CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa : Green IT

White paper: From Green IT to Greening with IT

jeanne2007 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:02:00 GMT

A few months ago, WWF published a HP-supported white paper called ‘From Green IT to Greening with IT’. The paper is directed mainly at policy makers and aims to explore the role of IT in business and government strategies for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It particularly looks at how the current economic and financial crisis can be turned into an opportunity to promote the uptake of low carbon IT solutions.

The paper illustrates nicely the difference between the meaning of Green IT and Greening IT, which is, I think, really important to stress. Green IT refers to making IT more efficient to reduce GHG emissions from the IT sector, which account for 2% of global GHG emissions. Greening with IT, on the other hand, means providing low carbon IT solutions that reduce GHG emissions across different sectors. Examples would be virtual meetings that replace the need to travel as often, thereby reducing the levels of GHG emissions that are generated from the travel sector. Such Greening with IT solutions can be integrated in all businesses and can consequently have an enormous effect on reducing emissions, as they address the remaining other 98%.

We summarised the main points of the paper in an article. Please have a look at the article and the paper.

This paper is the last in a series of several reports that HP EMEA supported for WWF. You can find links to the reports at the bottom of the article.

For insights into IT as an enabler of a low carbon economy, I can also recommend reading blogs by Dennis Pamlin, the author of the reports.

Jeannette Weisschuh

New WWF study: Go where the jobs are. Go green

jeanne2007 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:42:00 GMT

In economic hard times reports about layoffs and wage-cutting dominate the news agenda. A new WWF study, however, provides much more positive news and shows real opportunities. The report actually discusses how ’green industries’ such as renewable energy, green transport and energy-efficient goods and services are creating jobs. Currently, there are more jobs in those industries than in industries such as mining, gas or steel. The prospects, therefore, are that jobs in the former industries will rise, whilst jobs in the latter are falling.

To read the summary of the report click here and to read the full report, click here.

WWF does great work and publishes frequent reports on important issues. Last year, for example, WWF published a report entitled ’The potential global CO2 reductions from ICT use: Identifying and assessing the opportunities to reduce the first billion tonnes of CO2’ which addresses the need for and potential of energy efficient ICT solutions.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Turn off idle computers and join HP’s Power to Change campaign

ulrikehaug — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:21:00 GMT

HP has just launched a campaign called Power To Change which encourages users to turn off computers when they’re not in use. Not a big deal, you think? I was surprised to read that, in the US alone, only 36 per cent of business computers are turned off at the end of the day.* So, even if you already turn off your idle computer, the likelihood that your colleagues or friends are doing the same is not high.

So with this campaign, you can help to raise awareness and encourage people to save energy. Just go to the ‘Spread the Word’ section on www.hp.com/powertochange and send an email to colleagues, friends and family members.

On the website you can see what our joint efforts amount to: They show how many people are participating around the world; how CO² emissions are saved by turning off computers and how these figures compare in terms of cars that could be taken off the road.

To get more information, you can also visit the Power To Change blog where HP environment and CSR experts blog about the campaign and give useful tips on how to ‘green’ your office. The power to change is in our hands!

Ulrike Haug, CSR Stakeholder Programmes

*Source for computers left on every night (US): Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, After-hours Power Status of Office Equipment and Inventory of Miscellaneous Plug-Load Equipment, Report No. 53729, January 2004.

Computerweek showcases Top Green IT users and vendors

jeanne2007 — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:49:00 GMT

Being green has been top of the agenda for some time now and it is here to stay. Computerworld magazine recently published its annual list of Top Green IT Organisations. The article honours Top Green IT Users as well as Top Green IT vendors. Citing many examples, Ellen Fanning, author, shows how it pays off to be green. Financial services provider State Street Corp., for example, achieved energy savings through server consolidation. Other companies have virtualised their desktops or tackled their energy consumption through sensors to see where and how energy can be saved. In addition to judging the Top 12 Green IT users, the article also honours the Top Green IT vendors. I am delighted to see that, in this list, we jumped from 7th place last year to Number 2 this year.

I can really recommend reading the article to get inspired on how energy can be saved. You can read the article here

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

ZDNet Video: How we green our enterprise

jeanne2007 — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:11:00 GMT

Allow me to point you to a recent HP video profile story produced by ZDNet.

The video summarises our green practices and technologies and includes interviews with Bonnie Nixon, our Director of Environmental Sustainability and Brian Brouillette, our Vice President of Solutions Infrastructure. The video provides a nice overview of how we at HP strive to reduce the carbon footprint of our company. Definitely worth watching. You can watch the video here.

Enjoy

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

HP and ‘Green IT for Dummies’ limited edition

jeanne2007 — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:38:00 GMT

Zoe McMahon, our Environmental Strategy Manager, has some exciting news to share with you. The floor is yours. Best regards, Jeannette

HP and ‘Green IT for Dummies’ limited edition

Last week, the European Commission published a communication on mobilising Information and Communication Technologies to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low carbon economy. This is a clear signal from the European Commission that they recognise the role that IT solutions can play in delivering energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This is great news. But a recent survey from HP found that only one in ten companies in Europe have a formal Green IT strategy, with even fewer considering the role that IT can play in delivering energy efficiency for their business outside of the IT department. Steps to implement a Green IT strategy can be simple.

Several months ago, Freeform Dynamics approached HP to sponsor a limited edition ’Dummies’ Guide to Green IT’ that they had been asked to write. HP wants to make environmental improvements easy for our customers, so we agreed to it and I provided some input to the guide based on my experience of our customers’ own ’green IT’ questions. HP printed a limited number of these guides and we have been distributing them to our customers over the past few weeks.

This week we made the guide available online for the first time. It is intended to be a simple, short guide to ’Green IT’ and how you can start to reduce the environmental impacts of your IT and use IT to reduce the impact of greenhouse gas emissions within your business. See the blog from Freeform Dynamics here and visit the guide here.

Zoe McMahon, Environmental Strategy Manager, HP EMEA

Let’s power up a green IT strategy!

jeanne2007 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:51:00 GMT

I just have seen the most recent announcement made by the European Commission to power up a green IT strategy in Europe.

At HP, we have already been working on offering climate smart solutions for our customers. In 2008, together with WWF, we published a customer report to demonstrate how 1 billion tonnes of CO2 can be reduced with the help of IT solutions.

Currently, we work with Ashridge Business School and EABIS to invite students from major business schools and universities to submit their innovative ideas on how to set up management structures and internal processes to facilitate the implementation of green IT solutions within a company.

A significant number of customers are already working on green company strategies. So the support of the EU to power up green IT strategies is well connected to significant industry efforts that are already on their way.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA