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April 29, 2010Leaderboard Launch Shows IT Companies Need to Get Political!
The Cool IT campaign has just unveiled Version 3 of the Leaderboard, our third assessment of Information Technology (IT) companies’ efforts to fight climate change. If the world is going to end its reliance on dirty energy, sweepingly incorporate renewable energy into our electricity grid, and boost energy efficiency, IT companies represent a key link in the chain to get us there.
Nokia - questions still to be answered on the climate
Protests during the COP15 Global Day of Action in Copenhagen. IT companies such as Nokia have potential to be a big part of the solution to climate change, but many have failed to raise to the challenge. © Kristian Buus/Greenpeace
Nokia’s in the hot seat this week. The telecoms giant has agreed to answer readers’ questions on its environmental record at the Guardian newspaper’s website – what better chance to ask the company what it really thinks about the challenge of catastrophic climate change?
Until now, Nokia has been found a little wanting when it comes to speaking up about the most pressing environmental issue of our time.
Its CEO, Olli Kallasvuo, might have written an article ahead of the December Climate Summit in Copenhagen (Who didn’t talk about the climate in those days?), but these comments are still something of an exception. Until then, all we had were six words on the company’s website.
Our Cool IT ranking also shows that Nokia still doesn't offer much in terms of political advocacy on the issue; it scored just four out of 25 points here. When it comes to presenting solutions, all we could give was one meager point (out of 50).
Facebook, stay cool - just kick the coal
Facebook offices on University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA. Photo via Flickr
Facebook’s first ever data center, full of state of the art and energy efficient equipment, will be built in Prineville, Oregon in the north west of the US. Unfortunately the energy required to operate the data center will be supplied by the utility company Pacific Power, which is primarily fuelled by coal – the largest single source of global warming pollution in the world. We have called on Facebook to dump coal all together and instead use 100 percent renewable energy, taking the lead in being part of the solution to climate change.
Take Action, click here to join our group on Facebook!
[Bill]ionaire Businessman Gates Says "Zero Emissions by 2050"
Bill Gates calls for zero carbon emissions by 2050. Photo: Nancy Duarte.
Bill Gates, when asked to give "the talk of his life - in 18 minutes" at the TED Talks conference last week, set a startling precedent for business leaders, choosing energy and climate as his subject - by calling for nothing less than zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Gates' commitment to stopping climate change couldn't come at a more urgent juncture and it's a major development for 3 reasons.
Ask Sony
Sony is the first electronics company to appear in the Guardian's you ask, they answer environment series. So drop in on the Guardian site and ask a question about Sony's environment policy and practice.
As for suggestions - here's our assesment of Sony in our latest Guide to Greener Electronics. Or you could ask:
When will Sony be putting PCs free of worst hazardous substances on the market like Apple and HP already have?
Will Sony be publicly supporting the Japanese Government's emissions reduction target?
Will Sony be supporting a stronger law (RoHS) on toxic chemicals in Europe?
Why does Sony not score better in our Cool IT Challenge?
Questions end Friday, you can see Sony's answers so far here
IT climate leaders: make yourselves (politically) relevant
2009 should have been the year that governments and the market clearly signaled that the transition to a low carbon economy had begun in earnest on a global scale. It wasn't however, and the IT sector will have to do better in 2010 to turn things around.
Copenhagen FAIL
The failure of world leaders in Copenhagen to deliver a fair, ambitious, and legally binding agreement is a setback to global efforts to respond to the urgent threat of climate change--and kick start the low carbon global economy.
While governments have said they will be back to strike a deal at the UN climate summit in Mexico in 2010, Copenhagen's "outcome" clearly begs the question--Which countries will overcome the status quo voices of their fossil fuel industry, and put the necessary policies in place to commit their nation to climate protection and economic growth from a low carbon 21st century economy?
Nokia, Copenhagen-shy?
Nokia's CEO Olli Kallasvuo: time to take action on climate change?
Photo by dottavi on Flickr.
Eureka! In what appears to be a slowly evolving trend (on a petri dish), yet another ICT CEO has come out with a statement on the climate crisis!
Michael Dell gets his green on
Dell CEO Michael Dell has a climate concern moment.
Photo by Joi on Flickr.
