Green Christmas wishes 2011

"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction."
- Bill Gates 


This year has been huge for our Sustainability efforts at Workday.

• We issued our very first CSR report 2010, which was truly a change maker in our journey to be the most environmentally and socially sustainable company we can be. It was a beautiful document, but more importantly it anchored all our efforts in the minds of our executives and fellow employees, so we moved from tree huggers to sustainability managers.
• We had a green and healthy Rising.
• We started composting in the offices.
• We continued and extended our commitment to carbon neutrality by purchasing RECs for 2011.
• We revamped and reinvigorated our green blog.
• And hey, we even got a cool new logo!

Looking ahead, I’d like us all to consider Mr. Gates’ quote for a moment: While this is unfortunately very true to the negative extent in the climate realm, it also is true in the positive direction. Small improvements here and there start building up momentum until they become a shift in perspective for many until we finally reach a tipping point. What wasn’t even conceivable a few years ago is now common sustainable business practice. Think what we can achieve in two, five or even ten years and how it can make a measurable difference. We should be proud of what has been achieved so far and look for opportunities to do more in 2012.

So, I am dreaming of a green Christmas...

100% solar powered hosting provider...and other ideas

In a recent "innovation report", the environmental defense fund (climate411) shows an example of how business can be innovative and green. They provide a case study on how AISO offers hosting 100% powered by solar energy onsite. The report also offers many other ideas that go beyond must-do duplex-printing and CFLs...check it out!

Aplicor's view on green SaaS

Chuck Schaeffer, CEO of Aplicor (another SaaS ERP provider, mainly known for CRM), has posted a good article on what makes SaaS green and what concrete steps can be taken to improve efficiency of data center operations.

http://blog.aplicor.com/071001.htm

He quotes a 2007 APC study whereby only about 30% of data ceneter energy consumption goes into servers, the rest is infrasturcutre to keep stuff running. But there are many other interesting details in his post, so go take a look.

Gartner predicts...going green

Gartner's latest research paper highlights some interesting trends. Apart from further adoption of SaaS as the delivery model for software, it predicts green IT making a much broader impact. Some extracts from the paper to ponder:

Key Findings
- Environmental, or green, issues will directly affect IT decisions related to the purchase of systems, services and the selection of vendors that support the green IT movement.

STRATEGIC PLANNING ASSUMPTIONS
- By 2010, 75% of organizations will use full life cycle energy and CO2 footprint as mandatory PC hardware buying criteria.
- By 2009, more than one-third of IT organizations will have one or more environmental criteria in their top six buying criteria for IT-related goods and services.

Recommendations
- Establish a green initiative in IT to evaluate compliance and to promote a consistent approach to environmental issues.

Al Gore gives updated slide show at TED

TED (my favorite website of all) features an new talk by Al Gore. This updated slideshow offers further thoughts on "the inconvenient truth" we are no doubt facing.

As always, well worth watching at http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/243.

Energy Positive Building

Check out an energy positive building in Abu Dhabi... then browse the rest of this terrific blog for some very interesting green technology.

www.metaefficient.com

Green IT projects save money

Green projects are often criticized for being only feel-good and not financially viable. Especially in times of economic downturn this fallacy is frequently quoted. If done right, green initiatives in IT and other parts of the enterprise can save money and directly and positively affect the bottom line.

Read this InfoWorld article for examples of desktop power-management, virtualization, print management and refurbishing machines.

Green Super Tuesday

With all the hype about the race for presidency it is sometimes hard to remember what any of the candidates are actually proposing in terms of green politics. Everyone knows Al Gore is green, but he ain't running, so here is a high level breakdown for tomorrow:
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1343/

Go make our planet a voting initiative!!!

VP of Eco Responsibility

Sun Microsystems has an official title for the person responsible for their green activities. David Douglas is called VP of Eco Responsibility and runs his blog here: http://blogs.sun.com/enviro/.

Check out his thoughts on data centers and such...