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Tech company sustainability reports reviewed – Updated

Corporate Social Responsibility
Original photo by ATIS547

I was asked on Twitter recently where to find a list of links to tech companies’ CSR reports.

I didn’t know where to find one, so I built one and as well as just the links, I also added in a few extra observations I noted about the reports.

[table id=4 /]

As previously reported here, the 2009 SAP Sustainability Report is superb.

Another company in the list worthy of note is BT, whose report, despite the lack of interactivity, is the only other report to hit the GRI A+ rating.

HP’s site has gone heavy on design to the detriment of usability which is unfortunate because some of the content is really good.

After that, almost all of the companies who have a 2009 report published have done a really good job. The exception to this is Microsoft whose 2009 report, while an improvement on previous reports, still has a long way to go to approach a professional CSR Report standard.

Of the companies who have yet to publish their 2009 report, Oracle and Adobe’s 2008 reports are lacklustre attempts, at best. Neither report to GRI standards and both are long on pretty pictures and short on relevant data.

Having said that, at least Oracle and Adobe are producing Sustainability reports.

The three laggards in this list are Google, Amazon and Apple – none of whom are producing sustainability reports at the minute.

In their defence, Google has its Going Green at Google website and Apple has its Apple and the Environment site, both of whom go into considerable detail on each companies initiatives. In Apple’s case, it does go deep into a lot of the data you would normally see in a Sustainability report. Why it refuses to produce a formal report is beyond me.

In contrast, Amazon’s attempt at an Environmental site/page is an embarrassment. If this is the best they can do, honestly, they’d be better off doing nothing.

One issue I noted was that HP, Cisco and Apple [PDF] all report on sourcing 100% renewable power in Ireland. This is not possible for the reasons I outlined in this post.

What other companies should I add to this list? Please feel free to suggest any in the comments and I will update the list.

UPDATES:
Since publishing this, Nokia have brought out their excellent 2009 report and it is now included above.
Also, based on suggestions received on FaceBook I have added details about 3 other companies (NEC, Fujitsu and Indra Sistemas). It was also suggested there that I go over various telco companies CSR reports. I’ll leave that to a separate post.

You should follow me on twitter here.

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Energy and Sustainability show for March 15th

We had a couple of snafu’s on the show today. At the beginning of the show we had some calendaring confusion and a couple of people watching last week’s show thinking it was the live one!

Then I had a close call at the end of the show when I thought I had stopped broadcasting but left the camera and mic on inadvertently! While it is true I uttered an expletive, at least I didn’t do a Nellgate on it!!!

Here is the chatstream from the show:

Tom Raftery :
Hi everyone

?16?:?33
monkchips :

have i been watching last week’s show?
nice

?16?:?34
yellowpark :

hahaha

?16?:?34
monkchips :

well change the recurring calendar entry then …
?
16?:?34
Tom Raftery :

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/313715,11-siberian-tigers-starve-to-death-at-chinese-zoo.html
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/chile-earthquake-moved-entire-city-10-feet-to-the-west
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2010/03/the_challenges.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62E14Z20100315
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/10/spain-barcelona-snow
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/11/juanita-goggins-dead-once_n_495498.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/nokia-moving-into-kinetically-charged-cell-phones-files-new-patent.php
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20000430-54.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=GreenTech
?
16?:?43
Joe :

some sense from the auto industry at last…
?
16?:?43
MikeTheBee :

Hi Tom, oh, no date display today?
?
16?:?43
Tom Raftery :

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/new-charging-method-could-mean-exponentially-faster-battery-recharge-times.php
http://www.nytimes.com//2010/03/12/opinion/12chase.html
http://www.grist.org/article/death-of-a-thousand-cuts

?16?:?47
monkchips :

Smith Electric Vehicles Eyes Road to an IPO http://bit.ly/b76p5F #logistics #WAYmoreinterestingthantesla
never mind Tesla, a logistics EV IPO!
?
16?:?48
Tom Raftery :

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/cisco-saves-over-24-million-with-packaging-diet.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/dell-launches-most-efficient-desktop-computer-to-date.php
http://www.viridity.com/blog/bid/36035/Top-7-Reasons-to-Remove-Orphan-Servers-from-the-Data-Center-Floor
http://www.ceres.org/ceresroadmap
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn10_042/pn10_042.aspx
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/15/rbs-blinded-by-spin

?16?:?52
Ian B :

UK still has lead in wave and tide development – but for how long?

