Green IT Blog!!!

Climate change is no more a fancy technical term to be debated by scientists and researchers, rather a hard reality that is affected and felt by all of us. For centuries, man had been oblivious to the impact his actions had on the ecology. Thus, unhindered environmental degradation and pollution continued unabated under the garb of progress. Every detrimental action was excused with the term, for a better tomorrow.

But now that tomorrow seems to be turning into today, we seem to have started seeing the fruits of our actions. A vivid example could be this years winter and summer in the city of Mumbaiboth being unusually harsh. It is obvious that there is a shift taking place, and, undoubtedly, a shift for the worse.

The scenario seems to be pretty bleak and beyond our control, isnt it? So, is there anything that we can do, and is there anyone who can save us? The answer to both the questions is no. Just because the problem is on us, does not mean that the solution is beyond us. In fact, each and every one of us is a part of the solution. I firmly believe that if every single individual, including you and me, were to make a concerted effort towards saving electricity and not polluting our environment, the solution would appear by itself. The onus is very much upon us, and every small step will go a long way in fighting climate change. Let me share with you my experiences borne over years of running IT systems at the State Bank of India.

One might wonder how the IT and environment might be related? The answer is not hard to guessin almost all modern organizations, IT systems are the biggest guzzler of power. Thus, IT departments can become the harbinger of change and lead the way in terms of environmentally friendly practices. But typically, when companies talk of Green IT, they refer to concepts like green data centers, virtualization, green storage, mainframes, blade servers, etc. There seems to be a lot of hype around these concepts with various vendors trying to sell their products under the green garb. Read more…

Emission trading seems like a win-win in the short term but not fair as a long-term solution to global warming.

Considering the pace at which global warming is changing the environment, even cynics are unable to ignore its importance. Also, considering factors like oil prices at a historical high, global food crisis due to diversion of crops for making hybrid fuels, derivative trading, food loss due to natural disasters, etc, each of us is personally affected with increased cost of living and contending with weather extremes. Not forgetting the drastic consequences for techies as we thrive in a global economy and are connected to businesses worldwide. Lately, there has been a heated debate about emission trading.

What is Emission Trading?
A decade ago, it was realized that without economic incentives, one cannot get governments worldwide to work together to stop global warming, this concept was floated at the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and agreed to by 192 countries that later signed the Kyoto Protocol. In Kyoto Protocol, different countries were allocated different emission limits. If the limit was exceeded, they could balance it by buying emission credits from countries that were below their allocated limits.

However, it is hard to assign emission credits to an entire country. Thus, it was decided that industries and other groups inside a country should be used to determine the emission limits, making them the proprietors of emission trading. The trading is done by a process called cap and trade where various companies that wish to trade approach either an international authority or a government body that assigns them an emission cap. This can be more easily explained through the mark-rank school system.

Assume the authority assigns a company ABC a 70% emission cap while another company DEF gets an emission cap of 60%. In the exams, however, ABC gets only 50% while DEF secures 80%. In a school system, ABC would rank lower as it got less marks than DEF. However, since pollution is considered harmful, higher is not considered better, thus, the mark-rank system is reversed. In the emission trading system, ABC is ranked higher as it got only 50% as opposed to its allocated 70%, earning a credit of 20%. This it can sell to DEF that went past its cap of 60% and got 80%. While ABC makes money by polluting less, DEF will lose money as it will have to buy credits from others to achieve its limit. Overall, the total emission levels set are met and pollution levels dont increase.

Simply put, companies that pollute less than their limit become sellers and those that pollute more than their prescribed limit become buyers. The buyers are penalized as they have to buy credits from the sellers. Thus, emission trading attaches a monetary tag to pollution, which hopefully will induce companies/countries to pollute less by adopting environment-friendly practices, and, in turn, reduce global emissions.

Is it Good?
Several companies worldwide are already indulging emission trading. This is particularly true for tech companies, especially in the energy, manufacturing, and IT

• Use of Alternative Energy Technologies will Increase: Some agree. John Findlay, London, says, With rising oil prices worldwide, change to alternative technologies like solar, wind, and hybrid fuels is inevitable especially in developed countries and emerging powers like India and China. This is good as it means less emissions. Others disagree. Jenny Jackson, Los Angeles, says, This is sheer baloney. Whoever thinks that ordinary people can afford the expensive hybrid models is crazy. For example, the auto-insurance rates are high and you cant get it fixed if there is a problem. For power to see a real change, we need alternative power on a massive scale. With powerful corporate lobbyists, this is not easy.

