Here's a poser for you: Who does more to accelerate global warming, a corporate executive flying business class from London to New York for a meeting or a tourist on the same flight stuck back in row 45?

In real terms they are, of course, contributing equally to climate change. Put the flight details into a carbon calculator and you find that each passenger is responsible for 0.77 tonnes of CO2 emissions regardless of whether they are supping champagne at the front or crammed in next to the toilets at the back.

However, according to Professor Peter James of the UK Centre for Environmental and Economic Development an economic analysis of the two journeys reveals a completely different picture.

Speaking yesterday at a roundtable event on climate change hosted by video conferencing specialist Tandberg, James argued that the disproportionate amount of revenue and profits that airlines generate from their relatively few business class seats means that it is these high-end passengers that are making the bigger contribution to climate change.

"Despite all the publicity around Ryanair and easyJet, business travellers are still the main drivers of the airline industry with 35 to 40 percent of revenue for the mainstream carriers coming from business class," he explained. "As a result what will change the economics of each flight is if business travel is cut. That would hit the airlines hardest and force them to put leisure prices up and ultimately even cut flights."

In short, if business class travellers opt to fly less, by using rail where possible, cutting down on unnecessary meetings and conferences, and pushing more face-to-face meetings online, they will generate dual environmental benefits: cutting their own carbon emissions and forcing up ticket prices across the board as they eat into the profitability of airlines that rely on their high-margin seats.

Just as the business class traveller is disproportionately important to the airlines they are also disproportionately powerful and as a result a genuine revolution in corporate travel policies has more chance of reducing the number of flights than if environmentally responsible tourists start taking holidays in the UK.

"In terms of CO2 it is the same [for the business traveller and the holidaymaker]," summarised James. "But if you look at the economics of what will force flights to be grounded it is the business traveller [choosing not to fly] who will have the bigger impact."

Posted by James Murray on May 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Smaller firms may not have the large budgets needed to deploy the latest green technologies, but, argues Amy Sims, there is still plenty they can do to limit their environmental impact. 

Small businesses might be just that, but their carbon footprint and energy bills are a big problem. SMEs in the UK have an annual energy bill of about £3.5 billion and can waste as much as 30% of their energy unnecessarily, which amounts to losses of £1.1 billion per year or £7,000 per business according to the Carbon Trust.

Faced with this environmental footprint SMEs are increasingly starting to consider renewable energy, which is energy derived from essentially inexhaustible sources, such as the wind, sun, water or replaceable sources such as crops. Easily accessible renewable energy technologies potentially suitable for SMEs include solar water heating, solar photovoltaics, ground source heat pumps, small scale wind turbines, small scale hydro systems and biomass heating systems.

The gadgets are tempting. And the green PR can be priceless. But the choices are confusing and can small businesses really benefit from this type of technology or would such an investment be as wise as throwing money into the wind?

SMEs are crying out for independent advice, which a Global Action Plan partnership is providing in Devon. 'Renewable Energy for Devon' (RE4D) offers advice and support from initial enquiry to installation in the Devon area, and they advise that SMEs take a number of steps before taking the plunge with renewable energy technologies.

First up it is critical to make the business as energy efficient as possible by taking small steps and educating staff. Businesses, no matter their size, should make small practical changes before considering renewable technology. Whether owned or rented a business space can have its footprint lightened through a series of small steps, such as properly insulating the roof and walls; putting low energy light bulbs in every light fixture; wrapping a thick jacket around the boiler and pipes; and turning off appliances over night.

There is a long list of these simple steps which a business can take to drastically slash their energy use and bills even if they have ten employees and work in a rented property. Above all else make sure staff are educated and encouraged on energy efficient behaviour such as switching off computer monitors when away from desks and only boiling as much water as needed when going to the kitchen for a cuppa.

Once the office is as efficient as possible the next step is to look at the energy supplier the company is using.

SmartWorks is a programme run by Global Action Plan programme that advises SMEs in London on how to go green. The SmartWorks advisors recommend businesses switch to a renewable energy provider as it is a quick, effective, and in most cases, zero-additional cost way of powering your facility with renewable energy. 

It's easy to switch and there is no Climate Change Levy for green energy tariffs. Businesses can also visit an independent energy watch site for information on available tariffs.

Finally, if you are still set on having your own renewable energy generation onsite it is critical to talk to an expert before making any decisions.

Everyone loves gadgets, and few know this better than hardware chain B&Q which sold loads of wind turbines to people who are now finding out that their home won’t be illuminated by anything other than their red face anytime soon because their house is completely ill-suited for such a device.

When it comes to onsite renewables it is time for some tough love. Not all businesses will be suited for renewable energy technology. Renewable energy is incredibly site specific. If your business uses a lot of hot water, a solar water heater could be ideal. If you are on a hill a wind turbine may be an ideal solution. If you are constructing a new build it may be the prime time to install solar panels or bio-thermal heating. But this is not the time to go it alone or get caught up in trends and hype, advice on renewable energy technology is essential to make the most of your properties green potential and help a small business stay financially sound.

Your investment could also be greatly helped if you identify the right grants available for renewable energy. Several initiatives such as the Low Carbon Buildings programme and the Carbon Trust are able to provide independent information on what incentives your business may be eligible for.

Done properly renewable energy technologies can last 20 years or more with minimum maintenance and pay for themselves well within their lifetimes. But expert advice is the first step in finding out what technology would work at your businesses site, and realistically what will be the pay back on your investment over what amount of time.

Amy Sims is Communications Manager at Global Action Plan.

Created in 1993, Global Action Plan is a practical environmental charity that has worked with thousands of people and organisations to help them make positive changes to reduce their environmental impact at home and at work

Posted by James Murray on May 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the arms race to deliver the greenest datacentre intensifying by the week it is sometimes easy to forget that while the leading hardware vendors are spending billions on developing new energy efficient processors or high tech environmental monitoring systems some of the greenest datacentres currently in operation rely on several surprisingly low tech innovations.

This was hammered home to me last week at a demo of IBM's new energy efficient datacentre facility at its London Headquarters, where many of the key energy saving techniques appeared to be situated on the "why on Earth didn't I think of that" side of simple.

Of course, that is not to say that IBM didn't also have plenty of high tech developments to show off, such as its new "cold battery" that promises to slash the power used in cooling technologies, its enhanced software solutions for managing datacentres' power footprints, and improved water cooling technologies.

It is just that alongside these new systems several of the other innovations demonstrated were surprising in both their simplicity and effectiveness. It is easy to imagine countless datacentre managers having to break off from a tour of the green datacentre situated in the bowels of IBM's South Bank HQ to physically kick themselves over their failure to implement configurations that once witnessed appear blindingly obvious.

One such example is IBM's approach to under-floor cabling. According to IBM's execs, cabling is often the last thing on a datacentre manager's mind and as a result the cabling in many server farms is so untidy it makes a teenager's bedroom look like a spotless operating theatre.

Before concerns about power consumption made their way to centre stage this untidiness was neither here nor there. But the under floor spaces that typically house a datacentre's network and power cables is also used to distribute cool air around the servers and, according to IBM, blocking up these channels with unbundled cables forces limits the air flow and forces the air conditioning units to work even harder, driving up both energy use and electricity bills.

Chris Scott, site and facilities service product line leader at IBM, said that the company had addressed this problem through its Integrated Rack Solution (IRS), which integrates the cabling into the server racks, neatly bundling cables together to ensure they pose minimal disruption to the all important air flow. By bundling the power and network cables separately the racks reliability is also increased, he added, while the under floor space is left free "for what it was originally designed for – moving air to cool the servers".

Scott said that IBM's integrated racks had been optimised to enhance reliability, reduce maintenance work, and ensure air flow is maximised, but any datacentre chief could feasibly enjoy some of these energy efficiency savings by simply bundling their cables together.

Similarly straight forward is IBM's answer to the age old datacentre problem of having to cool an entire room just to keep a few servers cool.

Datacentre managers have long known that keeping the front of the server racks cool is critical to their reliability and availability and as a result they have typically alternated cold corridors - where cold air is pumped into a corridor with sets server racks facing inwards - with hot corridors - where the hot air is exhausted from the back of the racks and extracted from the datacentre.

