Microsoft takes carbon reporting to the mainstream
Sometimes it is the smaller stories that can have the largest implications.
On the face of it this week's update to one of Microsoft's many business application packages, allowing firms to track their environmental performance looks like just another software release - of interest only to software developers and a few tech-savvy green executives.
But placed in the context of Microsoft's never ending quest to dominate the world of business software it marks a significant step along the path towards carbon becoming the next universal currency.
Other software developers have, of course, got their first.
IBM is pushing its various carbon emission reporting and management systems hard and only this week launched new functionality to help firms track energy use by non-IT systems such as lighting and air conditioning units, while reporting software specialist SAS has been heavily promoting its new tools for tracking environmental performance, and business apps giant Oracle is also rumoured to be preparing a new environmental management product. Meanwhile, smaller specialists, such as carbonetworks and CarbonView, have been offering various emissions management software packages for years.
But these various reporting and accounting suites are, almost without exception, aimed at those large Global 500 companies that have made the clearest commitments to tracking and reducing carbon emissions and as such require automated systems for keeping track of how much carbon their sprawling operations are emitting and where.
In contrast, Microsoft is going after the mainstream. In fact, if you look at its history, Microsoft is the mainstream.
Microsoft's Dynamics AX 2009 business application suite - to which it has just added a free Environmental Sustainability Dashboard capable of providing execs with access to data on their company's fuel consumption, energy use and carbon footprint, amongst other performance indicators - is aimed squarely at midmarket firms (US companies tend to define midmarket organisations as having revenue of less than $1bn a year, which means they are still pretty hefty by my reckoning, but are still not quite at that global level where green commitments have become an almost default corporate reality).
The new functionality provides ample evidence that Microsoft is convinced the need to track environmental performance will not be confined to the big beasts of the business world for long.
Moreover, the addition of environmental reporting to its Dynamics suite shows Microsoft wants to provide the standard tool mid-sized firms use to keep track of their green performance.
The company's Dynamics strategy - born way back in 2002 when Microsoft went on a spending spree and snapped up a number of business application software developers - has always been about replicating the dominance of the desktop the company has achieved through Windows and Office in the business application market.
Industry watchers may still be divided on the strategy's success, but one fact remains: when Microsoft sets out to dominate a market it usually gets there in the end.
As such we are faced with the tantalising prospect of environmental and carbon reporting software becoming a standard feature of not just the world's largest firms, but the vast global midmarket as well. And once all executives, regardless of their company's size, know how much carbon their organisation is emitting they are in the perfect position to start doing something about it.
Some thoughts on the snow
In case you haven't noticed the weather has been somewhat inclement this past week or so.
With more blizzards forecast overnight fears are mounting that we could see a repeat of last Monday when the southern half of the UK effectively ground to a halt, costing the economy anywhere between £1bn and £3.5bn depending on which guestimate you choose to believe.
Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the UK's battered transport infrastructure, the absence of government leadership, the shirking culture of staff hoping for a day off, and, thanks to the ever-lovable Richard Littlejohn, the suggestion that climate change can't really exist on the scientific grounds it's a bit nippy out.
Leaving for another time the impossibility of engaging with wilfully moronic rabble rousers such as Littlejohn who are incapable of telling the difference between climate trends and weather events and are happy to dismiss the increased incidence of deadly heat waves and summer floods as one offs, while citing the fact the "sea is freezing over in Wales" as evidence the "eco-loonies" are all wrong, there is a counter-intuitive case for arguing that the recent snow should be sparking a serious debate over how the UK plans to cope with a warmed world.
The most obvious fact highlighted by last week's snow is the UK's continued inability to respond effectively to weather-related disasters.
Government ministers were quick to trot out the entirely rational argument that there is no point investing in snow ploughs that would gather dust before being rolled out for one week every two decades.
But the fact remains that both culturally - witness the huge numbers of people in London who did not make it into work last Monday when even with the public transport system struggling all that stood between them many of them and the office was a bracing walk in the snow - and structurally the economy is too vulnerable to freak weather events.
There is now a compelling case for investment in more resilient infrastructure capable of coping with the increased incidence of freak weather events that climate scientists now predict. Even if we can't justify spending on snow ploughs, we surely can justify investment on improved response planning and resilient resources that can keep rail and road networks clear come flood, fire or snow. The government did last year pledge to invest around £800m in improved flood defences, but it is hard to disagree with the Association of British Insurers view that the sums involved still look pretty paltry compared to the scale of the problem.
But perhaps the bigger lesson to be gained from the last week is that our businesses are simply too reliant on the transport network. It is inevitable that the economy will take a hit when snow or floods close roads and rail lines, but should it really be to the tune of several billion pounds when we increasingly live in a knowledge economy where the majority of the population now have internet access.
Effective home working technologies have been at a reasonable state of maturity for at least five years now, but still too many businesses are set up in a manner whereby they can't operate unless staff are reporting, present and correct, to work each morning.
While their rivals were complaining about lost revenue as a result of last week's snow, truly flexible businesses where staff can access the systems they need over the internet were suffering minimal disruption.
What is more, a flexible home working business model is not only resilient to freak weather events, it is also low carbon.
With the government committed to cutting emissions from a transport sector that accounts for about a quarter of the UK's carbon footprint and analysts predicting long term fuel costs will only rise the enabling of home working helps address both legislative and cost risks as well as the risk of climate-related disruption.
And it is not just office-based businesses that can benefit from home working. As a recent report from the NHS on its low carbon future showed, huge numbers of support staff could cut their carbon emissions and improve their work-life balance if only they had access to the right online systems at home.
In many respects, investment in laptops, home offices, fast broadband connection and secure intranet connections are likely to prove more effective in the long term than spending on grit wagons and snow ploughs.
New study highlights home working carbon savings
Telecommuting working models are curbing US carbon emissions by almost 14 million tonnes a year, according to a major new report from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) that argues reductions in travel associated with home working more than offset increased residential emissions.
Some experts have questioned the environmental credentials of increased levels of home working arguing that any carbon savings associated with eradicating the daily commute may be countered by increased emissions from heating and lighting people's homes all day.
However, a new report last week from the CEA entitled The Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impact of Telecommuting and e-Commerce estimates that even with increased residential emissions accounted for the reduced "energy consumption associated with transportation to and from the office and, in some cases, a portion of the energy associated with commercial office space" led to an overall decrease in emissions as a result of home working.
The research, which was carried out by consultancy TIAX LLC, estimated that the 3.9 million US workers who work from home at least one day a week had reduced gasoline consumption by about 840 million gallons, equal to removing 2 million vehicles from the road every year. It also calculated that that one day of telecommuting saves the equivalent of up to 12 hours of an average household's electricity use.
Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the CEA, said that while electronics firms were working to enhance the energy efficiency of its products the research provided evidence that communication tools and high speed broadband will also play a critical role in the transitioning to a low carbon economy.
"With power companies looking to reduce electric demand, and our nation seeking to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, I believe there is terrific potential for the consumer electronics industry to drive emissions reductions and energy savings, if more workers telecommuted," he said. "We urge all businesses to fully consider the potential of consumer electronics to achieve these important environmental goals."
The report argued there was massive potential for an expaniosn of home working in the US, citing previous research that estimated 53 million workers could feasibly embrace telecommuting.
The research also argued that new eCommerce models enabled by consumer electronic devices such as PCs and wireless networks could also help limit carbon emissions. It calculated that if half of the 2.5 billion DVDs and VHS tapes rented in the US each year were hired using new video-on-demand technology it would save enough energy to power 200,000 households.
It's time for IT to get green
IT may not be in the sights of environmental protestors just yet, but with emissions rising IT departments can't expect to avoid their ire for much longer. Amy Sims argues that a new green IT leadership board could help IT chiefs lead their firms' green transformation.
The airline industry, car owners, and big business are all commonly blamed for causing climate change. But you don't see many scathing headlines about the IT sector killing off the polar bears, or protestors gathered outside a business demanding that they cool their data centres more efficiently.
IT-related emissions have for the most part evaded the spotlight, although they now account for a significant percentage of global carbon emissions with estimates generally ranging from two to three percent, hovering very closely to those of the climate change poster child, aviation.
At Global Action Plan we work with businesses every day to help them lighten their environmental impact and save money, and we’ve noticed an increasing need for guidance with IT systems and operations. Many IT departments never even see the company energy bill and are unaware of the level of emissions their data centres and office equipment are churning out.
To help support businesses in this area we are leading the UK’s first end user green IT board which will be supported by our newly appointed green IT manager.
Chaired by our director Trewin Restorick and sponsored by Logicalis, the Environmental IT Leadership Team aims to create an independent expert user group focused on exploring and publishing best practice sustainable IT strategies. While there have been other groups driven from the manufacturer side, this is the first from user perspective.
