and advertising activities as well basic training and support for users.

Another successful tactic is for the IT director to build a relationship with the firm's travel bookers to ensure that reminders of video conferencing capabilities are embedded into booking processes so that anyone trying to book a flight is first asked to justify why the meeting can not go online.

Gullet insists focusing on cost and productivity is the best way to convince people to push more meetings online, but he added that where firms have an active environmental strategy stressing the pollution caused by flying can also have an impact.

"I always ask my staff how big their garden is," he said. "If you are doing up to 18,000 business miles in a car, four European flights and one international flight a year that means you have to plant a tree a month to offset the CO2 emissions you are responsible for. You're going to need a pretty big garden."

Posted by James Murray on October 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

While the first three of IBM's new energy saving services focus on the nuts and bolts of running a datacentre efficiently the final two services are directed more at the strategic planning that goes into developing an energy efficient IT infrastructure.

The fourth service in particular, Datacentre Global Consolidation and Relocation Enablement, looks at the macro issues impacting datacentre and energy costs and assesses where a firm's assets are currently located and where they would be more efficient.

Several US firms are already doing this, locating large datacenters in the Pacific North West near cheap and reliable hydro electric power stations. But Chris Scott at IBM said the new service would offer relocation consultancy at an international level, offering best practice guidance whether firms are attempting full scale relocation to exploit cheaper power or simply consolidating multiple sites into one central location in an attempt to increase utilisation rates.

The final new IBM service is targeted at midmarket firms that typically lack the scale and resources to improve the efficiency of their datacenters and offers a series of standardised and optimised datacentre design elements or modules. "It means that we can say that if you have a 50 square metre site this is what you need to do to optimise energy efficiency," said Scott. "As it is pre-packaged we can offer the service without large consultancy fees."

Ultimately, Scott said the five new services were about finding ways to improve energy efficiency in "resource friendly ways".

IBM may face some justifiable criticism for not being as vocal about product energy efficiency compared to its rivals. But it can also argue that it is these types of services designed to optimise what you already have that will prove more popular with customers in the medium term, particularly when compared with the next generation energy efficient products that will only be adopted quickly by those few IT chiefs that can afford to rip and replace much of their hardware.

Posted by James Murray on October 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ask most CIOs today what comes into their minds when asked about their response to the challenge of better protecting the environment, better recycling of computer consumable waste is probably number one. Sensible – especially given the WEEE Directive – but as interest in green computing grows, that’s bound to change. It’s increasingly likely we’ll start looking at other parts of the IT stack to see what aspects of resource utilisation make sense to try and rationalise. Take power and storage, for instance.

Storage is - almost notoriously - a rapidly growing part of company infrastructure. But as we merrily accumulate more and more hard disks, SANs, NASs and all the rest, is much thought being spared for the underlying energy costs of running what is after all ultimately a bunch of power-demanding electromechanical devices?

“Poor use of data storage is a big culprit of energy waste,” thinks David Scott, CEO of storage specialist 3PAR, which markets so-called ‘thin provisioning’ ways of using storage. “Especially if no more than 10-20% of total deployed storage is actually in use. We need to find better ways to do this.”

There are at the least some thought-provoking data to back up the case for thinking how we could be using our storage assets. Each disk drive needs 65 watts to be operated and cooled; in 2006 there were 105 million installed in multi-user systems, according to market watchers Gartner. Multiply that by 65 watts times the number of hours in a year you have a high total kilowatt expenditure. Scott calculates that just supporting those 100 million-plus spinning disks would need 35 million barrels of oil this year alone.

The company claims that if their customers have, as they claim, bought a half to a third less disk drives than otherwise might have been needed this is equivalent to cumulative energy savings of $3m to $6m and crude oil savings of 20 to 40 million barrels. This calculation is based on the difference between the 12 petabytes of storage it has sold which ‘really’ translates to between 24-36 petabytes actual use, i.e. what would have been bought otherwise. (Figures are available from the company if anyone wants to check the maths.)

Obviously the company is promoting its own technology here – but there may be more to this idea long term.

Posted by Gary Flood on October 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

IT services specialist Logicalis will today become the latest firm to offer an environmental service, offering IT departments free environmental training and status assessments.

Under the scheme, Logicalis has signed a major alliance with environmental charity Global Action Plan that will see the company pay the organisation to provide independent environmental training and assessment to its customers.

The service will include training workshops on issues such as energy efficiency and recycling as well as an assessment of an IT department's current environmental footprint and an action plan on how to improve.

Logicalis will offer the service free to its key accounts as part of its CIO programme and will also offer it as a negotiating chip with new customers. "If new customers are interested we'll throw the service in as part of a discount," explained Chris Gabriel, head of solutions at Logicalis.

