July 2007 Archives

Eight Quarter Pounders generate the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as driving for three hours while burning a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days. And you wonder why you get a stomach ache after you eat fast food. :-)

 

Here is the full article from Wired.

Well perhaps they aren’t quite green yet but BMW, the car which provides us the self proclaimed “ultimate driving machines,” hopes to also bring us the “ultimate green driving machines.” This article details the company’s hydrogen plans. This is in addition to a plan the company has to recapture steam utilizing traditional internal combustion engines in order to yield a 15% or so increase in energy efficiency.

It seems to me the trend towards companies going carbon neutral is accelerating as companies like the UK’s Easynet are even pushing their partners to do their part to reduce their carbon footprint. Certainly, Easynet will make a great case study if they are able to truly achieve their carbon neutral goals.

 

Here is more from VNUnet in the UK.

If a banner ad falls in the woods, does anybody see it? Seriously, does a banner ad have a carbon footprint? Over at Internetnews.com, David Needle has a fascinating discussion about the whole banner ad Vs. print ad debate regarding carbon footprint. There is a discussion of the Green Grid and other socially and environmentally responsible ways to ensure your data center is as green as can be.

 

My take is the carbon footprint of a web ad requires an indirect calculation. Theoretically, I could run a website without a single banner ad and have millions of viewers. I would still be sucking up electricity and giving off tons of CO2. The banner ad (or any ad for that matter) is responsible for financing most websites so perhaps measuring the “carbon footprint” of such ad vehicles make sense.

 

On the web, each new page is crawled, indexed, resaved and backed up frequently. It would be an interesting exercise to see how much of a carbon footprint each internet page has. Google alone copies all web pages, indexes them, crawls them frequently and performs assorted other proprietary algorithms which generate carbon.

 

This doesn’t even take into account the carbon generated by viewers. A viral video on YouTube could be watched by millions and force service providers to install more equipment in their data canters.

 

Overall, I would bet a single web page on average generates up to 5,000 times the carbon required to post the page to begin with. Think about how many web pages for example are backed up each day! This ratio– is also an annual cost and it increases over time as new search engines start to crawl the web.

 

Here is a chart giving you an idea of just how much more electricity is needed (carbon generated) for a typical web page each year! Notice I assume each web page is only viewed 5 times per year. I also assume 25 search engines will save the page and subsequently back these pages up every other day. The results are staggeringly large to say the least.

 

 

 

This is a fascinating concept and thanks to David for getting us thinking about the web and how it contributes to the green movement. One last point. Many magazines also post the same content from print, online meaning the comparison between print an online possible irrelevant.

Be sure to see me at the Green Technology World Conference in Los Angeles this September 2007 if you want to discuss this further.

For a paltry six dollars you can have a tree planted for you in order to soak up a ton of carbon dioxide. A federal agency the U.S. Forest Service and a non-profit group the National Forest Foundation came together to launch a website enabling e-commerce to help the financing of trees which should in theory reduce global warming by absorbing CO2.

 

Whether this is a good or bad move for the environment is debated in the following article but it is logical that deforestation can be combated by tree planting. There is no doubt we are wiping out forests at an alarming rate and this can’t be good for anyone.

Here is the conference program for Green Technology World Conference which takes place September 11-12^th 2007 in Los Angeles, CA. Here are some of the sessions to give you an idea of what to expect:

 

Top Ten Ways to be GREEN through Better Networking
Mark Leary, Senior Strategist, Cisco

Maximizing Benefits of a Virtual Workforce
Angela Selden, CEO Arise Virtual Solutions

Empowering Teleworking with IP Telephony and Web Services
Greg Pisano, Director, Market Development, BlueNote Networks, Inc.

Virtual Meetings: A Faster Path to Lowered Emissions
Glenn Noga, CIO, Polycom, Inc.

Here is a credit card that gives back. To the environment that is. The new GE Money Earth Rewards Platinum MasterCard, allows you to forgo your 1% cash back and have this money go towards green causes.

 

G.E. will keep a running tally of the amounts, and each Earth Day it will use the total to buy offsets of greenhouse gas emissions. The offsets will be purchased by GE AES Greenhouse Gas Services, a joint venture between GE Energy Financial Services and the AES Corporation, a power company.

 

Here are the details from the NY Times (registration required).

According to Australian IT global investment in green technologies has increased tremendously in the past three years.

 

 

The article points to several examples, such as Bob Christiansen’s new $170 million Southern Cross Fund and Melbourne’s Starfish Ventures, both of whom are earmarking large amounts s of their funds under management for so-called “cleantech” deals.

 

For more, check out the following article.

Opportunities to “go green” are all around us. Public transportation has long been considered a useful tool in the march to save the environment. It’s become commonplace see alternative fuel buses in many municipalities across the United States.

