Does carbon offsetting make things worse?

Great column by James Murray in GreenerComputing today about the growing trend among many big companies to make carbon offsetting a key part of their sustainability and environmental responsibility strategies.

While James applauds the growing number of companies for making sustainability a priority, he questions whether a policy of offsetting is really helping, or whether it actually contributes to a higher aggregate energy usage by those same companies.

The better strategy, he writes, is to reduce the overall need and usage of energy across the enterprise - starting with IT devices and services but spanning across all energy consumption sources.

Great stuff, James. Read the full article here.

Living your (sustainable) brand

Kudos to GreenBiz.com and Pablo Paster for publishing several recommendations for how companies big and small can make their organizations even more environmentally friendly and sustainable.

No software or hardware needed for many of these common-sense suggestions that can make a dramatic impact not only on costs and green impact, but also employee morale and responsibility.

Read more here.

New York subways about to get green

Kudos to New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is convening an 18-member sustainability commission that will seek to create a plan for reducing the agency’s ecological footprint by Earth Day 2008.

The Sustainability Commission will develop a master set of recommendations that will help reduce the ecological footprint of MTA operations, looking at everything from energy use and waste management to transit-oriented development and green, high-performance buildings.

Part of the commission’s mission will be to identify sustainability initiatives that have both environmental benefits and financial benefits. These financial benefits can take a number of forms, including cost savings from the use of new technologies or revenue from an agency’s green venture.

London buildings to get more energy efficient

According to GreenerBuildings, London is leading the way in making its public buildings more energy efficient. London's mayor is hoping that the government's example and initiative will encourage more building managers in the private sector to follow their lead.

Companies bidding for the work will need to provide a range of services, including surveying and auditing the buildings to assess which are the most appropriate energy efficiency measures for the building, such as energy efficient lighting, insulation and combined cooling heat and power.

Read more about London's plans here.

Your PC is a power hog

According to a recently-published research report by Gartner, the PC you're reading this on is the single largest contributor to carbon dioxide emissions from your company and most others.

Well, not just your PC. But according to Gartner, 40% of global carbon emissions from businesses originate from PCs and monitors. That's nearly double the contribution of data centers, which get more press as energy hogs. And although data centers and their associated cooling infrastructures do suck plenty of power (day and night), it's the thousands of installed PCs that do most of the carbon damage.

Read more directly from Gartner here.

Welcome to the Power Alley!

What happens when tens of thousands of PC users nationwide dramatically scale back on the power they're using at work each day? They don't just save their companies money, and they don't just help reduce their collective carbon footprint. They start a revolution!

And that's what the Power Alley is all about. It's about understanding the impact our daily lives are having on the world around us, doing something about it, and then encouraging our friends and colleagues to do the same.

One of the biggest and highest-impact opportunities is in the realm of energy efficiency. Every day, throughout our day, we're burning far more energy resources than we need. Lights are on when they don't need to be. Cars are idling when they aren't moving. And computers are powered on when nobody is around.

It's up to YOU to do something about it! Let The Power Alley be the spark that helps you save yourself, your family and your company significant money on power bills, all while reducing your carbon footprint and making the world a better, more sustainable place for all of us to live.

The power is yours!