However, whilst this enhances cooling efficiency it is a less than perfect set up because, as every school boy or girl knows, hot air rises and as a result the warm air from the "exhaust" corridor typically "leaks" back over the top of the racks into the cold corridor. As a result the servers housed at the top of the racks are considerably less reliable than those at the bottom and the air conditioning units once again have to work harder to keep the temperature down.

IBM's response to the problem? Stick a glass roof and door on the cold corridor.

Consequently, the hot air is kept away from the front of the servers, as illustrated, and the air conditioning units not only have to cool a far smaller area but are able to do so without warm air seeping into cold corridor. It's hardly high tech, but it works.

IBM reckons that combining these two relatively simple approaches can slash the energy used to cool a datacentre by up to 50 percent - which represents a considerable environmental and cost saving given that cooling systems account for over a third of the energy used in a typical datacentre.   

Of course, IBM is not alone in advocating this more holistic approach to enhancing datacentre energy efficiency, but its demo datacentre certainly serves to illustrate that alongside all the billions of dollars being invested in enhancing energy efficiency there is still room for simple design innovation.

What's more, datacentre managers should take heart from the fact that while they may ultimately need to undertake expensive upgrades to bring down their electricity bills there are still simple commonsense steps they can take to enhance energy efficiency.

Posted by James Murray on May 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

The sustainability bug has bitten entrepreneurs and business leaders of all kinds. It's not enough to just slap a green label on your product or service: so, asks Anna Clark, how does the aspiring eco-preneur apply sustainability to his or her practices?

Aspiring eco-preneurs seeking sustainability careers have a veritable blank slate before them, a reality that can inspire more confusion than confidence in even the most seasoned professional. The prospect of entering a burgeoning field with the potential to save the world is certainly attractive, but the path to profitable green business can be elusive. Questions I frequently hear include, "I want a green career, but which one?" Or more urgently, "How do I figure out how to make money?"

The folks asking these questions are not college students steeped in idealism and inexperience. They are successful, accomplished professionals that, you might say, got bitten by the green bug. This bite can inject such unbridled enthusiasm into the bloodstream that it befuddles the brain. How does one gain enough clarity amidst the confusion to find a niche? How and to what exactly does the aspiring eco-preneur apply sustainability?

Our first notion may be the obvious: make or market a green product. Yet, designing a product, financing its development, and bringing it to market is no mean feat. Ecomagination makes sense for GE -- they already had the infrastructure to make appliances; it was just a matter of creating more energy efficient ones. When Honda and Toyota saw the potential to make green by going green, they applied sustainability to the manufacture of cars. The point is they applied sustainability to what they already knew.

If you already run a company, particularly a products-oriented enterprise, road-maps exist to guide you in going green. Methodologies such as The Natural Step provide a framework to integrate sustainability into every aspect of your business. Restaurateurs and retailers can promote green by simply inserting organic ingredients and green products into their existing operations. However, if you are professional in IT, engineering, or design -- or even in public relations, advertising, or marketing -- you need to be more innovative.

Sustainability is not merely in the output. For every finished green product, there are hundreds of processes behind the production, packaging, distribution, and marketing of that product. The demand for sustainable services is rapidly increasing in the B2B market. A company that engages in sustainability reporting using a framework such as the Global Reporting Initiative will be careful to scrutinize its suppliers upstream and downstream. Thousands of companies worldwide, including hundreds in the U.S. alone, seek sustainable suppliers and services professionals. This is the space that screams for green innovations.

IT and consulting services professionals can tap into tremendous opportunities by addressing the challenges that sustainability presents to various industries. Documentation and transparency are key aspects of sustainability, yet many companies have no systems in place to absorb these activities. Developing a concept for a data management system focused on a sustainable supply chain may not be as sexy as designing the latest eco-sports car, but it is no less relevant in the scheme of green. In fact, discourse over environmental IT solutions has reached a critical mass, warranting its own news site, produced by GreenBiz, GreenerComputing.com.

The greatest potential in sustainability lies in what we don't yet know. Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb in 1879, which was an improvement on an already 50-year old idea. It took another half a century for the first fluorescent lamp to be introduced in 1936. Imagine, only in the last decade has fluorescent technology been adapted into a green lighting alternative, such as the compact-fluorescent bulb (CFL), that people will actually buy.

Yet, the modern CFL, which requires two-thirds less energy and lasts ten times longer than the incandescent bulb, provides enormous potential for widespread energy efficiency. That is just one example of one product's slog toward sustainability. The opportunities for such improvements in other products and processes are infinite. Are any light bulbs going off for you yet?

Shallow sustainability focuses merely on the production and sale of green products. Sophisticated sustainability strategies rely on systems thinking, where every aspect of a process has the ability to affect every other aspect. Within this context, everyone can find a part to play in green business.

If you are in the throes of planning a green venture, temporarily suspend your worries over how to make the most money. As long as you continue focusing on how to make green from green, your mind will drift to the obvious and pass up the potential in less tangible, but no less compelling, applications for sustainability. Steve Jobs said it best during his commencement speech at Stanford, "You've got to find what you love." This becomes easier when you actually know what you like. You may love the idea of green business, but if you don't like sales, then becoming a green retailer may not bring you happiness or success.

Anyone with a successful career has at some point taken an inventory of their skills and interests and funneled them into a position that pays. You may have accumulated decades of expertise in your chosen field before you decided to go green. Along the way you've grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle that a well-paying job affords you.

Do you have to throw all that to the wind to experiment? Folks have done just that before, say, during the Gold Rush and the High-Tech Boom. My best advice? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, turn what you are merely good at into a career you love by finding a way integrate sustainability into your area of expertise.

Research. Brainstorm. Develop your ideas. Once you have something that resembles a workable concept, conduct a feasibility study. Let your future clients be your guide. Before you know it, they will become co-creators in the process. The result could be a pioneering breakthrough or a proprietary tool that you can market to an entire industry.

Consider partnering with the firms that are building to the highest green standards or manufacturing the soundest green products. Investigate what tools they need to do every aspect of their jobs in a more sustainable fashion. Then provide them with the means to accomplish this.

Speaking of Edison, his quotes alone can ignite the imagination. "I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work." "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." "If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves." Or my personal favorite, "Hell, there are no rules here -- we're trying to accomplish something."

Sustainability offers opportunities for professionals from every discipline. Nobody has the market cornered on anything. If you could be sure the best applications for sustainability hadn't yet been discovered, would that knowledge grant you the freedom to at least try? If you stay persistent in your passion, you'll find your niche and maybe even the next great idea. Now get to the drawing board. What in the world are you waiting for?

Anna Clark is president of EarthPeople, a consulting firm that helps companies of all sizes save money and bolster their brand through the leading-edge principle of sustainability.

This article first appeared at Greenbiz.com.

Posted by James Murray on May 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of months ago Microsoft received some pretty favourable publicity after it emerged the company had axed a supplier because of its weak policy on employee diversity.

The company said that it had no problems with the firm's general performance, but that its attitude towards employee diversity was not up to its standards and as a result it had severed their contract. 

Speaking at the time Microsoft UK's HR Director, Dave Gartenberg, said that "in the UK, Microsoft is committed to ensuring we have a diverse and inclusive workforce, and we want to work with companies that share these principles. Consequently, we are beginning to look at how we can take a leadership position in driving positive change, while respecting local legislation."

The move won deserved praise as a prime example of how supply chain audits and policies governing suppliers behaviour can provide a mechanism that ensures that market forces help proliferate progressive business values.

The incident also offered an example of how the recent batch of corporate policies governing suppliers' environmental sustainability could be enforced to ensure green business practices multiply across firms supply chains.

With companies as diverse as Tesco and Marks & Spencer to HP and Sun Microsystems committing to talking to their thousands of suppliers about the sustainability of their practices, Microsoft's willingness to axe a partner who did not meet its standards, albeit in a different area of corporate governance, highlights the lengths firms must occasionally go to in order to ensure best practices are adopted.

However, with supply chain audits for environmental, diversity, and employee welfare purposes set to become an even bigger fixture on the business landscape there is also an interesting question as to whether Microsoft went far enough in axing its recalcitrant supplier.

Sure, Microsoft has punished the firm for its apparently Victorian attitudes to workforce diversity by cancelling its contract, but why is it now protecting the company's reputation by refusing to name it?

