Archive for October, 2008
Over 24 countries represented, 100 guest speakers and 1000 delegates — this is the first industry hosted carbon market expo – and Greensense was there. As Tim Flannery said this afternoon “this event is about turbo charged learning”.
The conference was kicked started with an opening from James Cameron of Climate Change Capital London, commenting on the fact we should not be pessimistic about our ability to deal with both the Global Financial Crisis and Climate Change at the same time and that while Australia as made significant progress in the last 12 months on it’s climate change policy our current start to the CPRS looks modest.
This was followed by the Honorable Penny Wong, Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, who, ahead of today’s release by the treasury on the economic modelling of emissions trading, spoke of the pending introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and Australia’s global advantage with its geographical, geological and economic positions.
The conference has brought together industry leaders and shows positive signs that a strong platform in Australia is being built to help our nation transition into a carbon driven economy.
We will add more on output from the conference soon.
Below — the Hon Penny Wong being interviewed by Tony Jones, host of the ABC’s Lateline.
The Australian government has released a review of the government’s use of information and communication technology (ICT), which includes recommendations for sustainability.
As we’ve discussed before, having a green PC strategy is a key part of being sustainable. One submission to the review also focused on PCs. The submission drew the review’s attention to EPEAT, a registry set up by the US government to track the environmental performance standards of PCs, monitors, and laptops.
A report by the US Environmental Protection Agency suggested the following benefits, over four years, from the US government purchasing EPEAT registered computers:
- save US$71.4 million in energy costs
- reduce energy use by 824 gigawatt hours
- reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 64,700 CO2e
The Australian government review made only very high-level recommendations in relation to sustainability. So while it was refreshing to see sustainability recognised as an important topic, it clearly wasn’t the top priority for the review.
The principal sustainability recommendation was that a whole-of-government ICT sustainability plan be developed. While there is an element of Yes Minister to commissioning a review that recommends the development of a plan, this is actually a good recommendation. According to the review the plan should:
- identify which of the available standards (for example, EPEAT) should be adopted as mandatory for relevant ICT acquisitions
- include a whole-of-government ICT energy target, with agencies to report their progress towards the target
- take into account potential implications of a carbon pollution reduction scheme.
Australian businesses, and particularly large businesses, should be developing a similar plan for ICT sustainability. We think there are three good reasons to focus on ICT.
Firstly the cost savings and environmental benefits can be significant, as the US government report mentioned above demonstrates. In fact, in many cases, implementing a sustainability plan for ICT can be cost-positive because of the energy efficiency opportunities.
Secondly, starting with ICT can provide a good learning opportunity, which can prepare your organisation to tackle potentially more significant core-operational areas of your business: the same processes, tools and general approach will apply.
Lastly, ICT can drive benefits in other sustainability areas and can be a key enabler of your overall sustainability programme. It’s very important to think beyond just reducing the environmental impacts of ICT (which is perhaps all this review is doing).
For example, we’ve previously discussed travel as another great first area to focus on. Video conferencing systems can reduce the need for business travel and the right ICT systems can also enable staff to work productively from home, reducing commuting and office-space requirements.
ICT systems can also provide the tools to baseline; capture and track data; and report progress against your overall sustainability goals. Similarly it can provide tools to engage your employees and other stakeholders in your sustainability initiatives. Imagine, for example, a simple and interactive dashboard on your corporate Intranet that allows your employees to compare the performance of different business areas and submit ideas for reducing emissions and energy use.
Please contact us if you’d like help putting in place a sustainable ICT strategy for your business.
At Greensense we want to protect the earth in a way that makes sense to business. We are a boutique carbon management consultancy that is expanding quickly as businesses recognise the need to act on climate change. The key driver of our success is the quality, passion, knowledge, innovation and enthusiasm of our consultants.
If you are passionate about the environment, capable of providing practical solutions in a consultative way and are enthusiastic about motivating others to change then we want to hear from you.
We are expanding our team so if you want to work within a supportive and inspiring culture and be part of a small but fast growing business then click here for more information.
The Council Of Australian Governments (COAG) met in Perth on the second of October. This is the premier meeting of Australian state and territory leaders with the Federal Government. Its role is to achieve policy reform on areas of national significance that require cooperative action by Australian governments. While their discussions are wide ranging, covering everything from the economy to indigenous health, of particular interest to us are the agreements relating to climate change. These discussions centred on improving energy efficiency and the new Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.
Energy Efficiency
COAG has agreed to develop a National Strategy for Energy Efficiency to accelerate energy efficiency efforts across all governments. The strategy should also help households and businesses prepare for the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). The strategy is expected to be ready around June 2009.