An interesting mix of organisations and businesses sit on the board, including Sony UK, the British Medical Association, E.ON UK, Lloyds TSB, CQS, the University of Cumbria and John Lewis Partnership. This variety illustrates just how pervasive and important IT is today in reducing carbon emissions.
The board will act to share knowledge within the group and wider business community and will look at policy issues, engage with government, and particularly examine ways to overcome some seemingly contradictory policy such as storing data for long periods of time whilst keeping energy use down.
Many companies are bombarded with information and confused about what is best solution for them. This board will help with independent analysis, breaking down techy and political jargon to give clear advice on best practice.
Acting almost like a select committee the board will have the opportunity to question political, industry, technology, and expert guests at its meetings.
One of the first aims for the group is to steer a research project that will be conducted by Global Action Plan. This report will be launched at an event at the House of Commons in the autumn with the backing of Peter Ainsworth MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
This research will contain two main parts: 1) Establishing the carbon footprint of IT in the UK from equipment and the energy consumed, including indirect footprint of using equipment such as the air conditioning needed to keep it cool. 2) A survey of how companies are approaching greening their IT and where they are at the moment in this process. For example, do they have a 'switch off' policy at night? Are they experiencing rapid growth in their data storage?
While there is much to be done to improve the efficiency of IT, it is important to stress how technology can greatly help businesses reduce their emissions. At GAP we've seen many businesses benefit from so-called 'intelligent building' features such as motion detection powered lighting, grey water collection systems, and smart thermostats that keep buildings at a comfortable but energy efficient temperature. Not to mention video and phone conferencing reducing the need for business travel.
But most important is the behaviour of the people in the businesses who are using all this technology. A business can have the most efficient technology around, but if the employees don't use it in a sustainable way its efficiency is greatly reduced. At GAP we know every employee can make a difference by taking simple actions such as switching off their monitors when away from their desks, turning off computers at the end of the day, and only printing documents when absolutely necessary.
Stay tuned for further developments on the IT leadership board and Global Action Plan's upcoming green IT research.
Amy Sims is Communications Manager at environmental charity Global Action Plan
View from the States: Law Firms and the Greening of the Brief
All those legal papers have a huge environmental impact, but according to Joel Makower that hasn't stopped law firms looking for ways to green their operations
I've long maintained that "legal brief" was an oxymoron, given the blizzard of paper most law firms consume. Despite the digitization of just about everything, the legal world still revolves pretty much around dead trees. Sure, those walls full of law books have given way to CD-ROMs, and e-mail is part of the picture, but legal pads are still very much in vogue, as are copiers, fax machines, and high-speed printers. All of these machines, it seems, crank 24/7.
Consider a study done a few years ago by my colleagues at GreenOrder. It set out to help a well-known technology company understand how it could help customers better manage paper -- everything from document creation to production, distribution, archiving, and retrieval. GreenOrder evaluated the potential for such services at a large New York law firm, which in the previous year had consumed 12,500 cases of paper -- about 312.5 tons -- for its copying and printing needs. More pointedly, each of the firm's 300 lawyers was responsible for, on average, 800 sheets of paper each workday during the year, nearly all of it from 100% virgin pulp.
"Legal brief," indeed.
It's not just paper, of course. Law firms, like most professional operations, have buildings, furnishings, employee commuting, business travel, vehicles, foodservice, and other operations and activities that comprise their environmental impact. As environmental awareness has grown overall, law firms increasingly are positioning themselves as environmental leaders as a means of attracting both clients and job applicants.
Given all this, I was pleased, though not surprised, to see the recent launch of the ABA-EPA Law Office Climate Challenge, a seemingly well-thought-out effort to encourage law firms to more efficiently use paper, energy, and other resources.
This is not the first time a group of lawyers has tried to do justice to their environmental impacts. More than a decade ago, for example, a group of firms in the Seattle area founded the Law Firm Waste Reduction Network, which published a booklet and computer disk package called "The Case for Waste Prevention: A How-to Guidebook By and For Legal Professionals" to help educate their legal brethren about source reduction, recycling, and recycled-content purchasing. (Neither the group nor the guidebook seems to be around anymore -- at least not online.) Since then, several individual firms have staked their green claims. In my home town of Oakland, Calif., for example, Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean in 2003 became the first law firm in the U.S. to gain third-party certification as a "green business." With good reason: The nearly 100-year-old firm has a growing number of clients in the sustainability arena, from solar power providers to organic food companies.
But the collaboration between the American Bar Association and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency takes all of this to the next level. Law firms participating in the Climate Challenge are being asked to sign on to any of three EPA programs: WasteWise, which helps companies better manage and reduce solid waste; Green Power Partnership, which promotes company purchases of renewable energy; and Energy Star, which helps companies invest in more energy-efficient products and technologies. According to the Climate Challenge website:
Law offices may meet the Climate Challenge by participating in one or more of three EPA partnership (i.e., voluntary) programs, or by simply undertaking certain office management "best practices:"
1) Adopt "best practices" for office paper management by reducing paper usage, increasing recycled content, or increasing recycling. Alternatively, implement these actions by participating in EPA's WasteWise program, which encourages organizations to save energy by reducing waste.
2) Participate in EPA's Green Power Partnership (Green Power) program by purchasing energy from renewable sources to cover at least a portion of electricity usage.
3) Participate in EPA's ENERGY STAR program, which encourages law offices to reduce energy use by at least 10% through, among other things, the purchase of ENERGY STAR-designated equipment and implementation of better energy management practices. This program has features that recognize the issues associated with tenant law offices.
One of the innovative and refreshing things about this program is that it rolls up several different activities -- saving energy, buying renewable power, and reducing waste -- instead of showcasing them individually, as is typically the case with green business initiatives. Even better, it connects all three to climate change. Typically, solid waste isn't associated with climate, though the greenhouse gas emissions associated with waste disposal can be significant. Moreover, all three EPA programs stress the bottom-line improvements that can come from engaging in these activities (though the case for buying green power remains elusive at times).
The bottom-line impacts are real. Consider the GreenOrder law firm study. It found that by establishing a companywide policy mandating double-sided printing of all documents unless single-sided printing is requested, the New York firm in question could reduce paper use by 15% to 20%, saving up to 570 trees per year. Increasing the percentage of copies made double-sided to just 10% in "convenience copiers" (smaller, networked printers) and 15% in its copy center (larger, high-volume machines) would save the firm $23,754 in paper costs alone. Because double-sided copies are lighter to mail, the potential savings in postage could amount to $8,741 per year. The greenhouse gas reductions from double-sided copying would be nearly 130,000 pounds a year, assuming only virgin paper was used.
Beyond the value to law firms, the ABA-EPA initiative also appears to represent a watershed for the EPA itself: a well-designed effort to bundle several of its voluntary programs. EPA has about 200 of these programs -- no one in the agency seems to know the exact number -- and nearly all of them have different, often overlapping, marketing and outreach efforts, with very little coordination among them. (You can view 59 of the more prominent programs here.) I've had conversations with my friends at EPA for nearly a decade about the need to coordinate and co-market these programs. A few years ago, the agency finally hired someone to research best practices among the programs with the aim of harmonizing their operations, but that initiative seems to be slow-going. EPA's partnership with ABA to court law firms may be the agency's breakthrough moment in this regard.
All told, the ABA-EPA Law Office Climate Challenge represents a pretty good template for other sectors and professionals. If lawyers -- with all their protocols, traditions, and professional requirements -- can put environmental responsibility on the docket, there's a case to be made that pretty much anyone else can, too.
Joel Makower is the founder and Executive Editor of Greenbiz.com
This article first appeared at Greenbiz.com
UK missing out on greener contact centres
UK contact centres are lagging behind their US counterparts in their adoption of home working models, and missing out on significant cost and environmental savings in the process.
That is the view of Ian Ashby, chief executive of contact centre software specialist Exony, who argued that with 5 percent of US' 3 million contact centre agents now working from home there was increasing evidence that the technology and business models existed to enable the "home-shoring" of many UK contact centres.
A recent whitepaper from Exony argued that there are multiple benefits to be gained from implementing so-called "virtual contact centres" where agents work from home, including lower staff churn rates, reduced real estate costs, improved employee diversity through greater recruitment of disabled staff or working parents, and reduced carbon emissions associated with employees' commutes to work.
The study argued that the UK's call centre professionals are responsible for 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions each year through their commute, a sizable proportion of which could be avoided through greater adoption of home working.
Ashby argued that employing contact centre agents who work from home can also make the contact centre more reactive to caller demand. "If people don't have to come into work it is far easier for a call centre manager to get agents to agree to shorter shifts at less notice, making it easier to respond to spikes in demand," he explained.