Gabriel said the scheme would cost Logicalis thousands of pounds per customer, but insisted there was a real business benefit in attempting to address the emerging communication gap between IT directors and the rest of the business with regards to environmental issues.

"We've found talking to customers that the environment isn’t really on the radar with IT people, but they are disconnected from the business as for business executives it is fundamental to their marketing and cost cutting strategies," he said. "We saw this disconnect on a specific basis, where we'd be talking to customers about how VMWare saved one of our customers £200k in power costs and the response from the datacentre guy was 'that's good, but I don’t pay the electricity bill'."

Gabriel insisted the Global Action Plan service would be completely independent from Logicalis and not form part of the company’s sales activities. However he hopes that funding education on issues such as CO2 emissions, energy efficiency and recycling means that customers will better understand its sales pitch for energy efficient products and services.

He added that as well as bolstering Logicalis' relationships with customers the programme can also provide a major career boost for those IT directors who undertake the training and attempt to bridge the communication gap with the rest of the business.

"IT is a big facilitator of change in any business," he said. "It is IT that allows people to work from home, IT that can ensure machines are switched off, and IT that can limit corporate travel. IT directors have the opportunity to underpin many firms' green business initiatives."

Posted by James Murray on October 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Never one to be found too far from a technology zeitgeist Google has this week announced plans to install solar panels at its Mountain View headquarters.

Writing on the Google blog, corporate environmental programs manager Robyn Beavers said 1.6 megawatt photovoltaic panels will be installed on the roofs of the four main buildings at the Googleplex and even spill out into the car park. The project is to be handled by solar technology specialist EI Solutions.

Google hopes the installation - which it claims is the largest of its type at a US corporate campus - will deliver enough electricity to power 1,000 homes and will offset around 30 percent of the campus' peak electricity needs.

Beavers was quick to stress that while the installation will help the environment, it is also a sound business investment:

"We believe that improving our environmental practices is not only our responsibility as a corporate citizen, but good business planning – a new report from the North American Electric Reliability Council suggests that demand continue to outstrip power supply by a considerable margin. And of course by saving electricity, we also save money. In fact, we believe this project demonstrates that a large investment in renewable energy can be profitable."

On site renewable energy generation is rapidly approaching the corporate mainstream with Google's installation joining pilots from companies such as Tesco, Ford and most recently the London Olympics.

Some experts have warned against embracing the model until the technology's reliability is more thoroughly proven. David Vincent of the Carbon Trust recently warned IT director's would be wise to see how reliable microgeneration pilot programmes prove before using on site generators, such as wind turbines or solar panels, to power IT equipment. He said that until the technology becomes more commodotised maintaining it could place extra demands on a firm's IT or facilities department.

However, support from global brands such as Google suggests that the technology can indeed prove "profitable" and adoption rates could soon reach an inflection point as firms look to enhance their long term energy security.

Posted by James Murray on October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

IBM has today elaborated on the new datacentre energy efficiency services it launched last week and dismissed suggestions that its support for blade servers has contributed to the energy crisis afflicting many firms' IT infrastructure.

Speaking to GBN, Chris Scott, service product line leader for IBM's site and facility services unit, said the company had repackaged its energy efficiency services into five new lines in order to meet growing customer demand for improved energy efficiency.

The first new line IBM has launched is a High Density Computing Readiness Assessment. Scott said the service assesses a datacenter's use of high density computing (HDC) technologies such as blade servers and suggests changes firms can make to move towards "getting as much technology into each rack as possible".

HDC environments have been criticised by some experts as increasing datacentre power demands, with blade servers often branded particularly inefficient due to the extra cooling they often require.

Rakesh Kumar of analyst Gartner recently said blades were a direct contributor to IT's "energy crisis" claiming that:

“The power needed for a rack of high-density server blades can be between 10 and 15 times higher than the power needed for a traditional server environment... At the same time, a similar amount of additional power will be needed to remove the huge quantity of heat generated by these new machines.”

But while accepting that HDC environments could create issues with cooling and power supply Scott argued blades are easier to deploy and manage, and use far less floor space than traditional datacentres so that that overall there is little difference in the energy efficiency of the two approaches.

The second new IBM service centres on Thermal Analysis designed to help IT chiefs optimise datacentre cooling. Scott said that the software IBM uses not only maps datacentre thermals, but also allows consultants to model how infrastructure changes would impact heat distribution.

"The tool will show which areas are hot and which cold," he said. "It often uncovers that simply moving some assets will optimse the environment and allow you to turn the cooling down – saving money."

"Everytime a change is made you are altering thermal dynamics, so it is a really useful service for customers that make frequent datacentre changes," Scott added.