As the time and opportunity for bold pre-Copenhagen gestures finally wound down last week with the summit opening Monday, Dell came out of the smog with a last minute show of dedication. Good for Dell; but can IBM and Microsoft tow the advocacy line?
Microsoft goes to Copenhagen
Photo by uCrave.com.
Microsoft replied to our twitter petition today - more than 230 twitterers with more than 110,000 followers, retweeted our message. Our near crazed fantasies about Steve Ballmer morphing into a climate change hero have been met with a some response. Microsoft has just announced on their blog that it will be going to the Copenhagen climate summit. Wunderbar!
But wait, what for again? Well, before you all reach for your greenwash panic alarms - lets look at the details.
What does Ballmer go crazy for?
Why is Microsoft - one the world's biggest corporations - having such a struggle pulling up its pants on climate change policy?
UPDATE 1: Microsoft responds, goes to Copenhagen.
UPDATE 2: Dell's op-ed in Forbes (Sponsored by Microsoft?) sets the bar for IT leader advocacy on Copenhagen
Intel in bed with big polluters on carbon offsets
It's no secret that big polluting companies are going all out to try and destroy the chance of the US congress passing meaningful global warming legislation with significant emissions reduction targets. On big loop hole is the option of "offsetting" reductions abroad. The flawed nature of large scale carbon offsets has been exposed many times, recently by a Greenpeace investigation into offsets related to rainforest projects.
Big polluters love them because it's a cheap way of passing off their responsibility to someone else, somewhere else. Even though big polluters have already got the current draft US legislation filled with far too many loopholes, last week they wrote a letter asking for even more offsets, otherwise it would mean slightly lower multimillion profit margins. What was surprising was that joining such huge polluters such as Duke Energy, Dominion, Exelon and American Electric Power was Intel.
Yep Intel, one of the foundations of the IT industry that claims in can cut emissions by 15 percent by 2020 and generate billion of dollars of efficiency saving as well. Now Intel is firmly siding with the regressive, dirty companies and adding it's name to calls for US legislators to make even less effort to cut emissions in the US.
The full text of the letter and entertaining translation is in on our US blog but here's a flavour:
Re: The Importance of International Offsets for U.S. Climate Change Mitigation Efforts
Dear Senator Kerry, Senator Graham, and Senator Lieberman:
We, the undersigned, are companies that employ hundreds of thousands of American workers, and serve hundreds of millions of American consumers. We expect that our companies would be affected significantly by any greenhouse gas regulatory program. We write today to communicate our firm belief that in order for any such program to be both environmentally effective and economically sound it should be market-based and incorporate both domestic and international offsets. To this end, we are concerned about the further restrictions on use of international offset credits in S. 1733, reported last week by the Environment and Public Works Committee.
TRANSLATION: We are some of the biggest, richest polluters in the world and we have a lot invested in dirty business. If you pass climate legislation without huge loopholes for us, we’re going to be very upset. One of the most important loopholes we want are carbon offsets – cheap vouchers that allow us to side-step cutting our pollution with the rationale that someone else, somewhere else, will cut pollution instead. Sure, the legislation in Congress already has massive subsidies for us and billions of tons of offsets in it, but we are still not happy. We always want more.
When IT companies need to be championing a strong deal in Copenhagen Intel is pushing in the wrong direction. It certainly won't help Intel's score in our Cool IT Challenge. Maybe Intel deserves a new slogan "Intel is working on the technologies of the future today" is more like "Intel is promoting excuses at the expense of the future today"
Copenhagen: what's the IT industry doing about it?
So how do ICT companies size up when it comes to action over climate change? Are some companies really much greener than others? Beyond the leafy veneer of their environmental CSR pages, will their initiatives really have deep impact, or are they just flower arranging?
The Cool IT campaign tracks 14 top companies, rating them based on five criteria: public climate speeches; political advocacy; climate solutions; own emissions targets and renewable energy use. These are combined to give a total score out of 100. At the moment, by our reckoning, less than 50/100 is pretty lame. Anyone who knows what it's like to score 43 on a school assignment would probably agree.