A spokesperson for the company claimed that "we want to encourage our suppliers to provide a positive place of employment that is free of discrimination and barriers, not name and shame those who don't".

This is fair enough, but given the supplier in question had presumably already been encouraged to change its ways and had failed to do so I'm not sure why it can't now be named.

Suppliers aware of their customers' supply chain audits already know they have a commercial motivation to exceed expected environmental and workforce standards or risk losing the deal, but just imagine how urgently they would strive to meet those standards if they knew there was a risk they would be named and shamed as a polluter or a poor employer.

The aim of a supply chain policy is to use market forces to drive up standards, ensuring that the most environmentally-friendly firms' win the juiciest contracts, thus encouraging their rivals to emulate them. But this whole process could be rapidly accelerated if the most irresponsible suppliers were branded as such and effectively forced out of business as their increasingly green and socially responsible customers refuse to do business with them.

If you really want to create an environmental arms race across your suppliers, how's about an experiment in true corporate transparency that sees firms publish a league table of their suppliers' environmental performance and then axe the bottom ranking company each year? It would open up a legal minefield, but it would sure as hell drive up standards.

Of course it is legal problems that underpin the case against naming and shaming polluting suppliers. Any company naming one of its suppliers as a poor environmental performer would run the risk of a massive legal case hinging on the validity of the green metrics used to judge the supplier's performance and the interpretation of the contract.

However, no company ever axes a contract unless it is certain it can win any subsequent legal challenge and if a firm is certain its supplier is not meeting environmental standards that are required in the initial contract then why not name them? They would be pretty stupid to sue and bring yet more bad publicity raining down upon them. 

That said it will still take extremely brave companies to breach the cosy Cosa Nostra that surrounds many commercial deals, face up to any legal challenges, and run the humiliating risk of its customers doing the same to them at a later date by naming and shaming them if their green standards ever slipped.

But it would also undoubtedly signal how serious a company is about driving adoption of green business models and as multinational firms become increasingly committed to branding themselves as the greenest around there are signs that some could soon become brave enough to take the plunge and throw their most polluting suppliers to the media wolves.

Once several firms take this position the pressure will be on their rivals to emulate their stance. If enough companies then adopt the name and shame policy the stimulation of competitive forces amongst their supply chains would drive up green standards across the board.

It might be something of a pipe dream to think that a large number of companies will take such an aggressive stance towards the environmental record of their suppliers, particularly when price still remains the determining factor for most firms looking for a supplier.

But if we are to have confidence in the plethora of green supply chain policies being released by major companies we have to see evidence they are backed up by real action, and that means naming those firms that they axe.

What's more doing so might just prove the simplest means imaginable of exploiting competitive forces to kick off a genuine green business arms race.

Posted by James Murray on May 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been a busy week at BusinessGreen HQ - we've been going through an office move since you ask - which is why I forgot to mention earlier in the week that Wednesday afternoon saw the second of our live web seminars on how to run a greener IT department.

Though fear not if you missed it, because through the magic of our shiny new Web 2.0 on demand interface you can register to watch the whole show at any time here.

I was in the hot seat this time giving my best Hugh Edwards impression and hosting a panel of experts looking at some of the practical tips and advice firms should embrace if they want to limit the environmental impact of both their IT hardware and the wider business.

John Madden of analyst firm Ovum kicked off proceedings with at look at why energy efficiency has become so important to IT departments, an overview of what some of the leading hardware vendors are doing to improve the environmental footprint of their kit, and an assessment of some of the best practices IT chiefs should be embracing, including gaining control of the electricity bill, procuring more efficient kit and deploying the latest management and virtualisation software to drive up utility rates.

He was followed by Martin Niemer, senior product marketing manager at virtualisation software specialist VMware, who looked in more detail at how virtualised environments can reduce datacentre power consumption by up to 80 percent.

Ian Osborne of IT trade group Intellect completed the panel with a look at how IT can have a positive environmental impact beyond the datacentre, through video conferencing, hosted software and thin clients, and turn off campaigns.

An interactive question and answer session followed with the audience offering posers on everything from how green initiatives work at smaller firms to whether you need to upgrade your servers to support virtualisation software.

So if you want to find out more about the green IT department, keep an eye out for the next seminar on June 20th and, in the meantime, you can catch up on both the first and second show whenever you fancy.

Posted by James Murray on May 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are few things the media like more than an almighty big row.

Hence yesterday's reporting of the government's new 343 page energy whitepaper and 207 page nuclear strategy consultation document managed to neatly reduce two documents addressing almost all of the energy security and carbon emission concerns facing the UK into little more than the latest installment in the unedifying spat between the pro and anti-nuclear lobbies.

The government did its utmost to kick off the row, placing the nuclear issue centre stage and treating the ensuing criticism as some sort of challenge to its political virility with the prime minister being wheeled out to claim it was the right decision for a low carbon future.

Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth from environmentalists and opposition parties, who argued, not for the first time, that the government's consultation exercise was a "farce", that it had already decided it was going to commission more plants, that investment in nuclear would take money away from renewable energy, and that Blair was committing the UK to a costly and dangerous source of energy that still faced major hazardous waste problems and provided a prime target for terrorists.

Given this backdrop of political mudslinging it is easy to see why the nuclear issue dominated the headlines. It is an issue that remains as divisive as ever, elicits a reaction from almost every sector of society, and raises the terrible spectre of nuclear apocalypse, or worse, falling house prices for those living next door to the new plants – in short the story ticked all the boxes the modern news editor is looking for.

However, understandable as the coverage was the focus on the nuclear row meant other, less contentious areas of the whitepaper have gone widely unreported. Put aside the government's nuclear ambitions and you find that the report also includes some of the most significant and environmentally friendly changes to the UK's energy policy in modern history.

First up the report confirms the governments' long mooted plans to impose a mandatory cap and trade carbon scheme on up to 5,000 organisations, including banks, supermarkets, government departments, hotels and other bodies with electricity bills in excess of £500,000 a year.

Labeled the Carbon Reduction Commitment, the initiative will basically extend the EU emissions trading scheme and see firms buy in carbon credits via an auction, which they can then trade. The government said that the scheme would be "light touch" in terms of administration requirements with firms allowed to self certify their emissions and audits only being carried out on a "risk-based" principle. A further consultation will be published next month and the scheme could come into force as early as 2010.

In short, many large businesses can expect the cost of energy to increase significantly if they exceed their allocated carbon credits. But the rewards for improving energy efficiency will also increase in tandem as those firms that don't use all their credits find a new source of revenue selling them onto their less efficient rivals.

Secondly, the whitepaper has fully embraced the old adage that you can't manage what you don't measure and introduced a requirement for all new electricity meters to come with a real-time display from next year that shows how much electricity is being used and how much it costs. Free displays will be made available to households until 2010 and the government has also committed to promoting adoption of more detailed smart meters - which communicate information between the power supplier and the building - in both the domestic and business sector, with a target of every household having one within ten years and all but the very smallest businesses having one installed within five years.

Electricity bills will also have to include graphical information showing how the customer is performing against the previous year.

The whitepaper argues that giving people more information about how much their power they are using and what it is costing them will revolutionise behaviours at work and home, making people far more aware of energy use and encouraging them to be less profligate.

Smart meters could also ultimately underpin a smart energy grid whereby suppliers can increase prices at times of peak demand to discourage use and even instruct devices such as washing machines to automatically turn themselves off if they are running at peak times.

Thirdly, the whitepaper is accompanied by a "Distributed Generation" report demanding a simplification of the energy market and clearer tariffs from the major energy suppliers detailing what they will pay for excess power supplied by microgenerators. As such, investment in green energy technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines should become more attractive as it will become significantly easier to sell excess electricity, generated from a wind turbine when an office is closed over night for example, back to the grid.

Fourthly, the government report also turns the screws on the energy giants by doubling their current obligation to provide customers with energy efficiency measures through a new Carbon Emissions Reduction Target running from 2008 to 2011. As a result energy suppliers will be forced to invest more in subsidising adoption of energy efficiency measures, such as insulation, and the scope of the programme will also be expanded to include subsidies for micro-generation technologies.