The third service focuses on individual rack design and offers an Integrated Rack Solution that moves power cables to ensure that the air flow around the rack is optimised.

We'll bring you the details of the final two energy efficiency services later this week.

Posted by James Murray on October 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Plans to build a wind turbine at the London 2012 Olympic site in east London were unveiled today as the organisers said they hoped the renewable energy scheme would provide a successful template for future urban turbines.

The proposed 120 metre tall turbine will be located at Eton Manor in the north of the Olympic Park and is expected to provide enough electricity to power 1,200 homes a year over its 20 year lifespan.

Construction is expected to start in early 2008, subject to planning permission, with the turbine expected to be operational by 2010. A spokeswoman for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) said that the body was confident approval would be granted. "We've had very positive feedback from all the effected boroughs," she said. "You can never be complacent about these things, but we feel we have a good case."

The site is also located away from residential properties and near the A12 and mainland railway lines so it is predicted the turbine will not increase background noise.

She added that the ODA was also confident that the turbines would generate the expected electricity, despite its location in an urban location unlikely to get as much wind as the rural sites typically used for wind farms. "The Ford plant in Dagenham is successfully using two turbines now and they are proving very effective," she said.

The turbine is just the first of a series of renewable energy initiatives for the Olympic site and the ODA is currently is currently inviting proposals for solar power, ground water cooling, small scale hydro/tidal power and biomass technologies that could generate long term power for east London.

ODA chief executive David Higgins said the turbine would serve as a "green beacon for the capital" and provide "a symbol of the sustainability principles behind the Games".

The ODA spokeswoman added that it was hoped that the turbine will be an "exemplar" project that other organisations could follow. "There are lots of elements [to our renewable energy investments] that we hope will become more widely used in large scale construction projects," she said.

While it is to be expected that the turbine may face some opposition from local residents, firms with large power hungry office or manufacturing complexes located near main roads would be advised to treat this high profile project as a potentially cost-effective renewable energy pilot that they could emulate.

Posted by James Murray on October 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

To Kew Gardens, where chip giant VIA is hosting a press conference on its new clean computing initiative.

A storm is raging outside, and the atmosphere is equally tempestuous inside where the assorted hacks are taking exception to VIA's claims that its new C7-D processor is "carbon free".

VIA has branded its new processor as "carbon free" because it has agreed to offset the carbon dioxide produced from powering the chip for the first three years of its life through investments in a range of energy efficiency, alternative power and reforestation schemes.

Craig Simmons of environmental consultancy Best Foot Forward is there to explain how the carbon emitted from powering the chips and the carbon removed from the atmosphere through the offset schemes has been worked out using globally recognised standards.

But the hacks are unconvinced by the term carbon free. "Is it not misleading," asks one, "to call it carbon free when the carbon emitted during the production process is not being offset? Won't customers be upset when they find out it is not carbon free after all?"

Keith Kowal of VIA counters that it is early days and that it is doing its best to encourage suppliers to behave responsibly, but that auditing the whole production chain is simply too onerous and unrealistic.

Still the hack seems unconvinced, countering that "lying" about the products' carbon neutrality is simply storing up bad publicity for the future when customers realise that the chips do indeed have a sizable carbon footprint.

All this may seem like a small row about nomenclature, but it conceals an important debate about what constitutes carbon neutrality - and it is a debate IT purchasers and CSR officers need to be aware of as more and more organisations go "carbon neutral".

VIA is right. It is commercially unrealistic for a business to audit and offset all the carbon produced by its supply partners. It can easily offset the carbon it generates directly, but when it comes to its suppliers the best it can hope for is to exert some purchasing power and point them in the right direction.

However, this means that firms need to be very careful how they brand their carbon neutral schemes. Coke couldn’t claim a drink is sugar free and then say "oops, sorry one of our ingredient suppliers put sugar in further back in the production chain".  Carbon neutrality should not be any different and any company that claims they are completely "carbon free" without having an overview of the emissions status of their key suppliers and partners could be sitting on a PR time bomb.

Posted by James Murray on October 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It might sound like an oxymoron but there were interesting developments over at the UN last week as its Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, the UN Global Compact, announced a major new alliance with business governance best practice body the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

The exact nature of the alliance remains hazy but under the agreement the UN is throwing its weight behind GRI's new G3 sustainability reporting guidelines, which were launched this August. The guidelines are effectively a how to guide for drawing up sustainability reports, providing CSR officers with a framework on what to include and how to structure a report.

Georg Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, said that the alliance made sense. “Companies participating in both initiatives have long stressed the understanding that the GRI is a practical expression of the Global Compact”, he said. “While organisationally the Compact and GRI will remain separate and distinct, we believe that this alliance will increase the value proposition for companies around the world”.

