December 2008 Archives

For businesses, institutions, and contact centers looking for truly greener fields to cut down on their environmental footprints there will be several new opportunities to do just that, by locating their offices near the stations of new rapid transit lines scheduled to open in 2009.

--Arriving first is the Phoenix metro area's Valley Metro light rail line. It will begin regular service on a 20 mile line route connecting Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa on Jan.1; it had pre-opened to crush crowds last weekend

--Portland, Oregon's Tri-Met will introduce service on WES, a diesel railcar-operated suburb-to-suburb line from Wilsonville to Beaverton, 15 miles, where it will connect with the MAX light rail for downtown Portland, airport, and other communities. WES will open Feb.2 and will run initially in rush hours only

--On March 30, Austin, Texas will see service begin on its first rail line, the Capital MetroRail from the city's downtown to Leander, some 32 miles to the northwest. Like WES it will be operated by diesel railcars in peak periods only

--Later in 2009, the Seattle area will, after 40 some years of political warfare, witness rapid transit trains rolling once again, on a route between SeaTac Airport and the city's downtown in the form of Sound Transit's LINK LRT. Also at about the same time, and to the north, Metro Vancouver, BC's Canada Line from the city center to Richmond and Vancouver International Airport will take its first trains. The Seattle region has commuter rail and short streetcar lines in Seattle and Tacoma. Metro Vancouver also has commuter rail, plus a new demonstrator streetcar, and SkyTrain, a rapid transit system linking downtown Vancouver with Burnaby, Coquitlam, New Westminster, and Surrey
 

Should your site selection choices include these cities plus many more that have rapid transit make locating by them your New Year's resolution. It will pull more employees, and visitors from their cars, which in turn will reduce traffic, roadspace demand, and limit their nasty environmental consequences. It also promotes healthier living by not only cutting down on emissions but also by walking to and from stations, or using connecting buses which will also require you and others to get there on your own steam...thereby helping to meet other New Year's resolutions

--BR

Beginning Jan.1, 2009 consumers, small businesses, and other similar-sized government entities in Oregon and Washington State will be able to recycle 'e-cycle' much of their e-waste such as computers, monitors, and TVs though not others such as cellphones, mice, and printers. The TV e-cycling is well-timed with the analog-to-digital TV switch in February, 2009.

There are now 17 states with similar programs; the National Center for Electronics Recycling tracks such laws. It estimates that just under 50 percent of the US population is now covered by such measures.

They should be making a dent in the mountains of electronic garbage created in the U.S; in 2007, Americans generated about 232 million units of computer and TV-related E-waste, of which only 18 percent was recycled. 

Washington State estimates that it will collect and process over 20 million pounds of electronic waste in the first year of operations; the state has about 6.4 million residents. It has set up network will include over 200 individual collection sites, in every county in the state and in every city or town with a population greater than 10,000.

Yet unlike in other states that have set up similar programs, such as California, where consumers must pay to dispose, Oregon's and Washington State's are paid for by manufacturers and free to consumers. Officials say that provision will give incentives to participate--Oregon also has a prod; beginning in 2010 it will be illegal to dump computers and TVs--which should drive up the volume of units recycled or reused.

The states also say they will closely monitor the programs to make sure the toxic boxes and pieces do not get dumped in places like China where e-waste disposal controls and methods are comparatively lax.

The Oregon and Washington State plans make sense because they adopt the polluter-pay principle, which if followed logically by manufacturers, will prod them to make more adaptable, longer lasting, and versatile products made of less nasty materials to limit waste and pollution. It should to kick them into making and reusing 'nonintelligent' items such as keyboards, keypads, and mice.

These laws, enacted in two of the most tech-savvy jurisdictions anywhere may also drive firms to go the next level (literally) and host and network host more of their solutions i.e. cloud computing and dumb terminals that spreads the core hardware to many more users. Hosted/cloud software can also help meet the same goals in tandem by reducing the need for complex shredder-bound hardware.

Another benefit from going these routes is lowered energy demand and fewer amounts of greenhouse gases and toxins from entering the atmosphere.

What would make sense for these programs and others is to follow the time-proven example of the auto industry--yes it has a few good practices--and offer trade-ins on old electronic goods. Bring in your dead cellphone, monitor, and printer and get a few bucks off. Or if they want to go to the next level, offer to pick these old items up when they deliver new ones ordered online or via contact centers and receive instant rebates.

 --BR

It would be very helpful for technology buyers interested in buying green and in doing so saving money if there could be a series of objectively researched-and-well publicized energy/environmental footprint data and costs for these solutions. If such documentation exists please forward that to me.

Yes, it is true, that the suppliers are providing case histories showing such data. A case in point is Netezza, which makes data warehousing appliances. The firm demonstrated that its product at 3 terabytes (TB) enabled a customer, the UK's Orange, to cut power demand by 2/3rds, from 25kW/hour to 7kW/hour and sliced cooling requirements by 72 percent compared with and from the incumbent Informix/Sun/EMC 1.5 TB configuration. Quite impressive numbers: they sure impressed Orange.

Here's the rub: this is not apples-to-apples. This is new solution versus older one and new ones tend to be more efficient, especially in applications like data warehousing whose components do wear out from heat and mechanical operations (at least until the solid state systems now being developed hit prime time). Also needs and specs change over time.

What would have been very helpful is a side-by-side evaluation of all candidate replacement systems e.g. IBM, Oracle as well as Netezza. While in fairness that would have likely not been possible for a PR case study: the customer would probably not want to release such information. Nonetheless, such data would make the performance of solutions like Netezza's even more outstanding, and likely to lead to more purchases. And it is more efficient products like theirs that can help save our planet.

Companies are finally getting it that corporate green projects--once seen by many environmentalist skeptics as PR 'greenwash' to be rinsed off at the earliest so-called 'bottom line' excuse--are worth while even during tough economic times. 

The reason is simple: taking steps like reducing energy consumption cuts costs.

Forrester's largest-ever survey of corporate green IT activities and interest has found that even in the face of the recession twice as many companies are accelerating their green IT initiatives compared to firms that are scaling back green projects. Of the companies surveyed in the report 'Market Overview: A Slowing Economy Won't Slow Down Corporate Green IT Initiatives' nearly half say they will accelerate or maintain their green IT projects. The main reason: saving money. 67-percent of respondents said reducing energy-related operating expenses was a motivation for pursuing a green IT agenda, up from 55-percent one year ago.

Forrester is also seeing a steady increase in buyers' awareness of tech vendors' efforts to promote their products as environmentally friendly. It is reporting that more companies are documenting their steps to improve sustainability of IT infrastructure: 52 percent of companies told it that they are either implementing or creating a "green IT action plan, up from 40 percent last year. The paper also reveals steady uptake of foundational green IT practices, including greener procurement criteria and engagement with green IT service providers.

To make green plans happen requires strong top-down commitment and bottom-up buy-in. Employees have to know why going green is important to their organizations, to themselves, and to the customers and the public that they directly or indirectly serve, and that their actions are making a difference. Ideally such programs need to have measurable goals, like carbon saving calculators, that individuals by nature strive for.

"Green IT is not a fad or a bubble," writes Forrester analyst Christopher Mines. "In tracking the attitudes and adoption of enterprise IT organizations for almost two years now, we are encouraged to see sustainable growth in the respondents' green IT practices. The slow-but-steady increase in awareness and activity bodes well in our view for continued growth in demand for greener IT products and services."