Posts Tagged ‘Carbon Footprint’

Five Ways Going Green Can Help Your Business Save Money

Top 15 Green Blogs

Reposted from: GBB.org

There are over 6,000 blogs related to the environment on Technorati, and countless more news feeds, and webzines.. There are hundreds of high-quality, well-written green blogs, so it’s very difficult to limit the list to just 15. This list seeks to balance depth with breadth and rankings popularity with diversity. These blogs represent many different topics, from general interest to news to lifestyle to tech.

1. Treehugger - Launched in 2004 by serial entrepreneur and designer Graham Hill, Treehugger defined a new online green space and quickly ascended to the ranks of the web’s top blogs. With radio, forums, video, television, its own social bookmarking network, and more than 30,000 posts, Treehugger is a comprehensive resource for sustainable modern living. Treehugger publishes posts by over 30 writers around the world updating 24/7. Discovery recently bought Treehugger and the site is now partnered to Planet Green. It’s not hard to see why: with over 2 million unique visitors per month and a Technorati rank of 19, Treehugger is by far the biggest green blog online today. The content is focused on green news, products, and events. Read more…

Deloitte: Best Practices for Going Green

By Deborah Fleischer

What do you think of when you hear Deloitte? You might think of a professional services firm or Big Four auditor. Today, the company has also put a big green stake in the ground, both looking internally to green its operations and as an offering in its consulting practice.

Two aspects of this work are worth noting: Deloitte’s internal green team, working to engage employees in sustainability, and its Green Sync™ tool.

I had the chance to have an e-mail exchange with Thomas Dekar, vice chairman of Deloitte LLP, regional managing principal of the North Central Region and corporate responsibility officer for the Deloitte U.S. Firms. He shed some light on the origins of Deloitte’s programs and offerings.

Read on to learn about Deloitte’s best green business practices for engaging employees in sustainability. Read more…

The Age of Sustainability: Why ‘Less’ Should Be More of Your Business Strategy

By Mahesh Pethe 

Business has officially entered “The Age of Sustainability.”

Most people relate sustainability to climate change and our efforts to sustain Earth’s limited resources.

In the corporate world, it means businesses are being asked — or even expected — to take Earth’s climate into consideration in normal business operations. In this new age, business strategy has been required to adapt to profound changes in how consumers and partners buy, use, interact with and view their products and services. This is particularly true over the last 10 years and will likely continue for at least the next 20 to 30 years.

We have all heard of the phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle,” as the call to think about environmental sustainability when making decisions about products and services. But have you considered that this directive may be in conflict with the common business goal of selling more to achieve higher revenues and profits? Read more…

GreenCitizens launches “Green Business“, an online directory for firms operating in Green sector

By Pranay Jain

GreenCitizens.net, a first of its kind Green Networking Platform has officially launched “Green Business”, a free of cost online directory for firms operating in the world of Green – Energy, Environment, Carbon, Sustainability or Climate Change.

PR Log (Press Release) More than just an online directory, “Green Business” on GreenCitizens.net, provides a networking and marketing platform to organizations engaged in any aspect of green business. It has been created in a way to provide an interactive platform to all organizations.

Every company gets its own dedicated page on GreenCitizens.net, where it can talk about its vision, experience, its initiatives, projects and achievements, share photos and videos, update its followers of its developments and share news with the entire GreenCitizens community. It will act as a marketplace where you will be able to connect with other organizations, both suppliers and potential clients, pave way for strategic partnerships and create visibility for your organization. Read more…

The 20 Most Popular Stories of 2009

By GreenBiz Staff

Oakland, CA — What to make of the 20 most-read stories among the 2,350 (or so) articles and blog posts we ran during 2009 on GreenBiz.com,ClimateBiz.com, GreenerBuildings.com,GreenerComputing.com andGreenerDesign.com

It’s hard to make head or tails of them, in terms of the themes, interests, or. Yes, packaging and Walmart seem to be two recurring themes. Rankings and ratings stories always rank high. Beyond that, 2009 seems a muddle — as, perhaps, in real life, it was. After all, what links termites and windvertising?