Petra van Hoeken, Global Head of Sustainable Development at ABN AMRO welcomed the move claiming that the alliance would help combat the "bewildering array of codes, standards, and initiatives have arisen resulting in a state of fragmentation with respect to corporate citizenship [sustainability] strategy and execution".

As a first step the UN will try and encourage the 3,000 companies and stakeholders included in its Global Compact to adopt the G3 guidelines.

A new guide has been launched, catchily titled “Making the Connection: Using GRI’s G3 Reporting Guidelines for the UN Global Compact’s Communication on Progress”, and including guidelines on how Global Compact participants can use the G3 Guidelines to fulfill their commitment to the Compact by reporting on their progress implementing its 10 principles on responsible governance.

This joins another free web based tool from the UN called OneReport Communication on Progress Publisher, which has been developed to help firms prepare and publish progress reports on integrating the UN's ten principles into day-to-day business operations and practices.

The alliance is another coup for GRI, which is seeing its G3 guidelines emerge as the global standard for firms looking to develop sustainability, environmental or CSR reports.

Recently, GreenBiz.com reported a group of major US institutional investors have also endorsed the G3 standards, calling on S&P 500 companies to adopt the latest set of guidelines - which elevate climate change to a key disclosure topic that firms should include in public reports.

With both heavyweight investors and global legislators endorsing the G3 standards in quick succession any CSR officer or environmentally conscious execs unfamiliar with the framework would be advised to take a look at it before their shareholders start insisting they adopt it.

Posted by James Murray on October 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

With IT managed services provider Rackspace the latest firm to unveil a carbon neutral service it is worth assessing what factors are motivating firms to make the considerable investment required to reduce their energy footprint and offset remaining emissions.

Speaking to Rackspace's Fabio Torlini it quickly became apparent that the main reason for the scheme was employee engagement – or, to put it more prosaically, staff morale.

Sure, the scheme had the makings of a marketing coup and was likely to play well with increasingly environmentally conscious customers, but the initial reason for agreeing to the initiative was to appeal to internal staff and make them feel that they are employed by a company that is a Good Place To Work.

Such benefits may be tricky to quantify but Torlini is adamant that there is a return on investment. "As a service company what makes you different [to your rivals] is how you treat your staff – the people who deliver customer service on a daily and hourly basis," he argued.

It is a point echoed by Mike Ayres, head of business development at Sky subsidiary Easynet, who I interviewed recently about his company's attempts to go carbon neutral (the full article will appear in IT Week soon). He said that the project had given an invaluable boost to staff morale: "Many people feel they have to compromise their principles to work for a large company but we are adhering to principles many people would agree with."

It is an interesting point and surely a valid one. It can not be a coincidence that the most high profile adopters of greener business models – Sky, HSBC, Tesco, Virgin and now Rackspace – are essentially service organisations where a happy and talented workforce can have a massive impact on competitiveness.

Expect services firms to continue to lead the way in environmental initiatives until the harder financial benefits of green business models become more apparent.

Posted by James Murray on October 11, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Firms buying carbon credits to offset greenhouse gasses are being urged to thoroughly audit the initiatives they invest in after experts warned some carbon offsetting schemes may be guilty of fraudulent practices.

According to several climate change experts - interviewed in an article on carbon credits for last Saturday's Guardian - there are growing concerns about the environmental impact of carbon offsetting programmes and the credibility of some carbon offset firms.

Carbon offsetting schemes are an increasingly popular means of firms neutralising the carbon they produce by investing in projects that cut carbon elsewhere. The projects tend to involve either the planting of trees that will then convert CO2 back into Oxygen or investment in renewable energy or energy efficiency schemes that ensure that fossil fuels that would otherwise have been used to generate power are no longer burnt.

High profile firms such as Sky and HSBC have invested heavily in these initiatives as they attempt to go carbon neutral and it is estimated that the carbon offset business will be worth £60m globally this year with sales expected to top £300m within three years.

But concerns about this business model appear to be growing as fast as the market itself.

These concerns are explained in depth in the Guardian article, but they centre on two areas, firstly the scientific benefits of offsetting and secondly the sharp practices undertaken by some of the carbon offset firms.

The scientific concern is that planting more trees is a high risk way of reducing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. The calculations about how much carbon will be saved through tree planting programmes are based on the trees lasting 100 years, which as anyone who has seen a forest fire knows is a precarious assumption.

As Kevin Anderson, a scientist with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, told the Guardian: "Even if the trees do survive, if we have climate change and a 2C or 3C temperature rise, then how do we know those trees are not going to die early and break down into methane and actually make the situation worse."

Most business executives interested in carbon offset schemes will happily leave this debate to scientists to resolve, but the concern they cannot ignore is that they may be being taken for a ride.

