June 2007 Archives

How Green Is Your Utility Company?

Posted by: Greg Galitzine | June 29, 2007 5:28 PM |

I was just surfing around, looking for green goodies, and I came across this site called The Daily Green, The Consumer’s Guide to the Green Revolution, that featured a link to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tool called Power Profiler that you can use to compare your utility’s carbon footprint with that of the national average.

It’s as simple as entering your ZIP code, selecting your utility company, and clicking “Next.”

The results are two charts:

The first chart compares the fuel mix used to generate electricity in your region of the power grid to the national fuel mix.
The second chart compares the average air emissions rates in your region of the power grid to the national average emissions rates.

It’s a nifty little look at how your utility stacks up to the rest of the nation.

Check out the EPA’s Power Profiler for yourselves.

Green Theme at France Investment Confab

Posted by: Greg Galitzine | June 29, 2007 7:56 AM |

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This just in from EuroNews.net…

Apparently the environment is a major theme at an annual investment conference going on in France.

The report says that the 900 business leaders taking part in this year’s “La Baule World Investment Conference” are jazzed about the green opportunity. Billed as “An executive Platform for Attractiveness Key Players” the goal of the conference is to find a shared response to the many challenges facing Europe.

Going green is indeed a challenge and an opportunity, and goodness knows green can be very “attractive.”

One of the more interesting comments is from Jacque Guer, head of Xerox in France, who told EuroNews.net that his firm is constantly working on new and revolutionary developments.

Said Guer:

“We’re developing technology that lets you print a document in the morning, and you can read it during the day, and then 16 hours after you printed it, the paper becomes blank again so you can reuse it. So, you see that behind this green technology there are real business and competitive advantages, and it’s not just something that’s trendy.”

The word from France is that we are on the cusp of the next big environmental sales opportunity — green power for businesses — with the opening up of the French and Italian energy markets on 1st July.

Check out the report for yourselves.

eBilling Incentive Program

Posted by: Greg Galitzine | June 28, 2007 5:10 PM |

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It turns out that my utility company, Orange & Rockland (O&R) has an electronic billing incentive program.

For every customer that signs up to receive their monthly utility bill via e-mail,O&R will plant a tree.

According to the O&R site:

If all U.S. households viewed and paid their bills electronically, we would save 18.5 million trees, avoid 2.2 billion tons of toxic air pollutants and 1.7 billion pounds of solid waste, and save 15.8 billion gallons of precious water.

Waste Management To Create Renewable Energy

Posted by: Greg Galitzine | June 28, 2007 2:12 PM |

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Waste Management today announced a major initiative to expand its roster of landfill gas to energy (LFGTE) facilities.

The goal of the program is to create 60 additional renewable energy facilities by 2012, and to generate approximately 700 megawatts of clean renewable energy. That’s equivalent to over 8 million barrels of oil.

They hope to bring 10 more facilities online in 2007.

For more information, check out this article.

Halestar Intros 'Green' Remote Access Solution

Posted by: Mae | June 28, 2007 9:56 AM |

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‘Green technology’ can be defined in a variety of different ways, because there are different methods for reducing the impact of human activity on the environment. The term in the context of this blog generally refers to technology that itself directly reduces environmental impact—by, for example, using less power or being manufactured out of reused or recyclable materials.

Another way that technology can be ‘green,’ though, is indirectly helping people walk lighter on the earth by reducing their need to use natural resources like fossil fuels. One company that’s taking this approach to ‘green tech’ is Helestar, a security engineering company based in Connecticut and southern Virginia.

Halestar on Tuesday announced a new solution designed to let employees work from home without losing access to the corporate system. By providing employees with the tools to securely access the company network from home, Halestar hopes to promote the ‘green’ practice of enterprise mobility.

The telecommuting solution offered Halestar works regardless of what laptop an employee owns or which PBX the company has installed. The solution uses remote-access-point technology anchored by a WLAN controller from Aruba that’s installed on the corporate network. This lets employees create an IPSec tunnel back to the controller from a remote location.

The IPSec tunnel utilizes the corporate LAN’s security features to protect the company network; the armor provided by SSIDs, 802.1x authentication and encryption, wireless counter-measures, firewalls and network access restrictions is kept intact.