Enabling home working for call centre agents would require significant technology investments in the form of enhanced network, security and monitoring software for managing home-based agents, however Ashby insisted that such systems were now widely available and proven and as such the main barrier to wider adoption of home working models was cultural.
"There is a sense with contact centres that if you can't see the agents they are not working," he said. "But monitoring tools means firms can make sure that is not the case."
He added that these concerns appeared less apparent in the US where many of the agents working from home are effectively self employed and as such motivated to remain productive. "The US model has been to ensure home agents are working for themselves, which plays well with the entrepreneurial culture," he explained.
UK firms keen to pilot the use of home agents are advised to focus on higher end services, such as technical support, where agents are likely to be a bit more experienced, keen on the idea of home working and easier to manage without constant supervision. Ashby also recommended that companies interested in the idea should first "dip their toe" into the model by recruiting some home agents to cover a seasonal peak in demand like Christmas.
Eradicating millions of car journeys each day by replacing the UK's many call centre's with an army of flexible, happy, work-life balanced home agents may seem like something of a pipedream, but Ashby is increasingly convinced that widespread adoption of "home-shoring" is possible.
"If you had asked me six months ago I would have to admit that I was unconvinced," he said. "But in the last two months we have seen massive interest in this model and it would only take two or three successful deployments and this could really fly. The whole model has a lot of support from local government, disability rights groups, working parents and of course the green movement – with that level of backing it is hard to imagine how it cannot work."
INTERVIEW: Zipcar targets corporates with green car club
Doug Williams of Zipcar explains why car clubs can work for businesses just as well as they work for green consumers
BusinessGreen: So what is Zipcar?
Doug Williams: We are a car club company that has over 100,000 members and over 3,000 cars in 23 cities in the US, Canada and the UK. The concept grew out of environmental concerns and works on the simple premise that it is better for 20 to 40 people living and working in a city to share a car than each own their own car.
How practically does this work?
The technology and approach we use is focused on making the experience as simple as possible. For the business model to work the customer experience has to be as close to owning a car as possible. Customers sign up online and get a Zip Card. Then, whenever they need a car they go online or make a call and reserve a car for the time they want. They then go and swipe the car and drive off. We try to situate the cars as close as possible to the customer so it is often just a short walk away. Unlike when you own a car people also get an option of the type of car they want for that day.
What is the difference compared to traditional hire car companies?
We regard hire as a four letter word. We are available online and you can reserve and access a car anytime day or night; the cars are located close to the customer; they are available at hourly as well as daily rates; pricing includes insurance, tax, and congestion charges are included in the cost and petrol can be included as well; and we feel we are very competitive on cost as the aim is to make it cheaper than people owning their own cars. Basically, unlike a hire company, it is a self service model.
Who are your typical customers?
We locate in cities with high urban density, high residential density and high parking costs. We get people who tend to live in the cities using the cars for errands where they need to get outside the city centre and for weekends away. There are real environmental benefits because not only does it mean that people don’t need a car it also leads to behavioural changes. We've done customer surveys and found that 80 percent of our customers travel less by car once they've joined. They start walking or using public transport more, but they also know they have the safety net of knowing they have access to a car if they need it.
So can this model work for businesses? It strikes that it is more of a consumer solution.
A big part of our model is to address the business market and we are seeing a lot of traction from business customers. We see car clubs as a good alternative to cabs and limo companies as you can similarly reserve and get a car at short notice. As you can imagine a lot of our consumer business is over the weekend and after work which means we can offer really competitive rates to businesses during the working day. We have a Zipcar for Business tariff that offers lower rates between 7am and 6pm where daily rates start from £40 and hourly rates are in the £4 to £5 range.
What types of businesses are using this Zipcar?
We find a lot of businesses are using it as an employee benefit for staff who need to occasionally use a car during the working day to get to meetings and as a result they commute into the city in their car and pay for parking, just so they can get to a meeting. For example, in all the cities we operate in architects tend to be big users, particularly at green design agencies. They are often out of the office visiting sites and often have bulky designs with them that make it difficult to use public transport, but they don't want to drive into work everyday. Similarly, lawyers and ad agencies where people may have to go en masse to meet clients see the advantage in having access to a car.
About Doug Williams
Doug Williams is vice president of engineering at Zipcar and is responsible for the company's online, voice and in-car technology.