Suspect operations are not named in the article, but several experts claim there are instances where the same carbon credit - representing a tonne of saved carbon - has been sold several times over. There are also concerns that calculations used to work out if a tonne of carbon has genuinely been saved are unreliable, with some critics suggesting credits are being sold on the basis of projects that may have gone ahead anyway.

Francis Sullivan, a carbon offset expert who recently worked with HSBC on its carbon neutral programme, is quoted as saying that he is sure some people are buying offsets that are not credible. While Mark Kenber of lobbyists the Climate Group, argued the current situation was "a cowboy market".

Even Mike Mason, the founder of Climate Care, one of the largest carbon offset firms in the UK, admitted in the article that while his company follows stringent internal standards the lack of an international register of carbon credits meant he could not guarantee "someone is not defrauding us".

Legislators are moving to tackle the problem and NGO The Climate Group is currently working on an international set of voluntary standards.

But in the meantime firms investing in carbon offsets should be concerned. One of the driving factors behind any decision to go carbon neutral is the good public and staff relations it generates, but the discovery that the investment may not be doing much good would instantly torpedo this key benefit. There is no doubt investigative journalists are even now snooping around the carbon offset investments of some high profile UK firms in the hope of a front page splash uncovering malpractice.

So what can firms investing or planning to invest in carbon offsets do?

The first step is to not panic. Carbon offsetting has its critics and there is no doubt some of the criticism is justified, but there is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and halt investments. Offsetting should of course be undertaken alongside a comprehensive programme to cut carbon emissions, but, where this is not practical, well run offsetting projects are the next best thing a company can do to help limit its environmental footprint.

However, executives also need to realise that investing in such a youthful unregulated market means there is a real risk they could be being fleeced and they need to mitigate that risk. That means following basic business best practices and regularly and thoroughly auditing offset programmes.

Simply seeking reassurances from the carbon offset firms is not sufficient - a fraudster is not about to own up just because you've asked a few astute questions. Instead firms should recruit independent experts to assess the entire project at frequent intervals and ensure they are getting what they pay for. No company would invest in a major IT outsourcing project, for example, without regularly checking the quality of the service it is getting and there is not reason carbon offset investments should be any different.

Speaking to GBN, Jim Peacock of The CarbonNeutral Company said firms should carry out due diligence into the carbon offsetting organisations they work with. He explained that firms should look closely at the assumptions used to calculate emissions; how they verify the projects they are investing in do offset carbon and whether they have a paper trail proving this; and the individual projects that are being invested in as different projects often adhere to different criteria.

He added that The CarbonNeutral Group encourages its customers to carry out thorough due diligence and that it uses independent scientific advisors from The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management to calculate emissions; works with The Climate Group to verify the credibility of its projects; and employs KPMG to undertake a yearly audit on its entire operations.

Undertaking such thorough due diligence will add to the cost of going carbon neutral, but if the decision has been made to take this step then it is essential that it is done properly or all the PR benefits associated with carbon neutral announcements are at risk of vanishing into thin air.

Posted by James Murray on October 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Anyone not already feeling terrified enough today at the news that North Korea has the bomb, should go and pick up a copy of The Independent, which has splashed on the front cover with the news that we are all heading for environmental Armageddon.

The story cites a report from a British think tank called the New Economics Foundation that claims today represents the day of the year when we start living beyond the Earth's environmental means. That is to say October 9th is the day when we move from environmental credit into debt and start overdrawing on the planet's natural resources.

Apparently this conclusion is based on figures from US academic group Global Footprints, which analysed 6,000 pieces of data to come to the conclusion that we are over using the Earth's resources by 23 percent each year.

The Independent offers no advice on what to do to tackle this problem, although the implication seems to be we should roll up in a ball in a darkened room, or preferably cave, until January 1st.

Stories and research like this may well be accurate and may even be necessary. But it is my feeling that we are reaching a point where more people should ask if it is helpful.

We've posted before on the Insititue for Public Policy Research's report on "climate porn" and the sense of despair it can create, and The Independent's latest story appears a prime example of this type of one sided reporting.

This is not to say that papers shouldn't report on the risks posed by climate change, just that they may prove more effective at helping to tackle the problem if they occasionally handed the front page over to a successful green initiative having a positive impact.

Several commentators have recently drawn the analogy between the fight to tackle climate change and warfare. Al Gore does this explicitly in his documentary An Inconvenient Truth quoting Churchill's pre-World War Two claim that "The time for procrastination and delays and excuses is over; we are into a period of consequences", and in so doing drawing a direct line between the threat to civilisation posed by Nazism and climate change.

It is an interesting analogy, and one that (if we accept) could have important consequences for the way the media reports climate change.