 

Now the Sacramento Bee is reporting that the California capital has identified that city’s light rail system for an energy efficiency upgrade.

 

Call it the Prius effect.

 

Much like the systems Toyota uses in their hybrid vehicles, Sacramento hopes to take advantage of regenerative braking technology to capture energy to be used in helping the trains to accelerate out of the stations.

 

Energy created while braking will be captured and sent back into the lines that provide power to the light rail system.

 

According to the Sacramento Bee, forty percent of the energy from braking can be recovered and sent back to accelerating trains.

We have to strike a balance between energy usage and greenness. Mobile phone networks do consume tremendous amounts of energy but they are responsible for saving even more. Here are some details on the carbon footprint of mobile networks from greenbang.

As I was flying back from a trip to the West coast, trying to calculate how much it would take to offset my carbon usage, I came across a Wall Street Journal report that said that American Airlines, the world’s biggest airline by passenger traffic, is preparing a marketing campaign to kick off in August to show off its green side.

 

Supposedly AA is receiving an increasing number of inquiries on the subject from both consumers and business travelers. Stay tuned for more as the airline rolls out its plans.

 

Maybe they can set up a program where frequent flyers can exchange their miles for carbon offsets.

 

The greening of technology and the move to sustainability is by no means limited to North America and Europe. In fact in a recent blog entry, Rich points out that The Viet Nam Cleaner Production Center and the Swiss government have signed a $5 million contract to establish the Green Credit Trust Fund in Viet Nam.

According the announcement:

 

 

Well, add Bahrain to the list of nations making the transition to green.

 

According to Jean Paul Carteron, chairman and founder of Crans Montana Forum, Bahrain has the financial wherewithal and the political will to become a leading green location by preserving environment and setting a new trend for a sustainable economic and financial developments.

 

Said Carteron:

 

 

SustainableBusiness.com announced its 2007 Sustainable Business 20 (SB20) List, which comprises the World’s Top Sustainable Stocks in their view.

 

According to the SustainableBuisiness.com Web site:

 

 

Rona Fried, Ph.D., SustainableBusiness.com CEO and Editor of Progressive Investor, explained the reasoning for the list in a recent statement.

 

“Our goal is to create a list that showcases public companies that, over the past year, have made substantial progress in either greening their internal operations or growing a business based on an important green technology.”

 

The list of the SB20 is presented below, with companies appearing in Alphabetical order. It should be noted that this list is made up of a broad international group of companies, which is illustrative of the fact that green innovation is a truly global phenomenon.

 

On another note, Google was given an honorable mention, so one might consider them the 21^st such company on the SustainableBusiness.com list.

 

Before you toss that old cell phone, television, stereo equipment or computer in the trash, stop, wait and think a minute.

Can it be recycled?

You bet it can. Maybe not the whole thing … but at least parts of it … all you have to do is get it to the right location. Items such as computers, stereos, TVs, mobile phones and home appliances can very often be refurbished and reused (for example, many consumers throw away fully functional computers, mobile phones and other electronics during upgrades). Perhaps more importantly, their parts can be recycled and made into new electronics components or other consumer products. On the other hand, electronics which are dumped in landfills can release a wide variety of toxins and hazardous substances as the decay over time, including lead, mercury and cadmium. Furthermore they add significantly to the bulk of material going into landfills, due to the fact that they take an eternity to break down.

Thanks to a growing awareness about the importance of recycling electronics, many town dumps are now designating special locations for household electronics which can be recycled – and electronics recycling programs are popping up everywhere nationwide (however recycling laws vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction). Check with your local town hall or 211 information service to find out where to bring your electronics to be recycled.

Residents of Fresno, Calif., and the surrounding area will have a prime opportunity to recycle their old electronics starting on Saturday, July 28, when an Electronic Waste Recycling Event will be held at the Big Fresno Fairgrounds.

According to a press release, the event, which will be held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., is being sponsored by the Big Fresno Fair and Electronic Recyclers for the purpose of providing a location for recycling electronic waste. There is no limit on how many items you can bring and the event is free of charge. Electronics containing Freon will not be accepted.

The event will be repeated on Sept. 15, Nov. 10 and Dec. 8 at the same location. It will not be held in October due to the fair.

The Big Fresno Fairgrounds are located at 1121 S. Chance Avenue, Fresno, Calif., 93702. Enter the parking lot off of Kings Canyon Boulevard, just east of Chance Avenue (Gate 6).

For more information call 559-650-FAIR.

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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for Customer Interaction Solutions magazine and Assignment Editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.

I am intrigued with government initiatives such as this which allow for a trust fund to be set up whose purpose is to help companies go greener. In theory, companies in Vietnam of a certain size who qualify will be able to receive credits for reducing their carbon emissions. I wonder if something like this could take hold in the US.