Williams joined Zipcar from voice and web testing and monitoring solution provider Empirix where he was vice president of enterprise engineering.
In addition to over 20 years experience managing technology teams, Williams holds a combined Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Degree from Princeton and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Why we should all copy the Big (Green) Apple
Where do you find the greenest community in the western world? A rural village where everyone grows their own vegetables in a communal allotment and walks their kids to the local school, one of those new zero carbon suburban Passivhaus developments like BedZed in the UK where the buildings require next to no heating, or perhaps one of those virtually car free Dutch towns where everyone whizzes round on bicycles?
Nope, according to award winning architect and urban designer Chris Choa, the answer is Manhattan.
That's right; crowded, grid locked, high rise New York is "unintentially the greenest city in the world".
Speaking at Library House's inaugural Cleantech conference earlier this week, Choa who works for international environmental urban design practice EDAW, argued that far from being the polluting monstrosities they are often perceived to be very densely populated cities are in fact "the greenest places on the planet".
According to Choa, the secret to the green lifestyle inadvertently lived by many New Yorkers lies in the city's unusually high population density and the co-location of residential and commercial properties which allow many people to walk to work.
This high population density can only be supported by high-rise living, but Choa insists that apartment blocks are, again inadvertently, amongst the greenest buildings around. "In an apartment you have at most two external walls and, unless you are on the top or bottom floors, apartments above and below you," he said. "There is a lot being done to make houses like those at the BedZed development greener, but densely populated apartments are still much greener than the greenest green home."
Co-locating commercial and residential properties also cuts emissions associated with travel as people can "live 80 percent of their lives within five minutes of home", said Choa. In contrast, cities such as London, which are "in love with low rise", are doomed to see any improvement in the energy efficiency of homes and offices undermined by the fact people still have to commute long distances to work.
Choa also argued that public services and mass transit systems become far greener and more efficient when population density is high. He claimed that the unreliability of the London Underground network is a direct result of the city's low population density which means that the Tube can not generate enough revenue per kilometre of track to justify the investment necessary to deliver reliable services. In contrast, the tightly packed five districts of New York, he argued, generate enough revenue per kilometre of rail to underpin sufficient investment.
This high-density school of urban planning is becoming increasingly influential amongst architects interested in environmental sustainability and Choa's speech was followed by a presentation from Khaled Awad, director of property for Abu Dhabi's Masdar project for a new alternative energy city and R&D hub.
He detailed how the plans for the new city had been developed to follow the same principles of high density living found in Manhattan, adding that the walled city - which will be powered using renewable energy from a concentrated solar power plant and wind farm - had been developed using integrated design approaches that should allow people to live within 200m of all essential services.
Whether Europe with its traditional love or low rise buildings can ever embrace high density urban living is debatable and when questioned about the widespread cultural opposition to crowded cities and the perception that they have a lower quality of life, Choa admitted that as a life long fan of city living he was "biased" in his claims that well designed high density cities could improve quality of life.
However, while it is unlikely Europe will embrace high density living any time soon, it does remain inherently carbon inefficient to have a scenario such as that currently found in the City of London where hundreds of thousands of people commute up to a hundred miles or more to work each day before heading home in the evening to leave just a few thousand full time residents.
And while it may be difficult to get Brits and other Europeans to turn their backs on rural and suburban living city planners and businesses choosing new office locations need to be more aware that one of the biggest steps they can take to both reduce carbon emissions and improve their staff's work life balance is to better integrate transport networks and commercial and residential properties.
Living in an apartment just round the corner from work may not be everyone's idea of the perfect home, but may be it is time we took a few more lifestyle tips from the Big Green Apple.
Firms urged to keep close eye on their green tariffs
As highlighted last week, finding any sort of corporate green energy tariff is currently proving a major challenge for many firms, but according to some experts finding a good green tariff is even harder still.
Not only is there a huge shortfall of renewable energy but there is also a growing concern that some green energy tariffs are not having the environmental benefits customers may expect.
According to Dale Vince, founder of green energy specialist Ecotricity, the main problem with existing green tariffs lies in the difference between old and new green energy. He argues that many green tariffs rely on old renewable energy sources and that firms that buy green energy from these existing renewable sources - some of which are 50 years old - are having no net impact on UK carbon emissions.
Vince argues that new renewable energy sources provide the only truly green energy, as it is they that result in a net reduction in overall carbon emissions. He claims Ecotricity seeks to address this problem by reinvesting more per customer than rivals in building new wind farms.