Themes or not, here are the stories of ours that you, dear reader, clicked on, Googled, Digged, Scribd, StumbledUpon, tweeted (and retweeted) and linked to the most. Do you see any noteworthy patterns or trends herein? Let us know if you do. Read more…

10 Best Practices for Building Green Teams

By Deborah Fleischer

GreenBiz.com and Green Impact have partnered to release a new report, “Green Teams: Engaging Employees in Sustainability.” Based on interviews with green team leaders from Intel, Yahoo!, eBay and Genentech, as well as a review of the latest literature on employee engagement and green teams, the report provides an overview of the best practices companies are using to support and guide green teams.

It is divided into four key sections: making the business case for green teams; getting started; four emerging trends; and green team best practices.

It is a great resource for companies and organizations just beginning to think about creating a green team and for those ready to take their existing program to the next level.

What is a Green Team? Read more…

Green Technology -Vancouver 2010 Olympics Shines with Sustainability Stars Program

Green Technology -Vancouver 2010 Olympics Shines with Sustainability Stars Program 

By Brendan B. Read 

In just over a month from now athletes, cheered on by spectators and supported and assisted by their trainers and family will begin competing for medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, being held in Vancouver, B.C. Canada.

There is another set of winners from the Games that are already being honored: Games partners, sponsors and organizer VANOC for initiatives that demonstrate positive and measurable social, economic and environmental impacts through the Vancouver 2010 Sustainability Stars program. This showcase will demonstrate to other parts of the world innovations and methods that could help them achieve an improved quality of life while making a difference in the Vancouver area.
To be awarded a Sustainability Star an innovation must, says VANOC: demonstrate two or more sustainability features (social, economic and/or environmental); be directly linked to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games; and produce a measurable outcome. It must also be new to the Vancouver 2010 Games region or the Games in general or significantly scaled up through the Vancouver 2010 Games. Read more…

Telcos Facing Energy Concerns: AT&T Appoints Energy Director

By Katie Fehrenbacher

About 37 percent of the carbon footprint of the entire information and communication technology sector (ICT) in 2007 was due to the energy consumption of telecom infrastructure and devices, according to the Climate Group (14 percent came from data centers, and 49 percent came from PCs and peripherals). Contrast that with telecom’s carbon footprint figure in 2002 which was 28 percent of ICT’s carbon footprint. Phone companies are starting to notice that trend: this morning AT&T announced that it has hired its first Director of Energy John Schinter.

Schinter will be in charge of managing and reducing AT&T’s energy consumption across its network and direct its energy-related purchasing. AT&T says they are in the process of “reorganizing the way AT&T optimizes our energy use,” and hiring Schinter is one part of that. Other energy-related initiatives the phone company has taken in recent years include: creating an Energy Council within AT&T to enable different divisions to talk together about the companies energy goals, establishing a goal to cut “electricity usage intensity (relative to data growth on the AT&T network) by 15 percent, compared to 2008 levels,” using 1E’s NightWatchman power management software on 310,000 AT&T employee computers and looking at alternative energy for AT&T facilities.

Phone companies, like computing companies, are facing a growing expense due to their energy consumption. By 2020 energy use related to mobile networks will make up 13 percent of the total ICT carbon footprint, according to the Climate Group. But the Climate Group is anticipating that phone companies’ energy efficiency efforts (like AT&T’s) over the coming years could provide significant savings. Energy optimization software could save up to 44 percent, renewable energy for base stations could reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent and adopting a variety of measures like these could lead to “the avoidance of almost 60 MtCO2e in 2020,” says the Climate Group. According to Pike Research “there are sufficient technology and process improvements that could reduce 2013 [telco] infrastructure emissions by at least 101 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, a decrease of 42 percent from business-as-usual (BAU) trendlines,” (more on that on GigaOM Pro, subscription required).

Phone companies are also moving aggressively to get into the business of using their networks for both the smart grid and home energy management. AT&T has teamed up with startup SmartSynch, as has T-Mobile. And telcos with home fiber deployments are rapidly looking to layer on energy management as a service, along with voice, video and data (read more about that on GigaOM Pro, subscription required).

Image courtesy of Ericsson.