CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa : energy efficiency

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

Do not rest on your laurels: HP sets new energy reduction goals

jeanne2007 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:50:00 GMT

I came back from my holidays last week. Normally your first day back after a two weeks away is a little bit ‘tough’, but this time it was brightened up by this HP announcement: HP sets new energy reduction goals.

Having achieved our goal of reducing combined energy consumption and associated GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions of our operations and products to 25 per cent below our 2005 levels, we have now taken up our next challenge, related to the integration of EDS into HP: to reduce the energy consumption and associated GHG emissions of our products to 40(!) per cent below our 2005 levels by the end of 2011.

It is encouraging that there are always good reasons to aim even higher. My holidays might be over, but I can look ahead now with great enthusiasm. My team and I will soon start planning, organising and defining our Global Citizenship priorities in the region for our next financial year. You can be sure that we will keep you posted here on our blog.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Video about HP’s power to change campaign

ulrikehaug — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:47:00 GMT

For those of you interested in HP’s power to change campaign, here is a video that illustrates the main essence of our Power to Change campaign. Thought you might enjoy this. We definitely need more ‘Dougs’ in the office!

Ulrike Haug, CSR Stakeholder Programmes, HP EMEA

(Please visit the site to view this media)

HP’s Thin Clients are the first in the industry to achieve ENERGY STAR 5.0 compliance!

ulrikehaug — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:59:00 GMT

Following HP’s recent environmental announcement Jim Campbell will share some details on HP’s latest Thin Clients which were highlighted in the announcement. Enjoy reading, Ulrike

HP’s Thin Clients are the first in the industry to achieve ENERGY STAR 5.0 compliance!

HP is now the first to offer thin clients that meet the new version 5.0 ENERGY STAR specifications. Those HP Thin Clients that meet this stringent specification – which requires using 85-per cent-efficient internal power supplies – include our HP t5145, HP t5540, HP t5545, HP t5630 and HP t5630w models. So what does this mean? Well, first off, HP’s ENERGY STAR® qualified products save customers money by reducing energy costs – which in itself has got to be an instant eye-opener in these difficult times.

As part of our Client Virtualisation portfolio, which offers alternatives to conventional PCs, HP Thin Clients can cut energy consumption by more than 80 per cent compared to a typical desktop PC system. And, because they generate less heat, they require less air conditioning, which saves even more power and cost. In fact, thin clients draw between six and 20 watts per hour compared with 150 to 350 watts for a typical desktop PC. The result is lower electricity bills and reduced CO2 emissions. HP Thin Clients are also more reliable and enjoy a longer life cycle, which again contributes to a much lower total five-year cost. Not only that, with no moving parts, – they’re also much quieter. In fact, studies have shown that decreasing ambient office noise can reduce fatigue and stress, which increases productivity! In a nutshell, companies using a thin client IT system can actually enjoy a triple whammy of benefits – from an improved bottom line, to a reduced environmental impact, to happier and more productive workforce. They might be thin, but HP Thin Clients are bursting with benefits.

Check out the following link for the low-down on the new ENERGY STAR® 5.0, which comes into effect on July 1st: ENERGY STAR® Programme Requirements for computers - Version 5.0.

Jim Campbell, Market Development Manager for Client Virtualisation, 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.

HP announces company-wide environment goals and additions to Eco-Solutions programme

ulrikehaug — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:18:00 GMT

I just briefly wanted to highlight an announcement that HP released today. It provides news from across the company, highlighting new environmental goals as well as new products and services in the HP Eco Solutions programme.

The announcement includes a real wealth of information from different HP businesses and we in the CSR team felt it would be good to zoom in one or two items. I’ve therefore asked some representatives from across HP in EMEA to be guest bloggers on the CSR Blog over the coming weeks and to explain to us in greater detail HP’s environmental strategy for their particular products or services.

So keep watching this space if you’d like to get some deeper insights into what was covered in today’s announcement.

Ulrike Haug, CSR Stakeholder Programmes

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

Join a live webcast with WWF and Gartner on Low Carbon and Environmental Sustainability Leadership

jeanne2007 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:00:00 GMT

I would like to provide you with details of an up-and-coming live webcast with Dennis Pamlin of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Simon Mingay of Gartner Research. They will be discussing the results of research on Low Carbon and Environmental Sustainability in the Information and Communications Technology Sector.

The webcast takes place on Tuesday 24 February from 17:00 to 18:00 CET. You can find more information about the webcast and register here

I would be happy to hear your feedback of the webcast after the event.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

New podcast: Transparency in environmental standards

jeanne2007 — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:43:00 GMT

Following up with Karl’s blog entry on the transparency of our suppliers’ emission, I would like to share a podcast with Jay Celorie, HP Global Program Manager for Supply Chain Energy, who talks in more detail about our long-term programme. To listen to the podcast, click here. Enjoy!

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

EuroNews Video: Save the climate with your computer

BlogArchive — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:54:00 GMT

As part of the European Commission campaign “Sustainable Energy Europe” the European Commission published a video on how to save the climate with your computer. Let me summarize the content of the video, particularly the parts in which HP played a role.

Almost half of all households in Europe have a computer or another information and technology communication (ICT) machine providing economic value but also impacting our environment. This massive use of ICT is a challenge that can be clearly turned into an opportunity - the video shows us how.

Dennis Pamlin from WWF, who is interviewed via videoconferencing, presents two projects on how CO2 emissions can be saved through ICT. He states that with activities like video conferencing, working from home or online billing, 50 million tons of CO2 emissions could be saved. The main message is that ICT creates CO2 emissions but that the sector constitutes at the same time an enormous source to reduce CO2 emissions from other industries (less business travel due to videoconferencing technology for example). The other project he introduces is HP’s work with WWF: We are working together to investigate how ICT can help to reduce 1 billion tons of CO2 emissions.

Roger Benson of Intel mentions the company’s goal of reducing its Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 50 percent. The company supports initiatives like the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which consists of leading corporations which are working with WWF to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.. We just recently announced plans to join this initiative as well. I like the ambitious nature of this initiative and the related goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Amongst other goals, we pledged to reduce emissions from our operations and the use of our products by six million tons below 2005 levels by 2010..

Chandrakant Patel, HP Senior Research Fellow Enterprise Systems and Software Laboratory, indicates that we have to make sure we decrease energy consumption and material consumption. So we have to minimize the burden of ICT and at the same time maximize fundamental need it fulfills. Again a challenge, but not impossible.

The final example of how computer equipment can save the climate comes from the Scottish Telford College which uses energy efficient HP equipment which is certified with the Energy Star. The college belongs to one of the most energy efficient schools and fosters energy efficient behaviour of its students. They are impressed by the different tactics to save energy like the maximisation of sunlight, the automatic switch off/on of the lights in the room or the automatic shut down of all computers in the college in the evening. Students see how they can save energy and hopefully apply it outside their university life.

Besides improvements in reducing the energy consumption of ICT equipment it is important that each of us acts consciously to reduce the energy consumption of our equipment. On our website we collected various energy saving tips some of which are really easy to implement and can have a big impact on the energy consumption of your IT equipment. If we work from all sides – from the technology and ICT sector, and from the individual and consumer side – we can clearly turn the challenge into a great opportunity.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs EMEA, HP