Perhaps best of all, the solution requires no end-user configuration and no updates. The simplicity of the solution, and the fact that it addresses wireless security, Helestar is betting, will help drive adoption of remote access as a way to be more ‘green.’

“People are starting to think about the cost of commuting, and the impact they’re having on the world while they are sitting there idling in rush-hour traffic,” Halestar’s president, Kevin Dowd, said in a statement.

Halestar calculated that, for most businesses, deploying this solution will pay for itself in about 10 months. That’s based on a scenario in which eight employees pay $10 each day for the privilege of working from home. The company noted that third-party leasing and managing is also available as a way to eliminate out-of-pocket costs.

Hmm… maybe it isn’t so hard to be green.

Save the Planet... Recycle That Fax Machine!

Posted by: Greg Galitzine | June 27, 2007 10:36 AM |

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I just received a bit of information that details some of the simpler ways that an enterprise can go green.

Decreasing paper consumption is obviously environmentally friendly. (Does anyone remember the paperless office dream?)

Another obvious eco-friendly move is to reduce wasteful use of electricity.

And planting flowers is another positive environmental touch, not to mention a decided improvement to the décor of most offices.

Well, one way to achieve all three goals is to take that old analog fax machine and turn it into a planter!

At least that’s what Steve Adams, vice president of marketing for MyFax, is suggesting.

According to a news release from Protus IP Solutions, the provider of the MyFax Internet fax solution:

Because Internet faxing is a digitally centric technology, it allows users to send and receive documents via e-mail. That means there are no fax machines or fax servers taking up valuable space, constantly using electricity and creating carbon dioxide. Instead, with an Internet fax service like MyFax, the computer where someone receives the email fax does not need to be on to accept the transmission; it only needs to be running when someone is actually working on the computer.

There are other environmental issues that make Internet faxing a socially responsible technology to adopt as well. Dangerous bleaching chemicals such as chlorine, sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide are used as whitening agents to make fax paper. Fax machines also require ink cartridges, which ultimately take up precious landfill space unless they are recycled.

Survey: Green Is Good, But How Do I Get There?

Posted by: Greg Galitzine | June 26, 2007 4:44 PM |

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As industry-wide recognition of the need to go green accelerates, companies are realizing that it’s one thing to get behind an environmentally friendly green initiative; it’s quite another challenge to actually do something about it.

A recent survey by the Green Technology Initiative (GTI), a UK-based organization that is in some ways similar to the U.S.-based Green Grid, found that the overwhelming majority of British businesses (95%) believe that reducing our carbon footprint is critical to an overall green strategy.

Ironically, about 70% of those surveyed have no target to reduce their own carbon footprint.

Dan Sutherland, founder of GTI, said: “What we are doing in IT today is not sustainable. Systems efficiency is the cheapest and easiest way of reducing the carbon footprint of the work you do and delivered properly it has the benefit of bringing down costs across the board. Whilst undoubtedly UK enterprises are willing to take action, many lack the incentive, knowledge and resources to make immediate changes.”

The survey also found that many expect industry and government to take the lead in reducing harmful emissions.

The Green Grid is a consortium of information technology companies and professionals seeking to improve energy efficiency in data centers around the globe. The Green Grid is compriosed of nearly 70 member companies, including AMD, APC, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Rackable Systems, Spraycool, Sun, and VMWare, and others.

Founding partners of the Green Technology Initiative include Saatchi and Saatchi, Global Crossing, Carrenza, and edf Energy.

Texas Instruments Developing Low-power, 'Green' Products

Posted by: Mae | June 26, 2007 3:55 PM |

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One way to develop a ‘green’ technology product is to focus on reducing demand for power. This aspect of ‘greenness’ apparently has been forefront in the minds of developers at Texas Instruments, which announced Tuesday an initiative to create Ultra Low Power (ULP, formerly known as Wibree) Bluetooth-compatible products.

The company is leveraging its expertise with ZigBee, lower-power RF and mobile connectivity technologies to create power un-hungry products.

This initiative comes in the heels of the recent merger of Wibree Forum and Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), which created ULP as an open technology for wireless connectively between mobile devices and human interface devices (HIDs) such as wireless keyboards, watches, toys and sports sensors.

To develop new, low-power products, TI will be using its own radio technology (for the 2.4 GHz frequency), which meets ULP Bluetooth specifications. The goal? Drive the mass market adoption of wireless connectivity.