Meanwhile, COAG has agreed to develop national legislation for appliance energy performance standards and labelling. Work done here here will be fed into the energy efficiency strategy. A national framework should simplify enforcement and improve consistency across Australia.
This is a very positive step because improving energy efficiency is the most important strategy for reducing carbon emissions.
Carbon Capture and Storage
Carbon Capture and Storage has been identified by some as one of the major pathways to lower carbon emissions. In July 2008, the Group of Eight economies set the goal to commit by 2010 to at least 20 industrial scale demonstration projects to enable the broad deployment of carbon capture and storage technology by 2020.
In September the Prime Minister announced the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. The institute’s role is to accelerate the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage technology. It will also assist supporting areas such as regulatory frameworks.
COAG agreed that the Commonwealth would work with State and Territory governments to finalise the design of the Global Carbon Capture Storage Institute. And they agreed with the principles of supporting CCS research and eventual commercial deployment.
Around 80% of Australia’s electricity production currently comes from coal, and coal exports will earn about $43 billion in 2008-09. Given our heavy reliance on coal and coal exports, it is understandable that the Australian government is keen to fast-track research into this area.
To date although small scale projects have been built, no industrial scale integrated CCS power plant has been built. However as Garnaut points out if carbon capture and storage fails Australia may still be be a country of low-cost and low-emission energy because of abundant geothermal, solar, wind, wave and biomass renewable resources and reserves of natural gas and uranium.
So while COAG’s interest in climate change is positive we should hope that we’re not putting too many eggs in too few baskets. The full COAG communique can be found here.
If you would like to reduce your company’s carbon footprint then personal computers may be a great place to start. There are clear-cut and proven strategies, a lot of resources available to help and in most cases your initiative should be cost-negative.
This list of strategies published by the UK Government CTO Council is a great resource. Here are the reduction strategies they suggest for personal computers:
- Remove active screensavers. A monitor left running with an active screen saver uses the same amount of energy as when the screen is in full use.
- Switch monitors to low power mode after 5 minutes of inactivity. This prevents a longer period of wasted power.
- Shut down PCs after office hours. For the regular working day of 8 hours the overnight period lasts 16 hours, so a running computer could waste twice as much energy overnight.
- Enable active power management on desktops (switch to low power mode after a period of inactivity). Having active power management will match the consumption of energy more closely with use, reducing wasted energy.
- Aim to reduce and re-use equipment that is no longer required but is still serviceable. Some sources claim that the majority of energy in the life of a PC or laptop is consumed in its manufacture, delivery and disposal. By ensuring equipment which is still servicable is re-used you are therefore saving energy which would have been required to dispose of the old product and manufacture a new one.
- If re-use is not possible ensure recycle and disposal is green. PCs and Laptops contain various components, some of which can be recycled, some which can’t and some which may be toxic. By recycling where possible, and using green disposal methods if not, then the end-of-life environmental impact can be minimized.
- Specify low-power consumption CPUs and high-efficiency Power Supply Units (80% conversion or better) . Do not over specify system requirements. The richer the functionality on a device the more mains power is required. Power supply units convert mains AC power to the DC power needed by computers. More efficient units minimise the loss of energy from this conversion in the form of heat.
We have a few other points you might want to consider in your green PC strategy. Firstly, consider providing laptops as an alternative to desktop personal computers. Laptops use less power and have better power management then most desktop computers. If this is cost prohibitive then consider subsidizing the purchase of laptops. In Australia laptop computers can be salary sacrificed and aren’t subject to fringe-benefits tax.
If an employee has a laptop they may be able to avoid the need for a second computer for home. An employee with a laptop may be able to work from home and avoid the carbon impact of commuting to work every day.
Providing a laptop will be perceived as a benefit by most employees and so can be linked as an incentive to other carbon reduction strategies, for example related to business travel.
Secondly, make sure you are able to measure the emissions and energy use associated with personal computers in your organization before you start. By baselining your emissions and energy use you can track progress and demonstrate the benefits of your actions. As well as making good business sense there may be regulatory reasons for proceeding in this way.
Lastly, you may note that many of these strategies can be implemented centrally without action from your employees. For example computers can be shutdown remotely and automatically after hours.
However, we strongly recommend any carbon reduction strategy has communication and change management its heart. This will help ensure that employees will appreciate the action you are taking: they will forgive any personal impacts (for example the need to contact the IT help desk when they are working after hours); it will encourage them to take these actions back with them to the home; and, it will help engender support for future initiatives.
Implementing these strategies will reduce your organization’s carbon footprint but should also — if properly managed — improve employee engagement and reduce costs. Please contact Greensense if you would like help implementing your green PC strategy.