Getting to Google with GetSatisfaction.com
Two weeks ago we posted this gentle call-to-action on our Eric Schmidt webpage in the Cool IT ranking of top IT executives:
GetSatisfaction is a website where people leave feedback for companies - questions, problems, praise even. 21 Google employees are registered with the website, and they often respond to feedback there. Every climate-related inquiry or comment there helps keep the pressure on Google...
Well, lots of people have taken up the challenge, and Google employee Neil Fraser is posting replies to the green IT questions as they come in. The questions regarding Copenhagen however -- like this one -- are unanswered.
Eric Schmidt has significant pull with the White House, not just on technology issues but climate change policy too. Google's CEO would earn a lot of respect internationally if he would just call on Obama to go to Copenhagen.
Google, Microsoft and IBM: Bring it on for the Climate
Today we launched the latest version of our Cool IT leaderboard - take a look a which of the biggest names in IT are doing the most on the top priorities to tackle climate change. As well as scores we've added more background on the issue and started the first in series of comparisons, starting with Google v Microsoft. This is all the product of many company meetings, phone calls, sifting through carbon disclosure project reports and lobby expenditure filings along with far more late nights team discussions than I care to remember!
The leaderboard covers companies measurable climate solutions, climate advocacy and efforts to reduce their own emissions. With the vital UN climate meeting in Copenhagen fast approaching we are focusing on which companies are speaking out in support of a strong deal that is vital for the planet, as well as being good for IT companies bottom line. In short no company really stands out on climate advocacy, even Google, with a relatively high score on advocacy has been silent on Copenhagen.
Climate trashing Chamber lashes out at Apple’s bold move
I’ve been following closely corporate action in the run up to the vital Climate meeting in Copenhagen in December. Like it or not, when big CEO’s speak, politicians listen. Unfortunately there hasn’t been much to follow for most of the year. Sectors like the IT industry (who stand to be big winners from a strong global deal to significantly cut emissions) have been very quiet, during this crucial period.
Now, as though someone has poked a slumbering giant somewhere very painful, all hell has broken lose in the US in the last few weeks. As Grist puts it “Could corporate America finally be stirring from its climate change slumber?” In reality vested corporate interests of old dirty industry certainly haven’t been slumbering, they and their trade bodies (who often do the grubby job of lobbying) have been putting in overtime for years to keep any chance of effective legislation off the table, especially in the US. That’s the biggest reason why current legislation before the US Senate is far too weak.
The US chamber of Commerce has been leading this charge: “No organization in this country has done more to undermine [climate] legislation,” according to the New York Times editorial page. We covered Apple’s departure and background on our main site yesterday but after so long without this issue being given proper scrutiny there’s been a rash of high profile US media stories on the issue. Businessweek points out why Apple’s departure matters, Boston Globe highlights how the Chamber’s climate scaremongering is coming back to haunt them. The New York Times points out what a mess the Chamber seems to be in over its decision making on Climate. The San Francisco Chronicle has companies fleeing the Chamber like it has the plague.
Who's top of Newsweek Green Ranking?
This week Newsweek released its assessment of the green policies and practices of top 500 US companies. It makes interesting reading, with some surprising results.
Unsurprisingly tech companies dominate the top with 1 HP, 2 Dell, 4 Intel, 5 IBM.
Of course we’ve criticised HP recently on delaying toxics phase out from its products, which is noted in the Newsweek ranking. Our very own Guide to Greener Electronics is due out next week so you can compare and contrast how these tech companies are doing against their non US competitors.
Two big tech companies who don’t come out so well are Google 79 and Apple 133. Both are secretive about relevant company data that competitors do publish. At least Apple took a step up in that sense by finally publishing its total emissions data yesterday.
There’s a few good quotes in the background story on the Newsweek site:
"One of the purposes of this is to improve the transparency of corporations…and encourage them to provide an even higher level of disclosure," says Thomas Kuh, KLD's managing director.
This is also one the aims of our Guide since August 2006. And of course something we are familiar with, the controversy:
Rankings inevitably provoke controversy—and we welcome that. Our hope is to open a conversation on measuring environmental performance—an essential first step toward improving it.
The best analysis I’ve read is over on greenbiz.com, I my opinion Joel is right that of course the ranking is imperfect (they always are) but rather than pick it apart:
I'd rather step back and admire this first effort, however imperfect, and salute the team for doing what hadn't previously been done, or done well: brought together a wealth of data on a broad spectrum of the world's biggest companies to provide a snapshot of the green business world.