“TI fully supports the new ULP Bluetooth open technology and recognizes the need for a radio standard that will complement Bluetooth and ZigBee wireless technlogy for short- to medium-range wireless connectivity,” the company’s manager of strategic marketing for low-power wireless, Karl Helmer Torvmark, said in a statement.

Torvmark continued: “TI is committed to providing the market’s most competitive and comprehensive solutions for ULP Bluetooth wireless technology, which will enable customers to deliver complete, low-cost, low-power systems with shorter time-to-market.”

The company is developing low-power devices for two types of ULP Bluetooth implementations: single-node (watches, sensors and other very small devices) and dual-mode (communication with traditional Bluetooth-enabled products like mobile handsets).

TI said in its announcement that ZigBee and ULP Bluebooth are complementary technology; ZigBee is used for low-power, infrastructure-oriented mesh networking with thousands of nodes, and ULP Bluetooth is useful for linking smaller groups of nodes to devices like mobile phones and computers.

When it comes to being ‘green,’ it appears TI has the technology and expertise to help, in its own small way, to save the planet.

Green Technology in the UK

Posted by: Stefania Viscusi | June 25, 2007 5:45 PM |

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Businesses across the globe are looking to take responsibility for their environmental impact and to reduce the rate at which they're allowing global warming to occur.

Along with this responsibility has been an increased need for businesses to take steps to reduce their carbon footprint—or the amount of Co2 emissions created through daily activities.

But findings from one study conducted by The Green Technology Initiative reveal that UK businesses, while they are all for 'going Green' and understand that IT systems do play an important role in the big picture, have not taken action of their own to reduce the carbon footprint, but instead look to the Government, suppliers and hardware manufacturers to help reduce the impact.

The study's findings also reveal businesses just now beginning to do such things as turn off systems when not in use. Not a BIG step, but at least one in the right direction.

For more on the study and its findings read the article HERE.

Big Blue Goes Green

Posted by: Greg Galitzine | June 25, 2007 10:32 AM |

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IBM is adding 80,000 square feet of green datacenter space to its existing Boulder Colorado facility. The plan calls for state-of-the-art technology that will help IBM reduce energy expenditures.

The new data center will serve as a proof of concept of IBM’s Project Big Green, which was announced in May. At the time IBM pledged to utilize new energy efficient products and services as part of their plan to reduce data center power consumption. The company redirected $1 billion per year across its businesses, with the goal of increasing the level of energy efficiency in IT. One impressive aspect of the initiative is the deployment of a global “green team” of more than 850 energy efficiency architects from across IBM.

According to the announcement heralding the Boulder data center:

IBM plans to install high density computing systems utilizing virtualization technology, along with its Cool Blue portfolio of energy efficient power and cooling technologies. These technologies, in conjunction with the energy efficient design and construction, will allow IBM to reduce its overall carbon footprint compared to standard data centers, and lessen the impact to the environment.

The State of Colorado and the City of Boulder are both pitching in with financial incentives and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade is kicking in $632,000 and will work with IBM to establish a training program for the new data center workforce, as well as additional IBM employees.

The new, green data center is scheduled to begin operations in April of 2008.

Green Furniture

Posted by: Stefania Viscusi | June 22, 2007 4:42 PM |

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As the latest buzz for green technologies and awareness of environmental responsibilities continues to increase across industries, it might be interesting to know that not everyone is just catching up with 'the green'.

There are companies who have provided, for some time, solutions that reduced their environmental impact.

One area we typically don’t hear too much about, and that fits in well with TMC, call center furniture, made an interesting area to explore regarding their green efforts.

I had spoken with call center furniture provider Interior Concepts (www.interiorconcepts.com) some time ago on their recycling efforts, and thought it only right to follow up now and see how they're fitting into today's increasingly 'Green' world.

I uncovered some interesting information as well as the fact that the company actually has an Environmental Policy in place to ensure their environmental responsibilities are carried out.

For instance, most of Interior Concepts fabrics carry a Green-e certification meaning that 100% of the energy used to make their products is matched by Green-e certified renewable energy certificates.

Also, the company utilizes products that are already made with recycled materials to reduce the amount of 'virgin' materials needed in manufacturing.