Throughout the Second World War, and several of the wars since, the media has generally adopted the position it thought would do the country the most good - not downplaying the scale of the threat, but at the same time trying to focus on positive stories that boost morale and stir people to action.

Times have of course changed, but if the fight against climate change is a Just War as many experts now believe, is there a need for more of the positive wartime reporting (propoganda for the cynics amongst you) that stops people slipping into despair and apathy?

It is unlikely this will ever happen given that papers are commercial organisations and bad news always sells better than good. But those corporate executives that are adopting green business models have a responsibility to do their utmost to get their message into the public arena and help instill people with the belief that there are positive steps that can still be taken to try and win the war on climate change.

Posted by James Murray on October 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Following on from our post this week about National Meeting Week and its attempts to promote green meetings while failing to address the fact that most business meetings are inherently environmentally damaging, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) has been in touch to say it is preparing for a genuinely green meeting at its global conference in Barcelona later this month.

For those of you who haven't heard of it ACTE is the trade body for those who's job it is to organise corporate trips. As such its members are on the front line of many firms' attempts to become more environmentally sustainable and as a result ACTE is moving to provide information to their members on the practical steps they can take to limit the environmental impact of the trips they organise.

The upcoming conference will include sessions on the European Union's sustainable mobility initiatives, DEFRA's green procurement programme and best practice for finding and using green travel providers.

Susan Gurley, executive director of ACTE, reckons that the adoption of green requests for proposals (RFPs) by some corporate travel executives is already having a positive impact on the entire travel industry. "[Travel providers] are realising that if the consumer can choose between two hotels, two rental cars or two airlines, at a similar price they are increasingly likely to choose the green one," she said.

A recent ACTE survey bore this out, finding that a third of company travel managers would consider terminating contracts with suppliers that were shown to have a poor environmental record.

ACTE is also aware that, in Gurley's words, "if we are going to talk the talk, we have to walk the walk".

So a number of steps have been taken to make the Barcelona conference as green as possible. First up, British Airways has agreed to sponsor the event and offset the carbon emissions produced by attendees' travel to the conference through renewable energy projects in the developing world.

Meanwhile, ACTE itself has checked out Barcelona's hotels and opted for three locations - Hotel AC Barcelona, Barcelona Princess Hotel, Hilton Diagonal Mar Barcelona – that have taken active steps to reduce their environmental footprint through established recycling and renewable energy programmes.

Megan Costello, deputy executive director of ACTE, explained that the Barcelona Conference Centre has also been selected based on its proximity to a solar panel farm that provides much of its power; its use of recycled materials during its construction; and deployment of grey water systems that reduce wasted water.

All these steps may well have added to the workload of those organising the conference, but Gurley is adamant ACTE's commitment to green travel is a wise, and ultimately cost effective move – particularly if it helps head off environmental red tape. "Trends have a way of becoming realities and these realities have a way of becoming legislated," she argued. "It is much more cost effective if you move to adhere to best practices before the legislation comes in."

"In five to ten years there will be legislation unless this industry acts to develop its own reasonable standards governing the environmental impact of corporate travel," she added. Green travel is also a genuine publicity boon for those companies that treat it as a priority and a way of keeping increasingly environmentally conscious employees happy, she said.

However, critics will argue that while any move towards more sustainable hotels and the like is welcome the whole corporate travel industry (and its reliance on flying) will remain massively polluting unless online communication starts to replace face-to-face meetings.

Perhaps surprisingly Gurley endorsed video conferencing as a useful business tool, but she also claimed that it is more commercially beneficial for firms to encourage corporate travel execs to adopt greener practices rather than try and get rid of them by replacing travel with video conferences.

"We will always need to meet face to face with customers and colleagues," she argued. "It is unrealistic to expect people not to want to meet. Although that does not mean not using video conferencing, as it is not an either/or equation."

Faced with this equation it seems that the key to green meetings will lie in the ability to decide when travel is entirely necessary and when meetings can work just as well online. It is a skillset that every cost- and environmentally-conscious executive has a responsibility to master.

Posted by James Murray on October 6, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over 30 councils are already fitting microchips to wheelie bins to enable "pay as you throw" schemes that will charge people based on how much waste they produce.

The proposed schemes will only affect household waste, but a spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said that the technology could also become more widely adopted by commercial waste contractors serving business premises.

The news – revealed in this week's Real Story programme on BBC One – comes as the Local Government Association is readying a paper to be published later this autumn calling for councils to be given the power to introduce "pay as you throw" schemes that adhere to the polluter pays principle.

Under the proposed schemes rubbish would be weighed to within 500 grams by collection trucks and the chips would be used to identify who the bin belongs to. It is hoped that charges based on how much rubbish you produce will encourage people to recycle more and limit the amount of waste they produce.