And he speculates on what might be hopefully happening as a result:
I suspect that as you read this, scores of senior sustainability professionals are getting calls from their overlords in the C-suite, asking tough questions about why their companies fared more poorly than hoped, and demanding answers. And for that reason alone Newsweek's rankings are a beautiful thing.
Finally we wouldn’t be doing our job if we let those tech firms rest on their laurels at the top of the Newsweek ranking. When it comes to being strong climate advocates and providing real climate solutions, HP, IBM, Intel, Dell and others still have much work to do in our Cool IT Challenge.
Third time lucky? Ask Google CEO about Climate
The UK Times newspaper is looking for questions for Google boss Eric Schmidt by this Friday. With the vital UN Copenhagen climate meeting fast approaching high profile business leaders really should be starting to make their voices heard for a strong deal.
Previously Google's climate expert skipped this question on the Guardian discussion, and the BBC didn't pick this one to ask the Intel CEO, Paul Otellini but maybe 3rd time lucky?
Here's a suggestion:
Will Google publicly support the 25% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 needed in the US to help ensure a strong climate deal is reached at the vital UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen at the end of this year?
Post your version on the Times page here before Friday, September 25.
Ask Intel about climate leadership
Well ask the BBC to ask Intel's CEO about climate leadership - he's being interviewed this week on the BBC and they are soliciting for questions.
Here's mine:
As Intel stands to profit from IT solutions to reduce carbon emissions will Paul Otellini be making a public statement about the vital need for a strong deal at the Copenhagen Climate summit in December?
Here's how Intel is doing in our Cool IT leaderboard, hardly a stellar perfomance so far.
There's no info about when the interview will be on the BBC but add a question today on the BBC site before it's too late and if you see the interview lets us know in the comments if it was raised.
Ask Google your Energy question today
Today Google's Dan Reicher will be online on the Guardian Website to answer your questions about Google and energy/climate change. Dan is Google's director of climate change and energy and has worked in past US Administrations and on the Obama transition team.
Not often you get the chance to pose a question directly to someone as knowledgeable and well connected as Dan. Here's a few suggestions for substantive questions to pose:
Will Google be setting its self a goal to cut it's own absolute greenhouse gas emissions, like many other tech firms have done already?
How much renewable energy does Google use and will Google set a target to increase this in the future?
Does Google support the 25% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 needed in the US to help ensure a strong climate deal is reached at the vital UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen at the end of this year?
Or you could ask how Dan thinks Google measures up against the climate change policy and practice of other US Tech giants. Check out how we rate IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Dell, HP and Sun on our Cool IT Challenge.
You can add your questions now, Dan is online from 4pm UK time Thursday 16 July.
So long Susan
The final installment of a trilogy is out today. The last of the three Reasons to Believe films narrated by the charming and talented Ms Susan Sarandon has been released - 'Reasons to Believe: Servers'. These films give us three out of an endless list of reasons to believe that an Energy [R]evolution is possible and necessary to change our energy habits and reduce emissions contributing to climate change.
Greenpeace pees all over the IT sector!
Blogger Jay Yarrow, from the Business Insider Green Sheet, described the launch of the Cool IT Challenge with the following sentence: "Greenpeace pees all over the IT sector today, saying companies aren't doing their part to save the world." Believe it or not, this was not a direct quote from our press release. We're not peeing on them Jay, we're endorsing them. Very different.
Top Tech CEOs - "You've got work to do!"
I'm chalking down California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer as a supporter of our IT climate leadership challenge. On Monday she told told more than 50 Silicon Valley CEOs to lobby for greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the US:
"We need your help," Boxer said. "Once the price of carbon is set by the free market, your world will change dramatically. Others control the price of oil, and they know exactly what they're doing."
Which is pretty similar to what we are asking for - Tech CEO's to stand up from a strong global deal on greenhouse gas emissions reductions because it makes good business sense. A strong international climate change deal would certainly increase demand for energy saving solutions offered by the IT industry.