Meanwhile, the whitepaper also launches a consultation on how the energy efficiency of electrical devices can be improved, which could ultimately lead to many energy profligate products being banned, and is accompanied by the publication of a biomass strategy that underlines the government's commitment to an expansion in the use of biofuels.

Overall it is a remarkably ambitious and far reaching set of proposals which, if executed properly, will lead to a massive shake up of the UK energy landscape, drive energy efficiency even further up the list of corporate and domestic priorities, and hopefully slash UK carbon emissions.

It is just a shame this progressive and indisputably green strategy was released alongside the far more contentious nuclear strategy. A move which inevitably forced talk of an energy efficiency revolution to the inside pages, while the headlines were dominated by yet more scare stories about nuclear Armageddon and government arrogance.

Posted by James Murray on May 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the second of our series on the countdown to the EU's new eWaste directive Dell's Jean Cox-Kearns warns that firms need to consider how IT waste will be handled when signing any new hardware contract

As a business buying new electronic equipment, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive will have a direct impact on your IT hardware purchasing decisions.

But there are two factors in particular that firms should bear in mind when purchasing Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE).

First up check that the company you are buying EEE from is a registered member of a Producer Compliance Scheme - their registration number should be on all their customer facing documentation. This means they will finance the costs associated with the safe disposal of WEEE.

Secondly, when purchasing new EEE, it is vital you agree from the outset who will take responsibility in disposing of products when they reach end of life.

Under the WEEE directive, business to business producers are allowed to transfer the costs of collection, treatment, recovery and recycling onto the end user. This cost has to be listed separately or included in the overall price. 

If the producer offers you a discount for accepting the liability of disposal of EEE (which they might), be cautious. While the discount might be substantial, consider carefully the implications of accepting liability for WEEE.  Compliance is not easy and producers are often better able to arrange proper treatment at lower costs due to operating on a larger scale.

For further information can be found here.

Jean Cox-Kearns is Dell's take-back and recycling manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Posted by James Murray on May 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

While growing numbers of companies are now investing in initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of their staff while they are at work, far fewer have deemed it their responsibility to try and reduce the emissions of their employees once they turn off their PCs and leave the office each night.

And yet with people spending an increasing amount of their time at work, their employers have perhaps the greatest ability to shape their opinions and encourage environmentally sustainable behaviour.

It is an opportunity not lost on global insurance giant Swiss Re, which last year launched an innovative new scheme called CO You2 Reduce and Gain, designed to offer financial support to those staff who commit to reducing their own personal carbon footprint.

"In 2003 we launched a major programme to reduce our company emissions and become carbon neutral by 2013," explains Britta Rendlen, sustainability advisor at Swiss Re and programme leader for the CO You2 initiative. "But our CEO, Jacques Aigrain, thought it was too internal focused and that we hadn't done enough to change employees' behaviour."

Thus the CO You2 programme was born and officially launched at the start of this year.

Under the scheme, staff who have been with the company for over two years are eligible for a subsidy of up to CNF5,000 (£2,060) if they make an investment in a CO2 reducing technology. The subsidy, which has to cover no more than half of the cost of the overall investment, is available until 2011.

Rendlen says that the investments eligible for the subsidy vary by geography to ensure staff can install the types of technology that best suit their locality. "For example, in Switzerland hybrid cars, annual public transport passes, ground source heat pumps and solar heat pumps all qualify for the subsidy," she say. "But we have asked the local environmental managers what investments would suit their location, so in the US, the UK or Asia the set of eligible investments are different."

She adds that in each geography the aim has been to deliver a range of investments to suit all staff. "If you are a home owner there are options, like solar panels or heat pumps," she explains. "But if you are renting there are also measures you can get subsidies for, like hybrid cars or public transport passes."

Since the launch of the scheme a series of energy fairs and lunches have promoted the perk and according to the company take up has been impressive with one percent of eligible staff, or 100 employees, having already received pay outs.

The company said interest in the scheme was continuing with staff typically using the subsidy to go towards new hybrid cars, home energy audits, heat pumps, double glazed windows and more energy efficient air conditioning systems or white goods.

Other companies are experimenting with similar schemes, with both Google and Bank of America offering rebates to staff who buy hybrid cars, but Swiss Re claims it is unaware of any initiative as far reaching as its programme.

And Rendlen is confident that besides providing a perk for employees the scheme can also form a key plank in Swiss Re's environmental strategy. "For the reinsurance industry climate change is a key issue," she argues. "It costs us a lot when a storm hits, so if increased storms are going to be a big part of climate change then it is going to have a major impact on our business. As a result we started to engage with the issue very early compared with many sectors, but you can't be telling everyone about the need to combat climate change if you yourself aren't trying to tackle it."

Posted by James Murray on May 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Computer chip giant Intel has today confirmed that all its future processors, beginning with its next generation Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Xeon processors later this year, are going to be entirely lead free.

Alastair Kemp, a spokesman for the company, said that Intel had faced a number of major "engineering challenges" in eradicating lead - which is used in the solder that connects processors to the motherboard - as lead-based solders have the correct properties required to ensure connections are maintained as the heated processors expand and contract.

However, now the company has found a working replacement in the form of a tin/silver/copper alloy and a new design for the micro-electronic "bumps" (pictured left) that attach chips to the packages that wrap around them and ultimately connect the processors to the motherboard.

"It was a question of finding a material that could expand and contract with the heat, while keeping contact [with the packages] and not wearing out over time," said Kemp.

The new technology will be launched later this year in Intel's 45 nanometer (nm) high-k metal gate (Hi-k) processors, which includes its new Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Xeon processors, before being rolled out across all its next generation chipsets from next year. 

Besides having clear environmental and health benefits the new lead free chips will also make it easier for Intel to comply with imminent legislation that could see lead banned from IT equipment completely

Under the current EU Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, which bans the use of six hazardous chemicals often found in IT equipment, there is an exemption that allows lead to continue to be used in small quantities because it was agreed there was no viable solder alternative.

Prior to RoHS being launched several IT firms argued that alternative solders, such as the mix of tin, silver and copper now being used by Intel, were not viable at the time as they have higher melting points that increase risks of damaging motherboards during the manufacturing process. Further concerns were also voiced that so called tin whiskers, whereby tin can grow over time, could compromise the reliability of the new alloy.

However, this RoHS exemption is due to be reviewed in 2010 and experts agree that with Intel and other manufacturers making progress in eradicating lead entirely there is every chance lead could be banned altogether from IT equipment within the next few years.

"This new development helps us exceed the requirements of RoHS," said Kemp. "We know those exemptions [covering lead] are due to expire at some point and this gets us compliant well ahead of that."

The move was welcomed by Zeina Alhajj of Greenpeace who said that it proves that the IT industry is capable of innovating in order to get rid of dangerous chemicals.

Posted by James Murray on May 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

IT manufacturer Toshiba has revealed it could introduce a new printer that uses plastic paper into the European market in the next few years as demand increases for more environmentally sustainable printing technologies.

The B-SX8R printer, which is aimed at business customers and could be used to support any process where documents do not need to be kept, was launched in Japan last year and promises to reduce firm's carbon emissions as well as their paper waste.

The company had held off introducing the product in Europe due to concerns that demand may be insufficient to justify redesigning the product to achieve compliance with the EU's Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive. But Toshiba spokesman Mike Keane said recently that the company was currently in discussions with large European customers about the product and was increasingly confident that it would undertake a redesign and launch the model in Europe.

He added that a final decision would be made in the summer but said that he thought a European launch would now happen. "I think the interest is there for these types of systems and if we get the right feedback from customers we'll definitely do it," he said. "The amount of interest in environmental issues means that companies that ignore systems like this will look worse."
 
The plastic paper – which Toshiba claims can be used up to 500 times - is made from polyethylene terephthalate or PET that is then layered with heat sensitive chemical pigments that can be turned black or white under certain conditions. Altering the temperatures and cooling times applied to the paper produces or erases text and graphics with the printer capable of producing up to 12 pages a minute.

Toshiba said that this approach allows firms to slash the amount of waste paper they generate, adding that the temperature based printing process means that the B-SX8R generates also accounts for just 1.5kg of CO2 emissions during the production process, compared to around 6.5kg from laser printers.