?16?:?53
MikeTheBee :

Ireland are working hard to take the lead.
?
16?:?53
Tom Raftery :

http://blogs.msdn.com/mspowerutilities/archive/2010/03/11/let-s-call-the-smart-grid-what-it-is-disruptive.aspx
?
16?:?54
Ian B :

Yeah should have said UK and Ireland
?
16?:?55
Tom Raftery :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/15/bp-shell-tar-sands-green-energy
?
16?:?56
monkchips :

this is the same company claims 70% of its employees are workin on cloud…?
?
16?:?57
Tom Raftery :

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/trash-wifi-afghanistan.html
?
16?:?57
monkchips :

superb!
?
16?:?58
Tom Raftery :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hereford/worcs/8562434.stm

?16?:?58
Ian B :

Too right
?
16?:?58
Tom Raftery :

http://www.fastcompany.com/1575650/cleveland-mall-gets-a-new-life-as-a-giant-greenhouse
?
16?:?58
MikeTheBee :

But all his family keep the money
?
16?:?59
Tom Raftery :

http://www.avaaz.org/en/protect_the_elephants/
?
17?:?00
MikeTheBee :

No date stamp today?, Tom
np
He made 45mill
Thx Tom.
?
17?:?02
Tom Raftery :

Thanks everyone for your comments and interest
?
17?:?03
Ian B :

Thanks Tom
?
17?:?03
monkchips :

nice close! “oh fuck!”#
?
17?:?03
MikeTheBee :

I still find it strange that when I am *not* logged into Zoho chat the links are clickable, but after I log in they are not. Wierd or what.
?
17?:?04
monkchips :

dont have a hand shandy there tom, you’re still broadcasting…
?
17?:?04
MikeTheBee :

You are still *LIVE* Tom
?
17?:?05
monkchips :

how long are you over for? which show is it?
?
17?:?06
MikeTheBee :

THE END!
?
17?:?06
Tom Raftery :

LOL!!!
Thanks guys

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(Lack of) Sustainability in the Mobile industry

I realised recently that although I have referred to the talk I gave in Barcelona on Mobile Sustainability (for the Mobile 2.0 conference) in a couple of posts I never talked about the talk directly here, so now it is time to redress that.

I have posted the slide deck above so you can follow along with the slides above and my explanation below.

Slides 1-3 are simply my introducing the topic and myself (along with my contact details).

I started off with a bit of a background:

  • Slides 4-6 I start to talk about some of the reasons why sustainability is important. Climate change, for example, is real and is recognised as real. Even that last hold-out, the US government, has now admitted it is real and have set up the United States Global Change Research program to study the effects of Climate Change on the US.
  • Slide 7 – New studies show that the impacts of climate change are likely to be worse than we anticipated
  • Slide 8 – The polar ice caps are shrinking far faster than anyone predicted
  • Slide 9 – Climate change is affecting animal populations today
  • Slide 10 – Climate change is affecting the world’s river systems, and thus access to water for many people globally today
  • Slide 11-13 – This is having devastating effects on people in South America, the Middle East, and Asia (and agriculture in Australia and California)
  • Slide 14 – NGO’s are warning that the humanitarian systems, already stretched thin, will be overwhelmed

Then I went on to discuss the business case for sustainability today:

Having set the stage (we need to be more sustainable, and look, there is a strong consensus that there is a business case for it too), I started to bring the talk around to the subject of the Mobile industry:

  • Slide 24 – Quote from Smart 2020 report saying ICTs could deliver emissions reductions of at least 15% by 2020
  • Slide 25 – While there are 1 billion PCs in the world today, and 1.4 billion Internet users, there are 4 billion mobile phone subscriptions
  • Slides 26-29 – Examples of Green handsets from Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. I made the point here that in many cases the ‘Green handsets’ being produced by manufacturers are simply so they can ‘tick that box’ in the annual report. Sony had 57 handsets on their website. 1 was green. Green handsets should be the rule, not the exception.
  • Slides 30-33 – I checked out the websites some of the main mobile operators. 3 have no mention whatsoever (that I could find) of sustainability on their corporate website; the websites of Telefonica and O2 had Sustainability sites but they could both stand a lot of work, while Vodafone’s Sustainability site was the best of the mobile operators which I examined (that’s not to say it couldn’t stand some improvement too!)
  • Slides 34-36 A quick look at some of the Sustainability apps which have been developed for the mobile platform – slim pickings, tbh!

So having shown how poorly this industry is doing in terms of sustainability, I posited a few what-if’s:

  • Slide 38
    What if manufacturers made phones which lasted 6 yrs not 6 months? Rent, not buy?
    What if manufacturers made non-toxic handsets?
    What if manufacturers standardised to usb chargers?
    What if mobile operators switched to e-billing?
  • Slide 39
    What if carriers avoided unnecessary duplication in mobile networks, (would lead to a savings of 300gWh pa in UK alone)
    What if everyone pushed sustainability down supply chain?
    What if developers used mobile platform to build apps which ‘made a difference’?
    What if grid computing client apps were created for mobiles?
    Other?