Larger rivals counter that they too are committed to building new capacity and that Ecotricity can only spend more per customer on these new sites as it is a relatively small company investing in smaller scale projects.
"For the major energy suppliers it comes down to the capacity of the country to support renewable energy capabilities," explains Simon Wallwork, SME energy products manager at British Gas Business. "[Ecotricity] can [invest more per customer] because it is a niche player working on smaller projects. The major players simply don't have the ability [to invest the same level per person] because there are issues with the overall capacity, but we are investing a lot more in total."
Other experts are concerned about what types of energy sources are being used to fulfill suppliers' green tariffs. A wide range of so called low carbon energy sources are exempt from the climate change levy and as such have been tied into many suppliers green tariff schemes. But while energy sources such as biomass are far cleaner than traditional fossil fuel-based power stations some critics claim they still produce some carbon emissions.
"One of the problems with green tariffs is that there are a lot of definitions of renewables," says Juliet Davenport, chief executive of Good Energy. "Energy from waste for example is often deemed reneweable, but you tend to be incinerating plastics which are made from oil so is it truly renewable? Customers often don't get the distinction and will go to the supplier and say we want renewable energy but don't specify what type. That's fine if you just want the climate change levy exemption, but if you are doing it for CSR reasons then you need to ask what renewable energy you are actually getting."
Jim Butler, head of marketing strategy at EDF, said that the supplier had attempted to clarify where it is sourcing its energy from by offering genuinely renewable sources under a green tariff and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) sources under the label low carbon.
Some other suppliers have taken a similar approach and offer distinct green and low carbon tariffs, but there are no clear standards governing what can and cannot be included under the label green tariff and rumours abound that some customers are unwittingly signing up to green tariffs that they believe are zero carbon but in fact rely heavily on low carbon technologies.
The legal requirement for energy suppliers to keep track of which energy is climate change levy exempt means the situation for business customers is not as bad as that found in the consumer market, where a controversial recent National Consumer Council report claimed that some green tariffs are providing pretty negligible environmental benefits. But several commentators maintain that greater transparency is required and firms need to be made more aware of the green credentials of the energy they are buying.
Similarly there are also fears that some green tariffs are effectively slapping a premium on renewable energy that suppliers are legally forced to generate under the government's renewable obligations programme. "Some companies are offering green tariffs and they aren't doing anything beyond their current renewables obligations [of 5.5 percent of energy coming from renewable sources]," says Nigel Cornwall of energy market analysts Cornwall Energy Associates. "They are charging extra for something they are already obligated to deliver."
Ofgem did attempt to tackle these problems back in 2002 with a set of guidelines insisting that green tariffs should be fully transparent and rely on green energy that "goes beyond what is already required by law". However, these guidelines were entirely voluntary and have since lapsed.
A spokesman for Ofgem said that it was currently working on a new set of guidelines and considering whether or not to make these legally binding. But Cornwall is in no doubt that a formal certification scheme for green tariffs is urgently required. "Green tariffs are a sensitive area at the moment and there really should be someone accrediting them," he says.
In the meantime firms signed up to green tariffs are being advised to keep a close eye on their supplier and ask for proof of their energy's green credentials. "It is always prudent to verify your suppliers' claims down the line," recommends Davenport. "It is up to you as a customer to make sure you get reports at the end of the year and proof of where your energy has come from."
However, according to Wallwork not all customers are taking these basic precautions. "Demand is outstripping supply and some customers aren't looking at the tariffs closely enough," he observes. "Any supplier you talk to I'd advise finding out about how the product works. Just saying I want to buy green and signing up to the first tariff you see is not good enough."
Alongside all this confusion perhaps the biggest concern surrounding the stampede towards green energy is the fear that some large firms are misguidedly trying to use green tariffs as a silver bullet for all their environmental problems.
"What firms should be doing is putting their green tariff purchasing into the context of a broader sustainability agenda," says Butler. "The number one priority should be energy efficiency. The next step could be installing turbines or other renewable energy technology on site to reduce the amount you take from the grid. Then the third step should be to buy renewable energy, and even then to do it in a responsible manner, by setting reasonable targets for purchasing and not demanding all your energy from green sources."
Green energy tariffs may be the latest must-have for many environmantally conscious businesses, but despite their undoubted environmental benefits firms must be careful to remember the old truism that the greenest unit of energy is always the one saved.