Cost savings could also result from the technology, according to Keane. "The paper costs about £5 a sheet, so we've calculated that if you are printing 200 sheets a day you wouldn't save money though there would be environmental savings," he said. "If you print 300 to 350 sheets a day you'd have both financial and environmental savings."

However, Keane warned that European companies interested in the technology would have to be careful to ensure the printer was used for the right purposes.

"In Japan, the B-SX8R is proving popular because people have no concerns with handling the paper and then returning it back into the system," he explained. "We need to ensure similar processes are in place at European customers so that the paper isn't thrown out."

Toshiba predicts closed loop processes where the document is returned after it has been used, such as manufacturing quality checks or delivery checklists, are the most likely applications for the printer.

Keane added that it would still be some time before reusable paper printers appear in European offices. "We have a similar system to the B-SX8R in Japan called eBlue where you heat up the paper and it is cleaned," he said. "It can be reused up to five times, but outside Japan we decided it wouldn't work as too many people just wouldn't return the paper to be reused."

However, he predicted that environmental concerns would eventually drive greater adoption of these new technologies, regardless of Europeans' traditionally profligacy. "Japanese businesses have always had well-defined flow systems for paperwork," he said. "But these processes are becoming more pronounced in Europe and I think the culture is now more susceptible to these technologies."

Posted by James Murray on May 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although the company has made noises suggesting it's seen the light on global warming, a new report from Greenpeace shows that they're still the major funder of climate change-denying groups. So, asks Marc Gunther, what's the real story?

Last winter, ExxonMobil told reporters that it was cutting back on its its funding to groups that challenge the science of global warmings. Jeffrey Ball of The Wall Street Journal and Steven Mufson of The Washington Post, among others, reported that Exxon had since 2005 stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Business Week said: "The oil giant has now closed its cash spigot to some groups challenging global warming." I wrote a column for CNN Money suggesting that ExxonMobil had acknowledged the reality of global warming and opened discussions with well-regarded environmental groups, including Resources For the Future.

Well, there's more to the story. Greenpeace, in a new report, has taken a look at the company's grants for 2006 and found that ExxonMobil continues to fund a number of groups that it calls "climate deniers." The Greenpeace analysis says:

We have found that, despite the rhetoric, ExxonMobil continues to fund the majority of the organizations which have been central to the global warming denial campaign the company has run for the past decade or more.

The issue's complicated, but my first read through the Greenpeace study -- posted on a website called Expose Exxon -- indicates that they have a point. Some of the groups that Greenpeace identifies as climate deniers, like the Cato Institute and the Congress of Racial Equality, have much broader agendas (although I was surprised to learn that, in fact, CORE has been aggressively critical of mainstream climate science) but others seem narrowly focused on confusing the debate over climate change.

One prominent example: The Heartland Institute, a free market think tank with longtime ties to the tobacco industry (a portion of its website defending smoking is called the smokers' lounge) that now devotes considerable effort to fighting the idea that there's a scientific consensus around global warming. It publishes a monthly newsletter called Environment and Climate News. Sample headlines: "Fears of Melting Polar Ice Are Discredited," "Record April Freeze Hits U.S." (!), "Scientists Urge Gore to Cool His Global Warming Rhetoric," "When Will We Tire of the Fear Mongers?" You get the idea. XOM gave $115,000 to the Heartland Institute in 2006.

Another group still on Exxon's support list is the George C. Marshall Institute. When you visit the climate change page of its website, you find such headlines as "Storm Guru: Oceans, Not CO2, Cause Global Warming," and "Earth's Climate is Seesawing, According to Climate Reseachers." The George C. Marshall Institute got $85,000 last year from ExxonMobil.

I've not had the time to check out all the groups that XOM has funded -- it's a long list -- but the company's support for these two organizations leads me to conclude that Greenpeace has a valid point when it says ExxonMobil is trying to "spread misinformation about the science and policies of global warming." It's akin to the tobacco company efforts in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s to confuse the public about whether cigarettes were addictive or harmful.

So what's the significance of the Greenpeace study?

First, let me be clear and say that ExxonMobil has the right to finance climate skeptics or climate deniers if it wants to. I don't believe in stifling debate on this issue, or any issue. When Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe wrote to XOM last year, asking the company to end its funding of the climate denial campaign, I thought they were overreaching.

Second, I have to say that I feel a little misled by Ken Cohen, Exxon's head of public affairs. He did not lie to me, to be sure, but he left me with the strong impression that ExxonMobil was moderating its position on climate change. Now I'm not at all sure about that. I wish the company had been more transparent. Certainly I wish I'd asked a few more followup questions.

Third, more important question than the question who Exxon funds -- because they fund dozens of groups, ranging from the Asia Society and the Brookings Institution to Seeds of Peace and Transparency International -- is the question of where they stand on carbon regulation. Two big oil companies, BP and ConocoPhillips, have now signed on with the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a corporate-environmental alliance calling for dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. (Other members include GE, Caterpillar and Duke Energy. This isn't a bunch of tree huggers.) Exxon has not.

If ExxonMobil believes that global warming is a serious problem, as Cohen told me early this year and as its op-ed-ads suggest, I'd like to know what the company proposes that we do about it. As we used to say: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Marc Gunther is a senior writer at Fortune, a columnist for CNNMoney and blogs at MarcGunther.com. This article first appeared at Greenbiz.com.

Posted by James Murray on May 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Government proposals to streamline planning legislation met with a mixed response today with some environmentalists arguing it will lead to an erosion of the green belt and an increase in polluting infrastructure projects, while others countered that the plans would make it easier for firms to justify investments in onsite renewable energy.

The radical government proposals aim to simplify approval processes for small scale home improvements, such as extensions, wind turbines or solar panels. A spokeswoman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said that it was consulting about extending the same rules to apply to corporate buildings, making it easier for firms to install green technologies.

"You don't have to apply for planning permission for satellite dishes in most circumstances and we think the same should apply for solar panels and wind turbines," she added. "This means you won't have to go through the long bureaucratic process for approval."

Phillip Wolf, chief executive of trade group the Renewable Energy Association, welcomed the news adding that should the proposals be extended to commercial properties they would make it far easier for firms to justify investments in onsite renewable energy.

"It is important that the planning process becomes faster and these proposals should help achieve that," he said. "The current system is definitely a problem for businesses [interested in adding renewable energy generation to their buildings]. They accept that a few applications will be declined, but with the process taking so long they still have to spend money through that process. Investors hate any situation where they approve the money and then have to leave it sitting there waiting for planning permission."

However, some environmentalists and local councils have criticised the new proposals claiming that plans for an independent commission to make final decisions on large scale projects will fast track many environmentally damaging projects, such as airports, power stations and roads, and limit local residents ability to object to developments that directly affect them.

"Government claims that today's White Paper will cut red tape and help them to tackle climate change are a misleading smokescreen," said Friends of the Earth's Planning Coordinator High Ellis. "The UK has one of the most de-regulated planning systems in Western Europe. And expanding roads and airports will increase carbon dioxide emissions."

The government countered that tackling climate change was one of the key pillars of the proposed planning framework and the changes would help encourage investments in green technologies and speed the transition to a low carbon economy by eradicating the currently "confusing and unpredictable" planning system.

Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling added that the new framework would also help secure clean energy supplies by freeing up the planning approval bottle neck that is currently hampering plans for new wind farms.

Posted by James Murray on May 21, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) has released a major new report detailing how its members can play a key role in developing more environmentally sustainable technologies and committing the international body to supporting the transition towards a low carbon economy.

As a statement of intent it is similar to that made by many other such groups in recent months, but what is significant about this report is that chemical and biochemical engineers not only have a central role to play in developing low carbon technologies, many of them also work for some of the world's most polluting companies.

"When you consider many of our members work for the oil majors this [report] is a commitment from individuals well placed within the energy sector [to make a difference]," observed Andrew Furlong, director of policy at IChemE. "This is a recognition that we cannot continue to operate in the way we do currently and have to do something about it."

Given the professions of some of its members the ICHemE also takes a number of controversial positions in the report: recommending a significant increase in the price of water, calling for a new legislative framework to promote the deployment of carbon capture technology, and raising concerns about the sustainability of the current bio-fuel boom.

"The planet faces a number of challenges and chemical engineering is a major solutions provider," said Furlong. "There are a lot of green chemical engineering technologies that can be deployed now, but it is the market and the legislative framework that is stopping adoption."

