sustainable

What's an enterprise software company doing getting into sustainability? After all, the environmental footprint from software production pales in comparison to resource-intensive industries such as power generation or even running data centers that deliver Web services such as search.

SAP is trying to get ahead of the curve in environmental sustainability strictly for business reasons, according to Peter Graf, who last March was named chief sustainability officer at the Germany-based software heavyweight.

SAP's customers are businesses, which need to comply with regulations, such as reporting greenhouse gas emissions or tracking hazardous substances it may use.

But that's … Read more

A handful of IT companies plan to work with the Sustainability Consortium to come up with a better way to define "green" in electronics.

The Sustainability Consortium was originally formed when retail giant Wal-Mart launched an initiative in 2008 to create a sustainability rating for suppliers. The group now employs researchers from academia and nongovernmental organizations to create methods for measuring the environmental and social impact of products from a wide range.

On Thursday, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Toshiba, Intel, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart said they will work with the Sustainability Consortium on a system for rating electronics based on … Read more

LAS VEGAS--This year's CES sported an expanded showcase for green-oriented gadgets. But arguably the more significant eco-action was tucked away in the booths of the consumer electronics industry's behemoths.

Behind the barrage of wall-to-wall TVs and mobile devices, you can find "eco-products" from familiar suppliers, such as Panasonic, Sanyo, Toshiba, Philips, and LG. In the technology-themed areas, such as the wireless Zigbee zone, there were displays for managing home energy or more fuel-efficient driving.

Green technologies are clearly still on the periphery of the sprawling consumer electronics business, but brand name manufacturers say they are innovating … Read more

Greenpeace is using its latest green-ratings guide to press consumer electronics companies to do more than just clean up their own act.

The 14th quarterly "Guide to Greener Electronics," (PDF) which rates hardware makers on chemical waste, e-waste, and recycling efforts, now assesses each company's public efforts on environmental issues.

The report, issued Thursday, considers whether a company actively lobbies for industrywide laws that would prevent other companies from using environmentally damaging materials, as part of their corporate sustainability obligations.

Specifically, Greenpeace said companies should support a new version of the European Union's RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronics). The update would ban brominated flame retardants (BFRs), chlorinated flame retardants (CFRs), and PVC vinyl plastic from being used in the manufacturing of electronics. (The regulation already restricts how much lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants can be used.)

As far as who's the greenest, Nokia still ranks at No. 1, but Greenpeace reduced the company's overall score by one point for "failing to do proactive lobbying" for the RoHS revisions.

The strategy brings an interesting idea to the forefront. With the new criteria, Greenpeace is essentially attempting to harness consumer buying-power to press private industry to pressure politicians.

But does this strategy really work? When picking out a new cell phone or computer, does the average consumer's thought process include a rundown of whether a company has stopped using BFRs in their products and has lobbied to prevent other companies from using them too.

Still, if no one can use a cheap-but-polluting manufacturing material, the playing field is leveled. Lobbying for a revised RoHS could be a win-win for companies that would like to eliminate the use of certain substances but fear creating an advantage for their competition.

Greenpeace asserts there's good reason for the change.

"The use of harmful chemicals in electronic products prevents their safe recycling once the products are discarded. Given the increasing evidence of climate change and the urgency of addressing this issue, Greenpeace has added new energy criteria to encourage electronics companies to improve their corporate policies and practices," Greenpeace said in a statement.… Read more

At the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, announced a cloud-based method for analyzing deforestation around the world in a much more up-to-date manner than previously possible.

Using Google's terabytes of satellite imagery, it lets scientists look back over time at any location in the world and see how the forest has changed. Going beyond visual comparisons, it uses the power of cloud computing to do actual measurement of deforestation. Much more rapid analysis of the images than is possible on a single desktop computer pinpoints locations of most recent activity. This lets authorities locate … Read more

A recent study by Pike Research has found that over 76 percent of consumers see recycling as the key to reducing the world's e-waste.

However, 37 percent of consumers also think that recycling their e-waste should be a free service, according to "Electronics Recycling and E-Waste Issues," a study released Thursday.

That's not to say consumers necessarily believe electronics manufacturers should be the ones picking up the tab. Only 10 percent of those surveyed saw recycling as a "producer responsibility," and only 14 percent thought the cost of free e-waste recycling should be built-in … Read more

BOSTON--While hundreds of other companies are trying to make a better battery, start-up SustainX Energy Solutions is trying to find better ways to compress and store air to help utilities take full advantage of intermittent sources of energy like wind.

Dax Kepshire, president of SustainX, sketched out the company's technology and product plans here Thursday at the Fifth Annual Conference on Clean Energy. SustainX was spun out of Dartmouth College last year and received $4 million in funding from Polaris Venture Partners and Rockport Capital in August of this year. It now has 10 employees.

There are already a … Read more

After decades of developing technology to explore space, NASA is bringing its expertise in self-sustaining systems back to Earth.

The NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for Sustainability Base, a research center that will be a net zero energy building.

The project aims to be a proof-of-concept for sustainable design and a number of green technologies developed at NASA.

The building will be powered by ground-source heat pumps from 72 geothermal wells, considered the most efficient way to heat and cool buildings.

There will be solar hot water collectors and a network of sensors … Read more

It's hard to ignore the incessant messages to buy local, plant a garden, check for organic labels, and lead a sustainable lifestyle, yet most of us dismiss these suggestions as practices that require too much money, time, and effort.

And it's true--they really do.

Last summer I went through a green phase, heading to the plant store to purchase soil, seeds, shovels, pots, and everything else that Martha Stewart suggests I buy. Well, $120 and two weeks later, I had forgotten I'd even planted a garden and deemed my project a failure.

Thankfully, there is hope for … Read more