Green energy tariffs off the menu as demand outstrips supply
Firms keen to buy energy from renewable sources are being turned away by major energy suppliers who do not have the capacity to meet soaring demand for green energy tariffs.
A Green Business News investigation has revealed that EDF, British Gas, npower, Scottish Power and Ecotricity are either sold out of renewable energy or close to being so as soaring demand for green tariffs outstrips supply. As a result several energy firms are now recommending that corporate customers only buy a small proportion of their energy from green sources.
Green tariffs have become increasingly popular as more firms look for simple ways of limiting their carbon footprint. In theory green tariffs provide an easy mechanism for a firm to slash its carbon emissions - allowing them to bolster their CSR efforts and avoid the government's Climate Change Levy tax by paying a small premium for electricity sourced from either renewable or low carbon sources.
However, with only around 5 percent of UK energy coming from renewable sources industry insiders are warning that finding a supplier able to provide large corporate customers with a renewable energy contract is now proving extremely difficult.
Jim Butler, head of marketing strategy at EDF, insists that demand is outstripping supply and green energy shortages are now common across the entire corporate energy market. "We're looking after existing customers and allowing them to renew their contracts," he says. "[But for new customers] we have low carbon energy available which is levy exempt, but not much green [renewable energy]."
This scenario is being repeated at npower, where a spokesman claims that while existing green tariff customers were fine, the company would "have to think very carefully" about its ability to fulfill demand before signing up new green tariff customers.
British Gas' business division has also been afflicted by shortages with Simon Wallwork, SME energy products manager at the company, admitting that it has "sold out" of green energy and is unable to service requests for green energy until more comes online or contracts expire.
Even specialist green energy supplier Ecotricity says it is struggling to meet demand from companies wanting all their energy to be sourced from renewable sources. "We have recently had to turn away a big business customer because they wanted 100 percent green," says a spokeswoman for the company. "We do offer 100 percent green to business customers but only small ones - there simply isn't enough [green energy] to go round."
Meanwhile, at Scottish Power a spokesman admits the company is "reaching the end of our output" for business customers, before adding that it is still able to buy in green power on the energy market in the form of the government's renewables obligation certificates (ROCs) and that it has more renewable energy scheduled to come online soon.
Of all the big suppliers only Powergen and Scottish and Southern Energy claim to be currently facing no problems meeting demand for green energy from new corporate customers. However, a spokeswoman for Powergen adds that such green energy is "strictly subject to availability, so its availability does vary from time to time".
Some advocates of green energy tariffs insist this gap between supply and demand is good news as it is driving up prices and increasing the incentive for energy suppliers to build more wind farms and renewable energy sites. But others argue that this is a far too simplistic interpretation of the UK's green energy market.
"It is a widely held misconception that demand [for green energy] will push the price up and stimulate supply, but it just doesn't work like that," explains Butler. "The government's Renewables Obligation target is effectively a mechanism to subsidise the building of renewable energy sites. It means that if you are building a wind farm, for example, you get £40 per mwh back from the subsidy. Under green tariffs you get about £4 per mwh so the subsidy is ten times more valuable than the market price."
Butler argues that no extra wind farms are built because a company has paid for a green tariff, because there is no increase in the incentive for the power company to build more capacity. In fact, buying 100 percent green energy has negligible overall impact on the UK's carbon emissions and simply drives up prices leaving another company without any green energy, he claims.
Even if green tariff prices were pushed so high that they, rather than government subsidies, became the main driver for investment in renewable energy, experts agree that it would still have little impact as most power companies are already seeing many of their existing investments in new wind farms held up at the local planning level.
To help manage this shortfall in supply EDF is recommending customers keen to buy green energy set themselves "sensible" purchasing targets, ideally in line with the government's target to source ten percent of its energy from renewables. "If you try to buy more than is available you are simply robbing Peter to pay Paul and having no net effect on the UK's carbon emissions," argues Butler.
It is a recommendation echoed by Juliet Davenport, chief executive of green energy specialist Good Energy, who also claims firms should take a more conservative approach to sourcing renewable power. "In the business market you can't afford to be too prescriptive about what you want," she advises. "Because demand is greater than supply you may not always be able to get a green tariff at a price you can afford and in that case it may be worth sourcing green energy for just a couple of sites a year from renewable sites or just buying a proportion of your energy from renewables, then, as the supply comes on line, you can increase your use of green tariffs."
You can catch the second part of our investigation on what to watch out for once you have found a green tariff next week.