The Local Government Association is confident the schemes will win approval, with chairman Paul Bettison reported to be confident that such waste weighing programmes will be widespread within the next two years.

The Daily Mail – which splashed the story on its front page today – also reported that the Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw is sympathetic towards the proposals, despite fears that such  schemes encourage fly-tipping and raise the prospect of people throwing rubbish in their neighbours' bins.

The plans will have no immediate impact on commercial premises as firms have to sign up with their own waste disposal specialists some of which already charge based on the weight of rubbish produced. But a DEFRA spokesperson said there was nothing to stop waste contractors deploying similar technology and making the pay as you throw charging principle more widespread.

In practice, it seems highly likely that if councils trial this scheme successfully and people get used to the idea of the polluter pays principle at home then commercial waste firms will move to a similar model - charging right down the last 500 grams of rubbish coming out of any business premises.

As a result astute CSR and facilities officers should be aware of this risk and putting in place plans now to limit the waste being produced by their sites before they start paying through the nose for every bit of cardboard that is not recycled.

Posted by James Murray on October 5, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Did you turn off your PC last night? Because if you didn’t you are certainly not alone.

According to a new report this week from educational charity the National Energy Foundation (NEF) a whopping 18 percent of work PCs are never turned off at nights and weekends, with a further 13 percent left on some nights. Both rates tend to be higher still for larger companies.

The resulting wasted energy costs UK firms £115m a year and results in 700,000 tonnes of completely unnecessary CO2 emissions. That equates to 200,000 small family cars.

More pertinently for IT directors this means that a large office-based company with 20,000 staff has roughly 2,500 PCs left on unnecessarily each night, costing the firm £175,000 in electricity and increasing its carbon footprint by almost 1,000 tonnes per annum.

So what can be done? Well, according to the report, there are two options, one low tech and one high tech.

The first is to make staff fully aware of the financial and environmental repercussions of not shutting down PCs. This is of course sensible, but has a couple of major pitfalls. Firstly some IT departments actually request PCs are left on overnight so they can patch and update. And secondly power saving campaigns are notoriously ineffective – we all know our TVs should not sit on standby all night and yet very few of us get off the sofa and turn them off.

So that leaves the high tech option, namely automated software capable of turning PCs off and booting them up again from a central location.

Cynics will note that the NEF's study was commissioned by 1E, a Windows management software specialist and vendor of exactly this type of solution. However, that shouldn't make firms discount it completely, because both 1E's NightWatchman suite (for turning Windows PCs off) and its SMSWakeUp suite (for turning them back on again) are interesting solutions to the problem.

According to Sumir Karayi, chief executive of 1E, NightWatchman is installed as a service on the desktop and can be set to turn off the machine at a certain time. At this point the software checks if the PC is logged on or not and if it is not shuts it down immediately. If the person is logged on it sends a message to the user and if after a set period there is no response it automatically saves all files and turns the machine off.

This solves the problem of people being too forgetful or lazy to turn off their PC, but does little to tackle the problem of IT administrators insisting PCs are left on in order to carry out updates.

To get round this 1E's SMSWakeUp solution exploits the fact that even when fast asleep PCs can keep one eye open. Apparently modern PCs feature something called wake-on-LAN functionality that ensures that when the machine is off (assuming it is not unplugged) it still uses up a few watts per hour keeping the network interface ticking over looking for something called a "magic packet".

SMSWakeUp can send out secure versions of these magic packets so that as soon as the PC detects them it powers up the motherboard and turns on the machine. And, hey presto, the administrator can patch away from a remote location to their heart's content.

So, given the amount of energy firms are wasting should IT managers rush out and deploy these types of solutions?

Well it is certainly an option that large firms wasting thousands of pounds a year through always on PCs should be aware of and it is worth noting that HSBC has recently confirmed it is rolling out NightWatchman in its offices as part of its plan to go carbon neutral.

However, while the environmental gains of these types of solutions are indisputable IT chiefs that have to justify such an investment from a purely cost perspective will need to carry out extremely thorough ROI calculations.

Karayi says 1E's pricing model aims to deliver ROI after roughly three months. He told me that means that given you expect to save around £50 a year by turning off a PC when not in use the NightWatchman software is priced at roughly £9 per seat.

But if you are rolling out the software for every PC in your company that means you are also putting it on the four fifths of PCs that the NEF report suggests are turned off most nights. According to my back of an envelope calculations that means you could be paying £50 for a £50 saving in electricity costs.

Although, like I say, you have to be careful with your ROI calculations. As the report suggests larger firms have a higher instance of always on PCs and there are also those 13 percent of PCs that are left on for a  few nights of the week. That means that for a company with a 40 percent rate of PCs being left on 1E suddenly becomes a hugely cost effective proposition - and that's before you consider the hidden costs of PCs that are never logged off, such as the fact they often sit for months without receiving updates that would make them more secure.

