This is a bit off-radar for green business, but seeing as my all my mates seem to be at Glastonbury this weekend (and getting soaked 
), it seems appropriate.
Festival organiser Michael Eavis has ” joined charities Greenpeace, Oxfam and Wateraid in calling for cuts in carbon emission.”
ABC News has the lowdown…
This just in folks…While companies say they want the green thing to happen, many see costs of IT change (such as buying more energy-efficient equipment) as too expensive, a study of IT managers found.
Findings from the Neoware survey were:
98 per cent of respondents thought that the IT industry has a responsibility to become more environmentally friendly
71 per cent of respondents felt that being greener is high on their company’s priorities
60 per cent of respondents do or would evaluate suppliers based on their environmental approach
Here’s a shot of a solar-and-wind-powered mobile phone mast put up in Namibia. It was developed at Motorola’s Innovation Centre in Swindon, UK.
Apparently it is not just developing markets where Motorola predicts a market for these. Remote locations in the developed world face the same problems, where diesel powered GSM cell sites are not uncommon. One UK operator, for example, has more than 600 diesel powered cell sites that are expensive to operate and subject to fuel theft.
Having established a network in urban areas, and about to face competition from new entrants, MTC [Mobile Telecommunications] Namibia’s strategy is to grow its network in more rural parts of the country. Because Nambia is sparsely populated country with a lack of infrastructure, creating a national network comes with its problems.
“It costs us $8K per km, and 12-18 months, to connect a new cell site to the electricity grid. Even then the power supply is unstable, and electricity costs are forecast to rise 40 per cent over the next 3 to 4 years.” Jochen Traut, CTO, MTC Namibia …
Video conferencing company Codian has done its sums (obviously plugging video conferencing instead of plane travel for meetings)…
Regular weekly, and often daily meetings with participants from multiple international offices meant that Permira’s business driver for high-definition video conferencing from Codian was clear from the start: it needed a cost-effective way to empower virtual teams and individuals to facilitate knowledge transfer.
Sharing market knowledge requires close and frequent collaboration. The need for regular meetings is essential but hopping on a plane is not practical - travel is time consuming, expensive and damaging to the environment.
Using Permira’s frequency of meetings and multinational structure, it is easy to calculate the cost in both CO2 emissions and money. Hypothetically, in a single year, this would cost nearly one million pounds and a whopping 626.6 tons CO2 emissions.
Using Permira’s frequency of meetings and multinational structure, it is easy to calculate the cost in both CO2 emissions and money. For example, seven people fly into London Heathrow, using British Airways Business Class, from five European cities, New York and Tokyo .
The total cost for air travel for one meeting would be around £13,000, add to this the cost of two nights accommodation per participant and the cost shoots up to £17,000. This one meeting would contribute to 12.05 CO2 emissions from the flights alone.
Okay, so it’s probably me not looking out for it, but I’d really not heard much about Live Earth - yet another big global rock gig in the style of Live 8 to raise awareness for something - this time, the very Earth it is hosted on.
Turns out Metallica, Kasabian, Pussycat Dolls, and Terra Naomi have just been added to the seven-continent concert series on 7/7/07.
The gig will begin in Sydney, Australia on July 7, 2007 and continue across all 7 continents with events in Tokyo, Japan; Shanghai, China; Istanbul, Turkey; Johannesburg, South Africa; London, United Kingdom; Hamburg, Germany; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before concluding in New York, United States.
Live Earth marks the beginning of a multi-year campaign carried out by The Climate Group, Stop Climate Chaos, the Alliance for Climate Protection, and other international NGOs to move individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve global warming. Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection and a Partner of Live Earth
Here’s a rundown of bands playing around the world… …
During China’s 11th five-year plan (2006 – 2010), it will invest a total of 1.4 trillion RMB ($175 billion) in environmental protection, focusing on the fields of water pollution, air pollution, solid wastes and ecological systems and nuclear safety, according to China Water Web.
This comes at a time when reports were published that China creates two new coal power stations every week.
It also is anticipated that by the end of 2010, the annual increasing rate of China’s environmental protection industry will reach 15 per cent, and its annual value will be 880 billion RMB ($110 billion)
China Water Web has more (in Chinese though )
While the US looks to ethanol to solve the energy crisis,
China has a more ambitious goal by trying to utilize combustible ice.
After nine years of research and 500 million yuan investment, the government announced on June 6th that the combustible ice—the methane gas hydrate on ocean floor –was excavated from the floor of the South China Sea.
“Zhang Hongtao, deputy director of the China Geological Survey Bureau, told a press conference held by the Ministry of Land and Resources that on the morning of May 1, China succeeded in collecting samples of combustible ice from the northern part of the South China Sea.
Natural gas hydrate usually exists in a seabed or tundra areas. It is formed by natural gas and water in conditions of high pressure and low temperature. It looks like ice and can be lit up like solid ethanol, hence the name “combustible ice”. Approximately 164 cubic meters of natural gas can be released from one cubic meter of natural gas hydrate.”
It was a bloody busy day. Met the deadlines and the people and am now back in the office ready for a big old session at the Greenbang.
Had a huge journo lunch with Ben Hunt - the editor who gave me my first break at the FT a couple of years ago. He’s now working in PR for a number of green companies - more on that later.
Also had a fascinating conversation with Michel van Hove, who looks at innovation and sustainability for a company called Innovaro.
His work led him to find that a high proportion of companies that lead in their field and plough heavy resources into innovation are also the ones looking most seriously at sustainability. There was a clear correlation, perhaps because they tend to have a culture of being forward-looking in their business strategy and have the luxury of being able to afford to do so…
It’s true you don’t hear about many mid-sized companies doing green stuff, but I still maintain there is a ton of PR behind those that you do hear about. The question is, is that innovation and culture change or is it just a nice little green angle?
Morning Greenbangers
Got a big day ahead, a ton of deadlines, a few meetings and no doubt a hundred calls from PRs to juggle. But this just caught my eye…
Obviously it suits the company, Adstream, to do this - so let’s watch out for the real motives. The guy in the photo just happens to have a company T-Shirt on. Bless.
But then again, so many companies are now trying to do the right thing in a bid to stay in the business world.
Adstream, provider of digital asset management and distribution services for the global advertising market, has launched an International Tape Amnesty.
On Wednesday (13 June) a team of Adstream staff visited a number of broadcasters and agencies around London, including the BBC, Sky, Buena Vista and Mother, in a bid to raise the awareness of the environmental damage caused by tapes. Adstream collected 4 tonnes (roughly 20,000) of tapes and now plans to roll-out this campaign internationally to its offices throughout Europe. All of the redundant tapes are going to be recycled and turned into pads and pencils and sent to underprivileged schools in the UK and abroad – as well as to participating companies.
The headline says it all, really, but Canadian officials are aiming at the motor industry…
Canada.com takes the glory for this story:
“The Ontario government is committing $650 million to help make Canada an innovator in green technologies and it’s time the federal government stepped up with a similar commitment to fuel the country’s economic powerhouse, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday.
The funding will go toward investing in innovative green cars, clean fuels and clean technologies, which McGuinty said he hopes will also rejuvenate a battered manufacturing sector.”
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