He cited the problem of water scarcity, such as that currently being experienced in Australia, as a prime example of such market and legislative failures. "There are interesting technologies available for tackling water scarcity, such as solar assisted desalination, but the economics of the water industry do not make development feasible," he said. "Unless there is universal metering and realistic charging for water people will continue to treat it as a free resource."

He added that the burgeoning biofuel industry was facing similar structural problems and was in danger of delivering disastrous humanitarian and environmental consequences as prices for crops rise leading to conflict between crops for food and crops for fuel.

Again Furlong argued that there was an urgent need for further investment in new technologies capable of delivering a second generation of more energy and water efficient biofuels. "IChemE recognises that first generation biofuels are not viable and we need to develop a second generation that are based on non-food crops and use the whole plant by gasifying it and creating synthetic biofuels," he said."This technology is out there and can deliver a five fold increase in energy yield per hectare."

Furlong is confident that IChemE's green commitments will be embraced by its members despite their often being employed by traditionally non-green businesses.

"We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of our being granted a Royal Charter, and in that charter it says that our duty is to serve the public interest," he said. "We are using this report as a reminder to our members that they have this duty whether they work for a small SMB or are on the board of BP."

Posted by James Murray on May 21, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

At least once a week a familiar scene plays itself out at BusinessGreen's Central London bunker. Having got into work someone will realise their mobile phone's battery is about to run out and will trail round the office asking if anyone has a charger. If they are lucky they may find a cable, but almost inevitably it will not be compatible and they will be left spending the rest of the day with a dead phone and a lurking feeling that they have become temporarily detached from the 21st century.

It is a scene recognisable to anyone who works in an office and one that Simon Daniel, chief executive of Moixa, reckons he could soon eradicate with a mobile phone battery that can be recharged through a USB port.

The technology has already been pioneered through the USB rechargable AA batteries which Moixa launched to much media fanfare last year and the development process required to apply the same principle to mobile phone batteries is at an advanced stage with Daniel already carrying a working prototype around with him. All he has to do when his phone dies is take the back off, fold out the USB connector and plug it into the nearest computer or laptop.

"It will be great for the business traveller allowing them to charge their phone almost where ever they are without needing to carry round the charger," he predicts.

The only downside is that incorporating the USB connector eats into the space usually occupied by the battery cutting its life by about 10 percent, but Daniel argues that with battery lives continuing to lengthen this is not a major problem.

For Daniel the bigger problem is not with the battery, but mobile phone manufacturers infuriating refusal to embrace more standardised components. "Distribution is difficult because the requirements for each phone are different," he admits. "But we are talking to many of the big mobile phone firms about the technology and we hope to have a model that can recharge from a USB port available early next year."

Like Moixa's AA batteries - which aim to replace some of the 15 billion batteries that are produced and disposed of each year - the new phone battery also has green credentials, Daniel argues, as it could ultimately replace the unwieldy, resource intensive and energy inefficient battery chargers that currently come with all mobile phones.

Meanwhile, Moixa is looking to promote adoption of its existing AA green batteries by offering firms the option of ordering batteries featuring their brand livery, which they could then give out at conferences and customer events as a more useful and sustainable alternative to dishing out countless free USB sticks to weary delegates.

Daniel is convinced, however, that Moixa's battery innovations are just the "ambassador" for a far more revolutionary green technology that could ultimately eradicate all the energy inefficient electronic device chargers which currently litter our homes and offices.

"Whether it's phones, or MP3 players, or laptops, or even printers, people are buying more low power devices and fewer large mechanical devices, like washing machines and fridges," observes Daniel. "As a result our power needs are shifting. This century is all about low power DC consumption. Most electrical devices we now buy have low power loads, but the problem is that it is very inefficient to make this new world work with the old world.

"You end up with a house full of adapters for turning the high voltage household current into low voltage DC suitable for these devices and most of these adapters are so inefficient they lose 20 to 60 percent of the energy going in. You can feel this happening when you put your hand on them and they are hot."

This is a not insignificant problem considering that there are an estimated 10 billion AC/DC adapters in use globally with the equivalent of three percent of the US' entire electricity supply thought to be wasted as a result of their inefficient transformers.

There are hopes that the combination of more energy efficient devices coupled with innovations in long distance DC cables and wider adoption of local energy grids powered by on site renewable power sources could result in a transition towards DC energy grids, thus eradicating the problem of inefficient transformers. But such an energy revolution remains decades away and in the meantime we are stuck with an extremely energy inefficient scenario whereby mains electricity is increasingly ill-suited to many of the devices we now use.

It is this considerable dilemma that Moixa is hoping to resolve with a new device, currently at the pilot stage, which aims to provide every home with one centralised, highly efficient AC/DC adapter. 

According to Daniel, this so called Energy Server would plug into a typical AC socket and convert the energy to DC using a transformer boasting efficiency far in excess of that found in typical charging devices. A hub, similar to a USB hub, would then allow different DC devices to be plugged into the server for charging.

While the primary purpose of this device would be to improve energy efficiency and remove the clutter of multiple mobile phone chargers and the like, Daniel is adamant that it will also pave the way for far more efficient use of energy generated from onsite renewable technologies such as solar panels.

"The energy server can connect to the mains, but it can also connect to a local renewable energy source, such as a solar panel, which generates DC power that can be used directly by the server so you avoid the inefficient conversion altogether," he explains. "You can then switch between getting the power from the mains or the solar panel automatically as required."

As adoption of the next generation of low voltage lighting becomes more widespread the server could also be connected to the building's lighting network, improving efficiency still further by replacing the transformers that currently need to be incorporated in low voltage bulbs.

Daniel reckons Moixa is on track to roll out a version of the server that is both easy to install and priced for the mass market early next year. "We estimate it could cut 5 to 10 percent off domestic energy consumption within five years," he adds.

In an ideal world, a rapid transition towards long distance DC cables or local intelligent energy grids would make this innovation little more than short term fix. But with no sign that such a massive investment programme is imminent Moixa's Energy Server promises to provide an elegant solution to the inefficiencies caused by the massive proliferation of low power gadgets and the inadequacy of existing charging technologies.

Posted by James Murray on May 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Working from home is definitely good for the environment, according to a new report from Oxford University released today to coincide with National Work From Home Day.

Many businesses have long advocated the green credentials of home working as it limits carbon emissions associated with the daily commute. However, some argued it was unclear if home working delivered a net reduction in emissions because the savings were countered by the increase in energy use associated with staff heating and lighting their homes all day.

The problem is then further exacerbated because many firms also continue to keep their subsequently under used office space operational.

However, a new study from Oxford University commissioned by remote access software specialist Giritech and the online conferencing arm of BT argues that home working can reduce carbon emissions overall as long as it is correctly managed.

Report author Professor David Banister said that research gathered from across the world proved that home working can reduce the UK's carbon footprint, but only if it is accompanied by changes in behaviour. "This would include providing secure and efficient technology to facilitate collaboration as well as properly managing heating at the employee's end and the reduction of office space and heating costs at the employer’s end," he said.

He added that in order to maximise environmental savings through home working firms should aim to have employees working from home more than one day a week, so that they can genuinely begin to reduce office space and associated carbon emissions.

Mike Hockey, business development director at IT services firm 2E2 which has worked with several local councils on rolling out their home working initiatives, agreed that firms had to take the plunge and actually set up shared hot desks and close down offices if they are to maximise the cost and environmental savings achieved through home working.

"When desks are only occupied on average 40 percent of the time it really does make sense [to try and cut down on real estate]," he said. "If you can close offices it can then help ensure that home working is taken up, which is usually welcomed by staff because most people like working from home."

However, the report also found that while home working "conclusively" reduces carbon emissions adoption is being hampered by a lack of support from businesses.

According to the study eight out of ten workers believe it is not possible for them to work from home, despite 65 percent being keen on the idea of tele-working. Employers also cited a lack of appropriate technology and a lack of senior management support as major obstacles to rolling out home working.

"There is a real desire by employees to work from home, [but] this interest is not being met by employers," complained Aamir Butt, UK CEO at Giritech.

Banister also argued that while the number of people working from home was increasing the government was not doing enough to stimulate adoption through either incentives or increased taxes on pollution.