• Carbon Tax: Instead of emission trading, introduce carbon tax for the polluters, say some. J Ramakrishna, Hyderabad, says, Instead of emission trading which doesnt reduce total emission levels, it would be better if governments imposed a high tax on polluters. This will make them use energy-efficient technologies. Ashley Roebuck, systems consultant, US, disagrees, That doesnt make any fiscal sense. Taxing a company for emission will make production costlier, possibly cause its bankruptcy, and lead to massive layoffs. Since energy-related companies contribute substantially to pollution, itll result in oil price rise and related commodity prices.

• Trading on Poverty: Aditya Dasgupta, Pune, says, Emissions trading involves the trading of permits to emit greenhouse gases. Who are the biggest polluters? The West. And since they cant reduce emissions, they think by offering us money they can meet their goals. But what about the millions of people here who still dont have access to basic amenities? While we concentrate on poverty eradication, Western countries should change their destructive consumption patterns. Emission trading is wrong as it is like futures trading on poverty. Others disagree. Jessica Hamilton, Australia said, Poverty trading? Emission trading brings in money to poor countries that can be used to eradicate poverty. More importantly, companies/governments of emerging economies wont make the same mistakes the developed nations made.

• Clean Development Mechanisms: Emission trading will mean more companies will opt for clean development mechanism (CDM), so they can make money. Says Nisha Menon, New Delhi, If you look at bagasse (the pulp/dry waste left after the juice is extracted from sugar cane, grapes, etc) based cogeneration in sugar mills in India, carbon trading has driven companies to look at higher efficiency technologies to burn bagasse and generate more electricity which ends in the electricity supply pool. In a supply deficit situation, this may seem hypothetical but such efforts actually help in reducing the coal dominated utility capacity addition. Desiree Annaheim, Switzerland, disagrees, This might be true for certain companies. CDMs are harder to implement for companies from emerging economies because of the development factor. It would make more sense for developed countries to implement CDMs on a massive scale and offer developing countries economic incentives to implement them.

Way Forward
Emission trading seems like a win-win in the short term but not fair as a long-term solution to global warming. The way forward would be for individuals worldwide to choose energy fasting.

Energy fast is pretty much the same as a food fast, except you go completely without man-made energy for a day. But why energy fast instead of a natural resource like water fast. This is because after population pressures, human energy use is the second link in the chain of environmental destruction. All humans need energyfor warmth, cooking, manufacturing, transportation, and communication. Evidently, location, refining, production, and distribution of consumer-ready power itself require energy.

If you think that as an individual you cannot make a difference, think again. There is an old African proverb, If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito.(Deepa Kandaswamy. The author is the founder-moderator of the IndianWISE e-group.
(c) Deepa Kandaswamy. First serial rights, CyberMedia 2008. Any quotes or reprints from this article must link to this article and credit author Deepa Kandaswamy and Dataquest. This article may not be distributed in any manner without written consent from the author.)

Monsantos global data center was built as a typical data center and it was over forty years old. Some aspects of the facility were beginning to show its age, also the data center was getting way too crowded for comfort, and that was when a project was evolved where it was decided to look at building a new data center.

As a result of Monsantos green culture and the companys commitment to environmental conservation, justification for the project was not a difficult task for the companys CIO.

At the onset, it was decided to see if we could build a data center for the future, which meant that the data center would lower operational costs and decrease power consumed, and would also enable growth for the company by using innovative techniques in terms of spacing out the data center.

When we began designing a new $21 mn data center about five years ago, it was a decidedly green effort from the word go.

The 40,000-sq-ft facility, which was completed last July, was designed with a 17-ft floor-to-ceiling span to promote airflow and eliminate the need for power or cooling units on the data centers floor. And the glass screen that covers the front of the building isnt just aesthetically pleasing: it can withstand the wind force of an F3 tornado and screens 60% of the suns rays, thus, lowering the demands on the buildings cooling systems. The data center has also been built to withstand category 4 earthquakes as well.

The carefully planned facility initiatives would result in savings of around 27% energy consumed as compared to a conventional data center. Apart for this, there was a large-scale focus around infrastructure rationalization/consolidation with the increasing use of virtualization. Over the past three years, Monsanto has eliminated 334 servers, and it is running just 16 Windows- and Linux-based machines today. Around ten global data centers were consolidated into one single hub and this has helped us realize energy efficiency savings as well.

Monsanto has also committed to purchase 10% of the total energy consumption at its headquarters from renewable sources such as wind power, and has a concerted effort to work in an efficient and effective telecommuting model.