Read the full article HERE

Google to be Carbon Neutral by Year's End

Posted by: Greg Galitzine | June 22, 2007 4:42 PM |

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We’ve already discussed how Google and Intel have pledged their efforts to the green movement by launching the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

Now comes word of Google promising to become carbon neutral by the end of the year.

The Google plan essentially has three parts:

Reduce energy consumption by maximizing efficiency;
Invest in and use renewable energy sources; and
Purchase carbon offsets for any remaining emissions.

In a recent entry on the Official Google Blog, Urs Hoelzle, Senior Vice President, Operations told readers about the self-assessment the company undertook before setting off on the green initiative.

"To calculate our carbon footprint, we took into account emissions from purchased electricity, employee commuting, business travel, construction, and server manufacturing. In a partnership with the Environmental Resources Trust (ERT), we have independently verified this assessment, and will do so every year."

Something this blogger was not aware of, most likely because I live 3,000 miles away from the Google green scene, is how big a focus transportation plays in the Google plan.

Apparently every day Google provides shuttle service for over 1,500 commuting employees in the San Francisco area. Google also offers employees a financial incentive for purchasing environmentally friendly cars.

Lastly Urs Hoelzle writes about Google’s ambitious plan to create 50 megawatts of new renewable generation capacity by 2012. According to Hoelzle, that’s enough to power 50,000 typical U.S. homes.

Go Green, Make Money

Posted by: Rich Tehrani | June 22, 2007 1:56 PM |

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Greg Galitzine discusses an article in the Wall Street Journal about how going green can save you money. This is a great opportunity to let you know going green can also save you money and the tagline for TMC’s upcoming Green Technology World conference this September in Los Angeles, CA will in fact be “Save Money, Save the Environment.”

The URL for this event and the accompanying news portal will be www.greentechnologyworld.com.

Oh and by the way… Perhaps the tagline is a bit limiting. In any event it is great to be involved in a market where we can create a better world for our children and at the same time save money or make it. There are few market spaces where you can feel good about what you do while benefiting financially.

When you go green, your children will thank you twice.

Who will come to the Green Technology World conference? Decision makers in data centers, datacom executives, telecom executives, CXOs, entrepreneurs, investors and others who are interested in learning about green technology and want to network with their peers from around the world.

WSJ on Green Investment Opportunity and Risk

Posted by: Greg Galitzine | June 22, 2007 11:53 AM |

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“It’s not just tree huggers who think about global warming. There’s money to be made, and people want to know how to make it.”

So says Holly Isdale, managing director and head of wealth advisory at Lehman Brothers, in the June 21, 2007 edition of The Wall Street Journal in an article by Jilian Mincer.

The article discusses the opportunity for investors and how researchers at leading investment banks are generating reports on risk and opportunity within the green investment sector. These investment banks include the likes of Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, and UBS.

Some of the things that these firms are taking into account when reporting on potential investment targets are whether or not these companies are well positioned in the market by virtue of their technology (that helps the world go green) or their adoption of technology (taking advantage of a changing market).

The Journal article maintains that investing in green is risky business.

However, in spite of the risks several European-based investment funds are developing a successful track record, and the aforementioned US investment banks all offer some way to invest in the greening economy.

For more on opportunities in the Green Technology market, bookmark TMC's Green Blog for future reference.

New Smog Standards

Posted by: Rich Tehrani | June 22, 2007 9:28 AM |

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The EPA is proposing tougher smog rules. Otherwise known as ground-level ozone, smog has been linked to breathing problems with children and adults. Much of the Midwest would be in violation of these new rules. Illinois will be hit especially hard. Here are the details from the Chicago Tribune.

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Main Index | Archives | July 2007 »

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P. Manickavelu: Looking for design detail on data center read more

June 2007 Archives

How Green Is Your Utility Company?

Green Theme at France Investment Confab

eBilling Incentive Program

Waste Management To Create Renewable Energy

Halestar Intros 'Green' Remote Access Solution

Save the Planet... Recycle That Fax Machine!

Survey: Green Is Good, But How Do I Get There?

Texas Instruments Developing Low-power, 'Green' Products

Green Technology in the UK

Big Blue Goes Green

Green Furniture

Google to be Carbon Neutral by Year's End

Go Green, Make Money

WSJ on Green Investment Opportunity and Risk

New Smog Standards

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