Under the “Other” heading go ideas like creating Augmented Reality applications for handsets with sustainability related information, or what if the phone makers included pollution sensors (for example) in handsets. With the ubiquity of handsets and with most handsets having inbuilt Internet access, it wouldn’t be long before realtime information on air quality worldwide would be available. Combine that with an Augmented Reality app so people can visualize live their air quality and you would very quickly see changes in people’s behaviour.

Finally, I concluded with two quotes to show why this is critical:

  • Slide 40 – From the 2007 IPCC Climate Change Synthesis Report [PDF Warning]
    As global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5 degrees C, model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe.
  • Slide 41 – From the Chair of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri
    If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.

The thing to remember here is that Rajendra Pachauri is a George Bush appointee. He was appointed Chair of the IPCC because his predecessor, Dr. Robert Watson was deemed by the American fossil fuel industry (and in particular ExxonMobil) to be too outspoken.

Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCC’s quotes are the conservative point of view.

Mobile phones are ubiquitous. There are in excess of 4 billion of them. They are now for all intents and purposes hand-held computers, increasingly with an Internet connection. Shame on us all if we don’t leverage this incredible resource in the battle to mitigate the effects of climate change.

UPDATE: After I gave this talk, Vodafone, in conjunction with Accenture, issued a report called Carbon connections: quantifying mobile’s role in tackling climate change [PDF Warning]. In this report Vodafone claim that:

mobile technology could cut Europe’s annual energy bill by at least €43 billion and effect a reduction in annual greenhouse gas emissions by at least 113Mt CO2e by 2020. This represents 18% of the UK’s annual CO2e output in 2008 and approximately 2.4% of expected EU emissions in 2020.

The report goes on to say that the opportunities for carbon savings come from two main areas – Smart machine-to-machine (M2M) services (Smart Grids, Smart Logistics, Smart Manufacturing and Smart Cities) and Dematerialisation (i.e. video-conferencing, online shopping, etc.).

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IPv6: Towards a Greener Internet

As you probably know by now, we’re very interested in the idea of what might constitute a green API or protocol, so I was very interested when I received a link via twitter from @Straxus (Ryan Slobojan).

The Aon Scéal? (That’s Any News in Gaelic) blog by Alastrain McKinstry points to this piece by Yves Poppe which argues that IPv6 could save 300 Megawatts.

Easy to forget that most mobile devices used by Time Square revelers were behind IPv4 NAT’s and that always on applications such as Instant Messaging, Push e-mail, VoIP or location based services tend to be electricity guzzlers. It so happens that applications that we want always to be reachable have to keep sending periodic keepalive messages to keep the NAT state active. Why is that so? The NAT has an inactivity timer whereby, if no data is sent from your mobile for a certain time interval, the public port will be assigned to another device.

You cannot blame the NAT for this inconvenience, after all, its role in live is to redistribute the same public addresses over and over; if it detects you stopped using the connection for a little while, too bad, you lose the routable address and it goes to someone else. And when a next burst of data communication comes, guess what? It doesn’t find you anymore. Just think of a situation we would loose our cell phone number every time it is not in use and get a new one reassigned each time.

Nokia carried out the original study. Good work Nokia researcher guys! Another way of looking at the saved energy, which I think we’d all vote for, is potentially longer battery life of our mobile access devices. I am sure the folks at Nortel, who are so enthusiastically driving the green agenda for competitive advantage, would be interested in this research, and quite honestly its one of the first arguments I have heard that makes me think ah yes IPv6 lets pull the trigger. There are some good skeptical arguments in the comments here, but on balance I can definitely see the value of the initial research. Its surely worth further study.

While writing this article I also came across the rather excellent Green IT/Broadband blog. The author clearly believes in our Bit Miles concept, even if he doesn’t call it that.

Governments around the world are wrestling with the challenge of how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The current preferred approaches are to impose “carbon” taxes and implement various forms of cap and trade or carbon offset systems. However another approach to help reduce carbon emission is to “reward” those who reduce their carbon footprint rather than imposing draconian taxes or dubious cap and trade systems. It is estimated that consumers control or influence over 60% of all CO2 emissions. As such, one possible reward system of trading “bits and bandwidth for carbon” is to provide homeowners with free fiber to the home or free wireless products and other electronic services such as ebooks and eMovies if they agree to pay a premium on their energy consumption which will encourage them to reduce emissions by turning down the thermostat or using public transportation. Not only does the consumer benefit, but this business model also provides new revenue opportunities for network operators, optical equipment manufacturers, and eCommerce application providers.

European IPv6 Day, hosted by the EU is on the 30th May. Come to think about it the guy I should talk to about green IP is Vint Cerf of Google.