The data center was completed in the second half of 2007 and saves more than 25% of building energy, compared to a conventionally designed data center. We also anticipate receiving Leadership in Energy Efficiency and Design (LEED) certification this spring, making it the first LEED registered data center in the state of Missouri, and the third LEED certified data center in the country.

Migration of most servers and services has been completed from the old data center to the new data center and the teams in India were part of the global data center upgrade project.

Some Takeaways
Green data centers result in a win-win situation where the environment issue is addressed and the costs of operations are also brought down.

By making simple investments in terms of the type of glass procured, the height of the ceilings, the physical location of servers, etc, you can derive significant costs savings in terms of energy consumed and reducing operational costs.

By strategically looking at areas like physical data center consolidation through virtualization, significant savings can be realized for the company as well as for the environment.

(Anand Kumar. The author is regional lead, IT at Monsanto. Published in Dataquest)

With the advent of green architecture, productivity and environmental harmony, both seek to be impressed.

Rising sea levels, unpredictable weather patterns, depleting ozone layers: what have these to do with architects and building designers? A lot. If statistics are to be believed, data from the US Energy Information Administration illustrates that buildings are responsible for almost half (48%) of all GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions annually. Seventysix percent of the electricity generated by US power plants is supplied to the building sector. The building sector in India is also growing at a rapid pace and stands as the third largest consumer of energy after industry and agriculture.

Thus a certain amount of responsibility lies on the architects and designers to postpone the ravages of carbon footprints on this planet. Green architecture seeks to minimize the negative impacts that a building leaves behind. Also, thanks to the Internet, the concept of green architecture is no longer mere
textbook knowledgemany architectural practices have become sensitive to the growing need to adopt methods, processes, materials, and products to construct buildings that are in harmony with nature.

What is a Green Building?
Some of the salient features of a green building are minimal disturbance to site conditions, use of non-toxic, recycled and environmental friendly building materials, efficient use of water, efficient use of energy through eco friendly appliances, usage of renewable energy, and the use of intelligent building management systems. It is also important to monitor the quality of indoor air for human safety and comfort.

Processing and transportation hassles can also be minimized by using local natural resources, in turn lowering economic and environmental costs. Moreover, using any natural material (be it stone, glass, lime or mud plasters, rammed earth, bricks, tiles, untreated wood, cork, paper, reeds, bamboo, canes and grasses) is considered environmentally healthy and sustainable in the long run. Development Alternatives World Headquaters, New Delhi has used recycled waste flyash bricks, mud compressed bricks, and ferro cement roofing in its construction. The trilogy of reduce, reuse and recycle is also important to achieve material efficiency.

Water efficiency for one aspect can be achieved by using low flow faucets and dual flush systems in toilets. More importantly in todays scenario of water scarcity, rainwater harvesting should be an integral part of every buildings architecture to minimize the quantity of water that runs off. In ITC Green Center, Gurgaon, there has been a 40% reduction in potable water use by the implementation of this method. Moreover, they use treated grey water for flushing and landscaping.

Conserving Energy
The most important aspect of green architecture is energy efficiency. It is not just energy savings, but its more to do with energy management, efficient use of energy, daylight harvesting, HVAC integration, and energy generation by green means. This would help minimize operational costs and conserve energy. In CII Godrej GBC, the first green building in India, fresh air to the AHUs is precooled in the two wind towers that sit on either sides of the building. Precooling reduces the load on the air conditioning system, and saves 60% of the energy required for cooling as compared to other buildings of similar size. Building orientation, and insulation of roofs and walls has also become important in this context. Lawn trays, made out of recycled plastic protects against heat ingress through the roof, while providing a green and pleasing surrounding.

In Wipro Technologies, Gurgaon, the traditional inward looking haveli inspired the basic design for the building; a typical Indian rural home with a central courtyard that uses ancient architectural wisdom to build a comfortable and environmentally friendly edifice. The central courtyard acts as a microclimate generator that reduces energy consumption; an important factor to consider when constructing energy efficient buildings.

Some of the unique green features of NEG-Micon, Chennai are 100% day lighting, wind energy, insulated walls, green lawns, waste recycling, as well as building maintenance through green products and consumables. There is a 50% saving in overall energy consumption as compared to a normal building, as well as an 88% reduction in lighting consumption.

Olympia Technology Park, an IT workspace located at Guindy, Chennai, has been awarded the leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) gold rating by the US Green Building Council. The LEED rating system is considered the yardstick for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.

A Global Phenomenon
From generating solar power from a small residential window, to having solar farms; and from saving energy by applying EMS (energy management systems), to saving harmful emissions they all go towards creating a green environment.

