The Green Notebook: Toronto to green $40 billion in procurement

Greening Greater Toronto, an initiative of the Toronto City Summit Alliance, has announced the creation of a working group of over 25 senior executives from some of Canada’s most recognized organizations who will encourage and lead other organizations to buy products and services that minimize environmental impact and create green jobs. The working group, called The Green Procurement Leadership Council represents approximately $40 billion in annual buying power. To help companies identify and purchase green technologies and services, Greening Greater Toronto, with the Toronto Region Research Alliance, will present the inaugural Green Procurement Marketplace on May 11-12, as part of the Ontario Centre of Excellence Discovery ‘09 conference. Tech-related companies participating include Celestica Inc and Telus Corp. Spam is not green McAfee Inc says that the annual energy used to transmit, process and filter spam totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), or 33 terawatt hours (TWh). That’s equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes, with the same GHG emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion gallons of fuel. The company’s Carbon Footprint of Spam study examined the energy expended to create, store, view and filter spam in 11 countries. The study found that the average GHG emission associated with a single spam message is 0.3 grams of CO2. That’s like driving three feet (one metre); but when multiplied by the yearly volume of spam, it is equivalent to driving around the earth 1.6 million times. Nearly 80% of the energy consumption associated with spam comes from end-users deleting spam and searching for legitimate e-mail (false positives). Spam filtering accounts for just 16% of spam-related energy use. The obvious conclusion is that if every inbox were protected by a state-of-the-art spam filter, organizations and individuals could reduce spam energy use by 75% or 25 TWh per year, the equivalent of taking 2.3 million cars off the road. IDC survey says recession staying green According to an International Data Corporation (IDC) survey conducted at its Green IT Forum, when asked to consider green IT, 68% of organizations think of energy efficiency first. And despite the fact that 51% said their organization pursues green initiatives because of the potential cost savings, nearly 8o% admit they have no set budget in place for green IT or sustainability initiatives. The survey found that installing or activating power management controls in personal computers can yield $40 in annual savings per unit. The survey also found that 85% believe green IT will play a medium to large role in reducing corporate environmental impacts. Nearly two-thirds of those in the IDC survey have some sort of IT hardware recycling program in place. But retiring IT assets and security top their list of concerns. Former New Brunswick Premier promotes cellphone recycling The former Premier of New Brunswick, Bernard Lord, is promoting a new cell phone recycling program in the province. Now president of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), Lord says his organization has recycled almost 900,000 devices in the last three years. Material from these devices is recycled and sold, with partial proceeds going to non-profit groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, Tree Canada, and various food banks. New Brunswick recently became the third province to endorse the CWTA’s program, after Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The province currently has 80 drop-off points for old cellphones. HP had a very green 2008 In 2008 Hewlett-Packard (HP) reduced its overall greenhouse gas emissions by 4% over 2007 figures. This is in absolute terms – relative to revenue HP cut emissions by 13% in 2008. The company made big strides in e-waste recycling, green design of IT products, and supply chain emissions reporting. The report breaks down the company’s CSR investments into six categories: global citizenship, ethics and compliance, human rights and labour, environmental sustainability, privacy, and social investment. HP collected 34,000 tons of electronic equipment for reuse, and recycled 120,000 tons of electronics that would have otherwise gone to landfill. This puts HP ahead of its own targets: in 2004 HP set a goal of recycling 1 billion pounds of e-waste by the end of 2007; the company beat that goal by 6 months, hitting the 1 billion pound mark in July 2007. The company is now at 1.7 billion pounds (850,000 tons) of total electronics recycled. IT companies jockey for position in Greenpeace guide Greenpeace has released its latest quarterly assessments of electronics companies, which is based on their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Nokia remains in top place, Samsung moved up into second place for all round improvement and Sony Ericsson fell back to third “with more work to do on recycling”. Nintendo remains in last place. Other significant changes include Philips, the biggest mover, up 11 places to fourth due to big improvements in recycling policy and Apple, up four places thanks to eliminating some chemicals from products and improved recycling. One significant change is that HP, Lenovo and Dell have had a “penalty point” deducted because Greenpeace says they backtracked on a commitment to eliminate PVC and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from their products by the end of 2009. Telecommuting at Canadian companies could make the world greener Vancouver-based Make Good and San Diego think-tank Telework Research Network (TRN) claim that simply by encouraging people to work at home Canadian companies could save 46 million barrels of oil and avoid the production of 9 million tons of green house gas– all the while saving $50 billion a year. Using 2006 Canadian census data, the findings of over 250 studies and the TRN Telework Savings Calculator, the research showed that only 7.7% of about 16 million Canadian workers telecommute, but 5.2 million more could. Perhaps not surprisingly, the research also showed that companies that support telework enjoy reduced real-estate costs, lower absenteeism and turnover, gain access to a broader workforce, and have increased productivity. 98% of green labelled products are actually greenwashed According to TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, which runs the Canadian government’s eco-labeling program, only 2% of products labelled as green are completely legit in their claims. The remaining 98% commit greenwashing sins that include lack of proof, vagueness, irrelevance and plain old lying. Products that make environmental claims and are sold in big box stores in the United States, Canada, Britain, and Australia were surveyed. The problem is partly that there are too many sources and not one reliable, standardized green label. Within the technology sector alone there is EPEAT, Energy Star, as well as vendor-specific labelling systems. Then there are reference sources like Greenpeace’s Electronics Report, Consumer Reports, or the Green Electronics Council. EPEAT success The US federal government has reported major steps towards greening its IT purchases. In the 2008 progress report submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of the Federal Environmental Executive (OFEE) it showed a significant commitment across the government to using EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) for green IT purchasing. There is a new Federal Acquisition Regulation’ (FAR) clause that requires US agencies to prioritize purchase of EPEAT-registered IT products and apparently 13 of the 22 federal agencies reported meeting the goal of 95% or higher EPEAT purchasing in their 2008 IT acquisitions. These 13 agencies between them purchased more than 500,000 EPEAT-registered desktops, laptops and monitors. Launch of GreenerIT.ca strategic platform CATAAlliance and its partners have unveiled a multi-pronged strategy to help Canadian managers in all organizations understand how to build a green IT strategy that delivers near-term, quantifiable cost savings, and long-term environmental benefits. Called GreenerIT.ca, the initiative is being spearheaded by CATA director Michael O’Neil, and involves a partnership of InformationWeek Canada, Canadian Government Executive, CRN Canada, and CATAAlliance, plus sponsorship from APC, D-Link, Samsung, Apple, Cisco, IBM, Lexmark, ServerTech, Targus, Toshiba, and Loop Enterprises.

The Green Notebook: Toronto to green $40 billion in procurement

News | 04/29/2009 7:33 pm EDT

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