Sun Microsystems first with response on climate leadership
Back in March we launched our IT Climate leadership Challenge to the biggest IT companies to stand up and be counted in support of a strong Kyoto deal this year and lead the way in providing climate solutions across the economy.
Since then we've been following up letters sent to company CEO's back in February in preparation for releasing company scores during May. With many companies it's taking a long time to get answers but kudos to Sun Microsystems for sending and now publishing a response which already puts down a good marker for where they will score against others in May.
Sun Microsystems is a founding member of Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP). A key principle among the eight put forth by BICEP is that the United States must achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and at least 25 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2020. (snip) Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz will be featured on a plenary panel at the upcoming (April 2009) Ceres conference. We expect that Sun's support of BICEP and its principles will be featured in his remarks.
I've asked for more details from Sun on a few points but so far this is the best response.
So IBM, Dell, HP, Google, Fujitsu and co, now you know what you have to beat…..
The card image is the Sun CEO and a sneak preview of how the climate leaders website will look come the May launch.
EU Comission agrees with us on IT industry and climate change
It's nice when occasionally big political institutions agree with you. Last week we launched our IT Climate Leadership Challenge, looking for IT leaders to raise their game on tackling climate change. Yesterday the EU Commission followed with a new proposal on IT and its role in tackling climate change:
Today the Commission announced its intention to set out concrete measures that will pave the way for ICT to contribute to energy efficiency gains and emission reductions. It will also call on the ICT sector to lead the way by setting itself concrete targets to become more energy efficient, by collectively agreeing a common approach to measuring energy performance and benchmarking progress.The Commission also announced a new public consultation to establish a common base for commitments to and claims of improved energy efficiency. Only by identifying who does what within the set deadlines, that targets have a real chance of being achieved.
Unfortunately there's no mention in their press release about the need for the IT industry to push for a strong deal at the vital meeting on the Kyoto treaty in Copenhagen in Dec. Maybe that's because the EU is struggling it's self to show climate leadership right now.
What is promising is the fact that the EU Commission is calling on companies to set concrete targets for themselves, we've put numbers on that ask to IT companies:
Measure the company's absolute emissions and commit to cut them by at least 20 percent by 2012.
This EU consultation should also push companies to prioritise carbon reduction solutions they can provide and have done the right homework to prove that those solutions can reduce overall emissions across the economy, much like our ask to the industry:
Prioritise those technologies and product development lines that cut greenhouse emissions across the economy.
So the challenge is out there and not only from us. So which company will be the first to rise to it?
Real climate leaders wanted
I'm just back from the massive IT trade fair CeBIT in Germany where we launched our latest push for greener electronics – now asking IT leaders to rise to the challenge of climate change.
Basically we are asking the executives of top IT firms to lobby key governments for a strong, planet-saving agreement at the December 2009 climate change summit in Copenhagen. We're inviting companies like Cisco, Fujitsu, Google, HP, IBM, Nokia and Microsoft to the challenge. Many of these companies are positioning themselves as being able to provide the solutions to significantly cut carbon emissions. If they are serious they need to support a strong Kyoto deal in Copenhagen that will provide the demand for their IT solutions.
Despite the media at CeBIT being very excited about Arnold Schwarzenegger's attendance (possibly hoping for a Terminator style quote), we managed to get good interesting in the launch of the challenge with coverage in The Register, Computer world and the Green IT report.
Now we have a few things we need help with:
Right now, today, Thursday, - vote up the story on Digg to bring extra attention
Help spread the word
In between interviews I also popped over to Cisco's blog that talks about all the great climate solutions they have to suggest they support the challenge. I got a "your comment appears to be spam and will be moderated". I heard that several other folks comments have also not appeared since Tuesday. So either Cisco's moderation is much slower then their routers, or invite on the page to "Join the Conversation" doesn't apply if you have something meaningful to say. Anyway I've added a trackback to this post - so if you reading Cisco – rising to the challenge is a better business move than trying to ignore it.
Cisco Update, 6th March: Cisco's Laura Ipsen, Senior VP, Global Policy and Government Affairs posted a response yesterday on Cisco's blog. I have a few questions which I'm following up with by email. Stay tuned.......
For those companies who might need a bit more prompting to back up their green words with real action, to paraphrase Arnie "we'll be back", in May with the first assessment of the real IT climate leaders.
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