| Helping environmentally-conscientious business leaders choose environmentally-friendly solutions.
April 2009
You are browsing the archive for April 2009.
Now If Only Lexmark Made More Of Its Cartridges Refill-Friendly...
April 24, 2009You would never hear a car maker say 'drive less' or a cookware firm recommend eating raw food to save the planet. Nor would one expect a printer manufacturer suggest that its customers print less or don't buy their goods if they don't need to.
Yet that is what Lexmark, in a remarkable display of corporate responsibility has done in via research and advice, reported on TMCnet.
Among its suggestions are:
* Use two-sided printing to save paper
* Use software like the Lexmark Toolbar to print only the Web pages you need
* Share printers in the home or office through wireless networking technology
* Look for the longest available printer warranty to extend its life cycle
* Improve printer efficiency by switching the device off after use
* Print in draft mode to reduce the amount of ink used
* Use Lexmark high-yield cartridges for a higher yield of ink or toner, resulting in fewer cartridges to manufacture and recycle
* Recycle your printed pages and use paper with recycled content
I do have one complaint with Lexmark and that is over its inkjet cartridges. I own an X2650 multifunction printer--a low-cost unit that is adequate for my needs--but the cartridges can't be commercially refilled such as by Island Inket franchisees and others, and refillable alternatives are next to impossible to find.
Yes, Lexmark does have a free cartridge recycling service and one can get replacements with this at a lower price, but that doesn't help me and other users who are running out of ink, can't wait for the lousy mail service, and who want to lower our TCO. The last time my ink ran out I had to go to the local WalMart ASAP (where I had bought the printer) and pay full price.
Now I'm using an alternative strategy: sharing my wife's HP OfficeJet J6480, which is a more complex machine for what I need to do but which does have refillable cartridges.
That leads to another and serious issue: home inkjet printers have become so cheap that it is often less expensive to replace them--thereby creating more toxic e-waste--than in buying new cartridges.
Come on, Lexmark, you're almost there. Let your customers re-use rather than recycle the cartridges.
Earth Day Message: Take Meaningful Steps
April 22, 2009The Earth is our home, folks, and there isn't exactly another piece of real estate like it in the galactic neighborhood, so let's not try to make in uninhabitable by our own hands.
Here are some meaningful steps we can take:
* Go hosted. Buying and accessing centrally managed solutions uses less hardware hence less e-waste and are more energy-efficient than purchasing and installing separate units on premises. If for some reason you need on-premises computing then make sure you virtualize them to maximize utilization and minimize waste
* Repair, remodel, not replace. That goes for almost any product: from computers to cars, and to buildings
* Make and buy products for adaptability, earth-friendliness, and longevity.
Kudos to the ITU, Now The Next Green Challenge: Wired Versus Wireless
April 17, 2009Kudos to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for its work in developing methodologies to examine the environmental impacts and the benefits of IT communications (ICT).
The ITU is developing tools to calculate energy usage and carbon impact arising from ICT lifecycles and to examine the decrease in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that can be achieved with ICTs. Examples of the latter include substituting ICT services and devices for intensive fossil-fueled activities for travel and transport and by replacing atoms with bits (buying an MP3 file instead of a CD), also known as 'dematerialization'.
The organization also noted a trend towards 'always-on' devices that are a drain on power supplies. On the other hand a contribution to its focus group meeting showed that direct e-mail has the effect of a 98.5 per cent carbon dioxide emission reduction compared with paper.
"A common methodology will help establish the business case to go green and can ultimately be beneficial to informed consumer choices and climate-friendly business procurement," say Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau.
Now what's needed is for the ITU or another similar august body to tackle a real interesting and probably the next green issue: wired versus wireless, both in the actual energy to push X amount of data (including voice) from A to B, and in construction and lifecycle construction and maintenance impacts.
Answers to this matter can help decisionmakers, and green-and-energy-conscious businesses and individuals to make the right choices.
As Tesla discovered, air is a lousy conductor of electricity, not to mention the safety concerns. Energy is required to push ultra low-voltage signals through the medium. Copper and fiber via landlines are much more efficient.
Wanted: A 'GreenDex
April 14, 2009There have been plenty to the point of overload of competing green claims--that some times amount to greenwash--regarding the apparent and supposed environmental benefits of buildings, products, features, technologies, services, and practices: from LEED buildings to telework.
At the same time there have been points raised about the costs both direct and indirect i.e. lost productivity of going green: at what price to organizations especially in this tough economy with limited resources.
To help organizations, decisionmakers, and yes journalists and the public, could some reputable association develop with consensus from all parties: industry, academia, government, environmental groups devise an objective 'GreenDex' to evaluate products, services, applications and practices to help us reduce our environmental footprints?
This 'GreenDex' could be based on a basket of total environmental harm i.e.
--Emissions (CO (2) plus other and more noxious air pollutants: gases, particulate matter)
--Effluent
--Nonrecyclable solid waste
--Physical footprint, including impacts such as erosion, destruction of habitant, removal of carbon-converting plants, creation of heat islands, both for property and for workplace- supporting transportation systems
--Heat production
--Energy consumption, with two models: standard i.e. current mix of fossil-fueled, large-scale hydro, nuclear, and alternative (biomass, small-scale hydro, solar, and wind) and Green made up of alternative, such as that supplied by Bullfrog Power in Canada
--Indirect damage, such as emissions and physical footprint from transportation to/from workplaces (The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is one of the best sources of information on transportation and land use direct and indirect environmental impacts) and healthcare costs arising from pollution-borne illnesses such as asthma
The GreenDex could be then be quantified, based on best available information, with rough assigning of direct and indirect (i.e. personally responsible for but incurred on others i.e.
