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Logica on Sustainability

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I attended an excellent Logica briefing in the UK recently and had the opportunity to have a quick chat with Tony Rooke, Head of Sustainability & Environment for Logica UK.

In our chat we discussed Logica’s internal Sustainability projects as well as ways in which Logica are addressing the greater Sustainability agenda.

According to Tony, in this piece, their Windfarm control system is controlling 2,000 turbines in 80 windfarms across the Iberian peninsula!

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GreenMonk news roundup 03/28/2009

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  • Open For Questions

    The trial run of Open for Questions has wrapped up with the President answering several of the most popular questions during a special online town hall. We will be trying to address more of the questions the President could not get to over the next week or so, and will continue looking for new ways to engage with the public and get your input.

    tags: obama, greenmonktv, open for questions

  • How Monsanto put this farmer in court over GE seed | Greenpeace Australia Pacific

    n February 2007, Monsanto initiated a law suit against Moe Parr. The biotech company claimed that Moe had encouraged farmers of genetically engineered (GE) soybean to save their seed.

    Moe is one of many farmers in North America who’ve faced coercion from Monsanto through legal and economic intimidation.

    tags: monsanto, ge seed, greenmonktv

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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What will it take for America to wake up to the threat of climate change?

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Open for Questions

President Obama hosted an interesting experiment yesterday. On his Open For Questions site, he requested people to submit questions to him and vote on submitted questions. Subsequently, in a special online Town Hall, he answered several of the most popular questions – fabulous stuff.

However, despite hurricane Katrina devastating New Orleans, one of the US’s best known cities and now Fargo and many parts of North Dakota under threat of 43 foot floods, the top two questions in the Green Jobs and Energy category were related to legalising marijuana, not climate. Wtf?

Unbelievable, to me at least.

92,935 people submitted 104,032 questions:

  • 7,444 were in the Green Jobs and Energy section.
  • 2,136 contained the term “Marijuana” (another 31 contained “Marajuana”, 6 contained “marijana”, 7 contained “marijuna”)
  • 262 contained the term “cannabis” (and another 9 contained “Canabis”)
  • Only 294 contained the term “Warming”
  • And a measly 207 contained the term “Climate”

Incredible!

I used to think Jonathon Porritt, founder director of Forum for the Future and chair of the UK’s Sustainable Development Commission, was being a bit extreme when he said:

I have occasionally fantasised about a low mortality-count scenario where a Force Six hurricane takes out Miami, but with plenty of warning so the entire city is evacuated with zero loss of life. The insurance industry in America would collapse because this could be a $50-60 billion climate-related ‘natural’ disaster. The industry wouldn’t be able to cope with that. There would be knock-on pain throughout the global economy, massive, traumatic dislocation. This would act as enough of an injection of physical reality, coupled with financial consequences for leaders to say: ‘Ok, we’ve got it now. This isn’t just about some nasty effects on poor countries: this is devastating for our entire model of progress.’ The response to that would be a negotiated transition towards a very low-carbon global economy that builds increased prosperity for people in more equitable and sustainable ways.

But, unfortunately now, I’m not even sure that’d do it.

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GreenMonk news roundup 03/27/2009

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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SAP’s Environmental Health and Safety Management solution

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In the third part of my interview with SAP’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Peter Graf, we discuss SAP’s Environmental Health and Safety Management solution.

Why is this important? Several reasons:
– employee health and safety,
– compliance with constantly changing EHS regulations (REACH, and WEEE for example),
– increasing importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and from SAP’s perspective,
– annual investment in EHS solutions between 2008 and 2010 is expected to reach $80bn.

Sustainability isn’t just about carbon footprints – it is great to see SAP helping its large customer base be better corporate citizens.

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GreenMonk news roundup 03/26/2009

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Tour of Adobe’s triple Platinum LEED certified HQ

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LEED (short for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a building rating system, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), that provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction.

In 2006 Adobe’s HQ in San Jose became the world’s first commercial enterprise to achieve a total of three Platinum certifications under the LEED program – a hugely impressive achievement.

I was lucky enough to be given a tour of the facility when I was there recently – some notable stats – in working towards LEED certification Adobe:
– reduced electricity use by 35%
– natural gas by 41%
– domestic water use by 22%
– irrigation water use by 76%

Also, Adobe is now recycling or composting up to 95% of solid waste.

One of the great things about the LEED certification is that it has an ongoing re-certification element (Adobe has chosen to be audited every 3 years) and there is a constant process of improvement.

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GreenMonk news roundup 03/25/2009

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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GreenMonk news roundup 03/24/2009

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Get Rich Quick: a green roundup from IBM’s VP Energy and Utility – Show 1: Water

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Rich Lechner is IBM’s VP Energy and Environment.

I first met Rich at the Pulse 09 event in Las Vegas earlier this year where he gave a great talk on Sustainability & the role of IT.

Rich has agreed to come on the GreenMonk show monthly to give us a state of the ‘sustainosphere’ from an IBM perspective!

This is month one and we are talking Water – among the many interesting water-related items, watch out near the end for Rich’s alluding to using Demand Response for water flow management!