"Working from home has not featured very highly in Government policy and there has not been any clear statement or encouragement from central or local Government on this," he said. "There is an opportunity for teleworking to sit at the heart of a coordinated policy that could involve sustainable transport."

The only government incentive that could have been interpreted as a move to encourage home working, the Home Computing Initiative which offered employees tax free PCs, was axed last year amid Treasury complaints that the system was being defrauded and despite commitments that a replacement would be investigated a new scheme is yet to appear.

Posted by James Murray on May 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

"You see this wall?" asks Phil Bernstein, award-winning architect and a vice president at design software giant Autodesk, knocking his fist against the wall of the bar at one of West London's swankier hotels. "Walls like this have been built in the basically same way for 500 years – it's about time there was a change."

For Bernstein construction is on the cusp of a green revolution with any number of accepted, but inefficient and environmentally unsustainable, best practices likely to change beyond recognition in the next decade - including how you go about building a humble wall.

"The problem with this wall is that somewhere on this island there is a pile of the leftover slag that was created by the person that honed all this rock to make this wall," he explains. "Now, the most effective and efficient way to build a building is not to build it by hand on site, but to prefabricate it someplace – either in a shed alongside the site in controlled conditions or elsewhere, where you can optimise behaviour and minimise waste."

The ability to prefabricate construction components and effectively create flat-pack buildings may be anathema to more traditional architects, but Bernstein insists that it will make it far easier for architects to design environmentally sustainable, low energy buildings and provide the best means of both limiting the currently gargantuan environmental impact of our buildings and speeding up construction processes.

"[When you can prefabricate a wall] its behaviour and its embedded carbon and use of materials and its geometric relation to the rest of the building will be very precisely understood," he predicts. "And then someone will just come in and snap it into place. It's going to be a different way of building."

For those in the UK whose only experiences of prefabricated buildings are the rather charmless identikit bungalows that were thrown up in the wake of the Second World War to house those who had lost their homes to bomb damage the idea of all new buildings being prefabricated is likely to fill them with horror. But according to Bernstein modern, environmentally sustainable prefabs would be anything but dull identikits. "There are too many variables [affecting each site]," he says. "A building has 10,000 variables and every designer will optimise those variables with a different set of solutions."

Bernstein cites work by Philadelphia-based architects James Timberlake and Stephen Kieran who argue in their recent book Refabricating Architecture that prefabrication could actually enhance the link between customers and architects by ushering in an era of "mass customisation" whereby those commissioning the building can use digital prototypes to more easily customise buildings to suit their needs. "It's like the idea of Levi Jeans scanning your body to get jeans that fit you, but with buildings," observes Bernstein.

However, Bernstien accepts that before such a drastic change in the way all buildings are designed and built can be achieved the construction sector still has a long way to go to improve the environmental sustainability of the processes it already has – a fact which provides a major opportunity for Bernstein's employers, design software specialist Autodesk.

According to Autodesk the key to developing environmentally sustainable buildings lies in the planning stage and, more specifically, state-of-the-art three dimensional design and modeling capabilities.

"The tools we're working on now essentially allow you to build digital prototypes of buildings that allow you to evaluate the prototype in terms of its behaviour," explains Bernstien. "Previously when a designer was working on a building and wanted to know how much energy it would use they would have to send their drawing off to a mechanical engineer who would punch a bunch of numbers into a computer, eventually calculate how much energy the building would use and then send back the results to the designer with a message that it would use too much energy. Now we provide a modeling environment that connects directly to an energy analysis platform so the designer can get realtime feedback on what the energy impact of design decisions are."

Giving designers this insight not only speeds up the design process but makes it far easier for them to optimise the environmental footprint of a building, allowing them to quickly assess how different features improve or damage a sites' energy efficiency. 

The same modeling tools can also help limit construction waste, according to Bernstein. "Because constrution materials come in set lengths when you choose a given design the amount of waste you produce from your steel frame or your wall boarding can actually be derived from the dimensional decisions you are making," he explains. "The waste that gets cut off the end of those pieces of wall board, for example, is just going to land fill – but if the designer has insight into those waste figures they can see that if they make a 10cm change in the design for example, they can save say 16 percent of steel waste or 14 percent of wall board waste."

Like many industries the next step for the construction sector is to go beyond measuring simple environmental metrics such as energy efficiency and waste and start understanding the embodied carbon emissions that result from every decision or purchase. Again, Bernstein is confident modeling software can deliver this information and confirms Autodesk is already investigating ways that incorporate information on materials' embodied carbon into its modeling software.

"At the moment if you use triple glazing instead of single glazing the modeler will say you are using less energy because you are using more insulation – but what it doesn't tell you is the amount of carbon it takes to generate, deliver and install three pieces of glass instead of one," he explains. "That type of data analysis is an order of magnitude more complicated than where we are at the moment… But we will get to a stage where as an architect I will be able to go to the windows' manufacturers website and download [into the modeling suite] a piece of intelligent data that will not just tell me the geometry of the window but also how much embedded carbon is in it."

Such modeling tools may be prove extremely challenging to develop, but they all but inevitable given the soaring demand for systems capable of delivering green buildings. As Bernstein admits construction is a notoriously conservative industry, but there is a sea change in attitudes towards the environment that defies anything in the sector's history. "Big changes are required given we've been making drawings of buildings for probably 3,000 years," muses Bernstein. "But we really are pushing against an open door. Three years ago the GreenBuild event in the US attracted 2,200 attendees, this year 25,000 people are expected and they had to book a bigger venue - green building is all anyone talks about now."

Posted by James Murray on May 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mobile phone giant Nokia last week became the first mobile manufacturer to launch a system designed to help its customers save energy, by alerting when their phone battery is full after charging.

The Nokia 1200, 1208 and 1650 will be the first models to feature text alerts that will automatically remind users to turn off their chargers when the phone's battery has been fully replenished.

The feature - which was first reported by BusinessGreen last year - will be rolled out across Nokia's product range in the future, the firm said. According to research from the Energy Saving Trust mobile phone chargers left on unnecessarily are costing UK consumers £47m a year and resulting in 250,000 tonnes of unnecessary carbon emissions.

Nokia appears to be trying to take a lead on energy saving initiatives after its newest chargers were given an Energy Star label by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and it announced aims to reduce charger electricity consumption by 50 percent by 2010.

"Ultimately we would like our users to be able to reduce their footprint by utilising the functionalities found on Nokia devices rather than using many separate devices such as cameras and MP3 players," added Nokia's director of environmental affairs, Markus Terho. "The new energy saving charger alert is part of this ongoing strategy."

Phil Muncaster

Posted by James Murray on May 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oil giant Shell yesterday became the latest multinational to be accused of "greenwashing" by environmental campaigners who claimed the company had released "misleading" adverts that overstate its green credentials.

Environmental lobby group Friends of the Earth last week filed official complaints in the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium against the adverts, which depict the outline of an oil refinery emitting flowers rather than smoke and claim that it uses its "waste CO2 to grow flowers and waste sulphur to make concrete".

Friends of the Earth said that the advert was misleading because it suggests that Shell uses all of its waste carbon dioxide (CO2) to help grow flowers when in reality it has just one facility where emissions are reclaimed in this manner.

The lobby group also claimed that the advert's tag line, "Don't throw anything away, there is no away", may be technically true, but "the implication that Shell carries out its operations in line with this [statement] is false and misleading".

"Shell is one of the world's dirtiest companies," said Hannah Griffiths, Friends of the Earth's Corporates Campaigner. "Shell should spend money cleaning up its mess, not on deceiving the public with expensive, dishonest adverts. We hope that the advertising standard authorities will take immediate action to withdraw the advert and order Shell to air a correction to the audiences reached with the misleading advert."

According to reports, environmentalists and shareholders raised the issue of the adverts again at the company's annual meeting yesterday and also attacked the firm over its record in Nigeria, where Shell has repeatedly appealed judgments on flaring – a process whereby gas produced when oil is extracted is not captured and reused and is instead flared, leading to emissions of sulphur which contributes to acid rain.

A spokeswoman for the company stood by the adverts, claiming they were "about raising awareness and showing one solution of many".

She added that the advertisements needed to be seen alongside Shell's broader messaging and its commitment to help "meet the world's energy needs in an environmentally and socially responsible manner".

The company also defended its record in Nigeria where it has been accused of violating a Nigerian court order by continuing to waste gas though flaring. Shell said that $3bn had been spent on tackling the problem of flaring, but problems such as lawlessness in the Niger delta meant it would be unable to complete the work before 2009.

The controversial annual meeting comes just days after Shell released its latest sustainability report detailing its new Code of Conduct for making projects more environmentally sustainable and an increase in its support for renewable energy technologies.

Posted by James Murray on May 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike Arenth, vice president of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at spend management software specialist Ariba, argues that basic procurement management principles can be applied to drive green sourcing strategies.

BusinessGreen: How important is the issue of sustainability to procurement professionals? Aren’t they solely focused on value for money?
Mike Arenth: There's no doubt green sourcing is a topic on almost every businesses' agenda. Ariba recently did some research into the attitudes of 300 CPO's [chief procurement officers] across Europe with the HEC [business school] in Paris and found that sustainable procurement is entrenched as one of their top three priorities. But at the same time we recently had a major conference of procurement professionals and over half of attendees said that while green sourcing was key to their corporate strategy they were not really aware of how to achieve it. The implementation is where people are struggling.

So how do you overcome those implementation problems? What best practices should businesses keen to achieve sustainable sourcing be following?
The first thing you need to get is visibility over who you are buying from and that is a huge issue before you even start to think of issues around sustainability. A lot of the time procurement managers only handle a proportion of total spend and areas like marketing spend and fleet spend are managed separately. Only a few CPO's have 100 percent visibility over procurement and it is very tough to get the internal processes in place to ensure full compliance with any sustainable sourcing strategy without full visibility.

But even if you do have visibility over what you are buying what is to stop different departments still buying environmentally harmful products?
Once you have awareness over what you are buying and from whom the next step is to then set up a supplier performance management system where sustainability if a key KPI [key performance indicator]. Without procurement involved setting those KPIs people will just continue to go to the companies they know and internal compliance [with the sustainable procurement policy] will be compromised.  With KPI's in place they know their procurement performance is being judged on these environmental criteria.

How will monitoring supplier performance improve environmental sustainability?
By requesting environmental information you are asking your suppliers to become more accountable and then you can put that information into a balance scorecard and measure their performance, creating an incentive for them to improve.

How do you ensure that they are not simply passing environmental problems back through the supply chain to their suppliers? A manufacturer for example could simply pay a sub contractor to make the most polluting components and then tell their customers in all honesty that they had a good environmental record?
The end customers' supplier performance management system has to go several stages back through the supply chain. You need an understanding of your suppliers' supply base and what they are doing to transform their supply base. If you look at Wal-Mart's sustainability strategy they are demanding CO2 reductions right back through their supply chain.

Is it fair to say only the largest companies can afford to set up such green sourcing strategies?
I don't think so. These types of procurement systems and processes can be developed at the largest organisations and at the smallest. It all comes down to procurement having a key role in the business and the ability to assess suppliers correctly. It needs to become an embedded part of how you do business.

How difficult will it prove for firms to adopt these green procurement strategies?
Nothing here is that revolutionary. These types of systems and processes are already applied to cover non-green issues when firms are dealing with their suppliers. You already do a supplier audit to check they are complying with other regulations governing workforce diversity, workplace conditions, etc, so you can bring that same model across to cover environmental standards. If you are a manufacturer buying materials from China, for example, you should already use a third party auditor to check on staff conditions and the like so it is not a huge leap to get an auditor to look at environmental factors.

Procurement has never been regarded as that core by most businesses – will that attitude hamper the adoption of green sourcing?
Procurement is already transforming from a back office function to more of a business partnership and the whole green sourcing agenda is a big factor that will really accelerate that transition. If you are to have an effective green procurement strategy then the procurement professionals really do need to be working in close partnership with all other departments.

About Mike Arenth

Mike Arenth is vice president and general manager for Ariba in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

He joined Ariba in 2002 and before moving to Europe was managing director fo the software vendor's strategy team in North America.

Before joining Ariba Arenth was a senior manager with Andersen Business Consulting. He holds a a B.A. in Economics from The Johns Hopkins University and an M.B.A. in Finance from The George Washington School of Business and Public Management.

Posted by James Murray on May 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

While growing numbers of IT chiefs are taking the issue of global warming increasingly seriously, the majority of firms do not have a clearly defined energy strategy according to a major new study from global communications firm Hill & Knowlton.

The survey of 420 IT purchasers from large enterprises in the US, UK, Canada and China, found that 82 percent are now monitoring the issue of climate change closely, but almost two thirds have no defined energy strategy to help limit their carbon emissions and enhance their energy efficiency.

The report came days after a similar survey of over 120 IT professionals from analyst firm Forrester Research found that 75 percent had not yet written environmental criteria into their companies' IT procurement criteria. 

Faced with this lack of leadership on environmental issues over three quarters of those surveyed by Hill & Knowlton believed there was the need for a board level Chief Energy Officer (CNO) with company-wide responsibility for managing, implementing and measuring the performance of environmental friendly and energy efficient technologies.

"We haven't seen a company appoint a CNO yet," admitted Joe Paluska, head of Hill & Knowlton's worldwide technology practice. "But currently there is a split between CSR [corporate and social responsibility], IT and facilities about who should be managing these initiatives and as a result all the responsibility is falling onto the desk of the CEO who has plenty of other things to worry about."

Paluska said that the lack of a board level exec with direct responsibility for energy was hampering firms' efforts to implement green technology initiatives. "We see firms where the CSR officer is in charge of the [green] projects, but the IT guys are responsible for IT and most of the energy efficiency measures, and yet the IT guys don't get to see the power bill because it goes to the facilities department," he observed.

He added that IT professionals with their understanding of technology and ability to manage both cost cutting and innovation-based projects could be well suited for the new CNO role. "The COO's focus is on efficiency and cost cutting, but green initiatives go beyond reducing costs and have a brand and innovation element," he observed. "In Silicon Valley we are already seeing this transition play out with a lot of IT execs turning to green technology start ups."

However, Gary Barnett of analysts Ovum argued that a separate CNO position would add an extra layer of corporate bureaucracy that would hamper IT chiefs' attempts to limit the environmental impact of their departments.

"There is no doubt environmental and energy issues are going to become more important for all executives," he said. "But the idea you need to create a whole new position to manage energy is ridiculous – it is reflective of faddism."

Posted by James Murray on May 15, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The world of green business seems to have come out of nowhere to dominate magazine and newspaper coverage. But, writes Joel Makower, far from a being an overhyped fad, here are ten reasons why this green shift will go the distance.

The media calls and e-mails have been arriving fast and furious -- a dozen or more each week, even now that Earth Day is over. CNN, the New York Times, Business Week, Advertising Age, "Good Morning America," the Sundance Channel, Reuters, the Discovery Channel, Marketplace radio, and a slew of local papers. And a surprising number seem to have some variation of the same two questions:

Is all of this focus on the greening of business merely a fad? When will the bubble burst?

Such questions are understandable, albeit misguided. The world of green business appears to have come out of nowhere to grace the cover of every major magazine, business and otherwise, not to mention scads of other stories on inside pages. Where stories about business and environmental issues used to appear sporadically in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other major publications, they are now daily fare, with sometimes as many as a half-dozen news stories, feature articles, and opinion pieces in a single daily edition.

For those of us who have been toiling in these fields for a long time, the greening of business is viewed as an "overnight success story" that was twenty years in the making.

Given our society's microscopic attention span, and the apparent need of the media to deflate trends they've helped pump up, coverage of green business would seem likely headed for a fall. And that might indeed happen, for any number of reasons. From the public's perspective, this would make it seem like the greening of business was yet another cynical fad that's now faded into the woodwork.

Such perceptions aside, the topic isn't going away any time soon. Here, in no particular order, are ten reasons why I think the greening of business will be an enduring issue for years to come, regardless of the media's attention span:

1. The problems aren't getting any better. This is fairly obvious, especially if you've seen The Movie. The environmental movement, it's been said, is rapidly morphing into the climate movement, and there's a parallel shift taking place on the business side. The motivations may be different -- for activists, climate has become a rally