Besides energy efficiency, creating a workplace that is environmentally friendly is a growing, global phenomenon. Increasingly, buildings are going green and the benefits of this step for the environment as well as corporations and their employees are numerous. Sick building syndrome has been attributed to poor air quality caused by air-tight construction and the off-gassing of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from such things as finishes, adhesives, furniture systems, wall coverings, office machinery, and in some instances, molds. The release of harmful VOCs (such as carcinogenic urea formaldehyde) is one of the biggest concerns when choosing products and materials for interior spaces.

In Grundfos Pumps, Chennai construction methods on a green building was not that different as compared to a normal building, except that a lot of documentation had to be done from the time of choosing the site to commissioning the building. In terms of materials used, they differ when compared to a normal building, in that, Grundfos had to use some recycled materials and materials with a low VOC (volatile organic compounds) content

S Srinivas, senior counsellor, CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre says, [that] apart from saving on operating costs, adopting environmentally friendly technologies and practices in the building sector can address sustainability issues, as well as contribute to the conservation of national resources.

The Indian industry is gradually recognizing the role of environmental management as a tool to enhance competitiveness. Be it a residence, a retail space, a hotel or an IT office, the awareness to go green is evident. Articles are being written about it, debates are being aired in the audio-visual media; programs are being themed around it. But this growing awareness has to be complemented with the education of manufacturers that should come under a common umbrella like greenguard or ecomark, bodies certifying green materials and products. Moreover, it is important to have some sort of recognition and encouragement from the government so that this positive movement in environmentally and socially responsible architecture does not stop at just being a gimmick.

(Soma Majumdar. The writer is manager, Design Resources and Marketing, DFC, Design For Change, Bangalore.)

It is not merely a question of environmental responsibility but also the search for greater productivity and competitiveness.

While sketching ideas for this article, Im using paper produced by a pulp industry that works only with reforested wood. Im using a blue Bic pen, which should run out in a few days. The pen as well as the paper have the same finality: recycling. Their life cycle ends, and soon they will be part of another productwho knows, maybe a wastebasket or a school notebook.

Its easier to see sustainability in something thats tangible and within our view. But, what will be the environmental impact of your broadband Internet, of that investment you made through Internet banking, using your cell phone and your nice little gnome on Second Life? With regard to the latter, business writer Nicholas Carr points out in his Rough Type blog that a virtual character on Second Life consumes 1,752 kWh per year, almost as much as a flesh and blood Brazilian at an average of 1,884 kWh annually. This virtual reality usage comes from the energy demand of the servers of the company hosting the virtual community in San Francisco (USA) and from the Internet users computer.

The above services are possible because there is a technological and communication infrastructure available 24 hours per day. In thesis, the greater the demand, the larger the infrastructure tends to be, to supply the greatest number of clients with the solicited information. However, there is no doubt: electrical consumption is directly related to the way the infrastructure is organized.

In this way, the environmental account of an individual is not limited to the electrical expenditure of a TV, notebook, and computer at home, but also of the infrastructure of the services that take and bring information. Our consumption goes beyond what we see close to us.

So, then, how can information technology be green, be sustainable? There are many initiatives that support this concept: manufacturers are eliminating lead from their products; LCD monitors have been taking the place of tube ones, some reducing energy consumption by more than 50%; and companies are adopting more intelligent approaches to break down the more demand, more infrastructure, more energy paradigm mentioned above.

The corporative milieu has a fundamental responsibility because every company is a nucleus that invests heavily in technology and communication and establishes work-flow processes.

It is not merely a question of environmental responsibility, but also the search for greater productivity and competitiveness, thereby reducing waste and increasing efficiency. By identifying that the most relevant aspect of business are people and the value created by them through following work processes and using technology such as computer programs, the entrepreneur then looks for partners that will offer a more adequate infrastructure to serve this less costly and more flexible new scenario.

This approach makes it possible to attend to more people with the same number of servers and maintain the same light bill, whether they are navigating through the virtual community or soliciting a bank statement; to prolong the life cycle of personal computers from three to six years, cutting in half the production of this type of digital garbage; to reduce airline travel because training can be done through long distance teaching; and other advantages. Reflecting on the subject and practicing a more streamlined paradigm results in a reduction of everyones environmental account. If not, sustainability is limited merely to a discussion that’s pleasant, but hollow and fragile like a garden gnome. And, considering recent news about the environment, society needs more concrete, not virtual, actions.

(Souma Das, The author is area vice president of Citrix India. Published in Dataquest)