Either way PC management tools are an interesting solution to the growing problem of always on PCs and it is one IT chiefs at large firms should be considering.

Posted by James Murray on October 5, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Apparently we are slap bang in the middle of National Meetings Week, a week long PR jaunt organised by the events industry to promote the "£10 billion-a-year contribution that meetings make to the economy".

In keeping with the current business climate this year's National Meetings Week is committed to tackling the environmental impact of meetings and has launched a new initiative called the Green Agenda. Under the initiative, the events industry is urging companies to place the question "how are we going to make our meetings more sustainable?" on the agenda of all future meetings.

The organisers of National Meeting Week have promised a Green Report on the back of the responses it gets to this question and to kick start things has provided a list of its ten top tips for green meeting on its website.

Its advice may fall on the "well, duh" side of common sense, including tips such as:

1. Save paper. Using new media and electronic technology can cut down your paper use.  If your meeting is a large event, create a website for it offering electronic registration and confirmation; and advertise using the web and/or email. If the meeting is internal, try using a laptop or projector to conduct the meeting instead of printing out lots of copies of agendas.

And

2. Reuse. If you do feel it necessary to print off agendas try printing double sided sheets to cut down on waste. At the end of the meeting collect the agendas that people don’t need or aren’t used and use them for scrap paper or for the fax machine, which only needs one clear side. Use recycled paper wherever possible. 

But overall it is a useful checklist for anyone organising a meeting and while none of the environmental gains made from following this advice will deliver massive environmental or cost savings for any individual department they will soon add up for large companies.

However, National Meeting Week's green agenda does seem to be purposefully avoiding the rather large elephant in the living room (or should that be conference hall) – namely are meetings necessary at all?

The problem is that the carbon emissions associated with getting attendees to a meeting or conference means they are - within the confines of current transport technologies - inherently damaging to the environment. All the re-use of paper in the world will not offset the millions of tonnes of CO2 that are emitted each day transporting executives to international conferences and meetings.

Of course this does not mean that all meetings should be axed. I, like many of you, have attended many interesting conferences that have helped fill a gap in my knowledge, given me a new insight into an issue, and allowed me build important relationships with influential contacts. In short, they've helped me do my job better.

But I've also travelled thousands of miles to many events where I've been left wondering if being "bored to death" is just a turn of phrase or if I am facing some sort of medical risk. Many face-to-face meetings are conducted in all sorts of businesses where the five minutes worth of relevant information could have been just as effectively communicated using the phone, email or new online conferencing technologies.

With this in mind the first tip on National Meeting Week's list really should be "Ask if this meeting is necessary, and if it is, can it be carried out online?"

According to Tony Gasson of online conferencing platform specialist Interwise (who has an admittedly vested interest) up to 75 percent of business meetings tend to be work meetings that could be carried out online rather than relationship building meetings that require you to see the whites of the attendees' eyes.

"For relationship building meetings like job interviews or closing deals, you will always need to meet face to face," he admits. "But for meetings that are just aiming to get work done that is often not the case and online conferences can work more effectively."

Such an approach will not only reduce firms' carbon footprint by thousands of tones a year as all those trips that are serving little or no purpose are eradicated, but it can also lead to massive costs savings. I recently wrote an article on video conferencing detailing how a firm called Lex Vehicle Leasing saved itself the best part of £200,000 in travel costs and improved productivity through web conferencing technology.

Scaled up for large multinationals these savings quickly grow into millions, and there is at least one global firm that estimates it will save $100m a year through its policyt of putting just one fifth of meetings online.

The organisers of National Meeting Week deserve to be applauded for trying to make conferences more sustainable and where meetings are unavoidable firms should follow their guidelines and endeavor to limit the environmental impact.

But with the organisers openly admitting that the events industry has a truly massive environmental impact the biggest step firms can take to make face-to-face meetings greener is to, where possible, not have them at all.

Posted by James Murray on October 4, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

IT analyst Gartner yesterday leant its voice to the growing number of industry experts arguing that IT directors must embrace more environmentally friendly business practices, warning that CIOs need to "wake up to IT's energy crisis".

According to Gartner, environmental concerns are now coupling with soaring energy prices to give businesses a "double incentive to cut carbon emissions". Although, if firms are being honest the environmental concerns are giving them the desire to act, while rising energy prices are actually making them do so.

The situation is compounded by the current vogue for high density rack servers that Gartner estimates require 10 to 15 percent more electricity than traditional server environments, and that's before you account for the increased air conditioning costs required to cool over heating racks. It is easy to forget amidst the flurry of recent stories about <