Building a green data center is a challenging undertaking; it is also one that is poorly understood and that can fail in many ways. This post goes into some of the deeper level goals that need to be kept in focus if the project is going to be a success.
In this post guest author Bob Faulhaber does a little bit of self examination, using his own personal life to illustrate the many ways and the many habits we may have that might make us considerably less green than we would like to think we are. He takes stock of how he lives; in what kind of house; his work; his car; his kids and his personal habits.
In this post Elaine gives her take on the latest slew of industry sector sustainability reports increasingly being published by various industry associations, ranging from cattle growers to consumer electronic and every where in between. She notes that they tend to be oriented towards good news marketing oriented material, but they can give you a good overview of the issues in a particular sector.
Biomimicry has probably been practiced by humans for as long as we have been walking the earth. In our current cultural context, Janine Benyus, has popularized this design philosophy and coined the term biomimicry, helping to generate a new wave of interest in this design approach. Biomimicry seeks to mimic the evolved design solutions arrived at by nature and adapt them to and incorporate them into the design of structures and products. It uses nature as a model to inspire design solutions; it uses nature as a measure of elegance and rightness of a design; and it seeks to promote the notion of nature as mentor that we may learn from, rather than as an inert object to exploit.
This post highlights how facilities management is an important, if often unsung part of so many businesses… any businesses with facilities, in fact. Sustainable facilities management is an area that can have a profound and near term impact on overall business sustainability. Very large potential energy savings and hence carbon footprint reduction could be realized in facilities management areas such as HVAC or lighting for example; the embodied energy of facilities — their materials and recurring requirements; how runoff is handled and so forth all are areas in which sustainable facilities management can really impact the triple bottom line in a positive way.
Summary of a talk given by Frances Edmonds, Director of Environmental Programs, HP Canada in which she outlined how HP’s environmental commitment has led to greater profitability. In this talk she uses various examples of how successful sustainability efforts can be win win propositions that are good for the environment and also good for the company’s bottom line.
In recent months, several conservative governors have rejected federal funds to begin constructing high-speed rail lines in their states. But a high-speed rail advocate argues that such ideologically driven actions are folly, as other U.S. states and countries around the world are moving swiftly to embrace a technology that is essential for competitive 21st-century economies.
Twitter has done a great deal for CSR communications. The social network brings CSR leaders closer,facilitates networking, as well as partnership creation, and dealmaking. Twitter gets the news and information out about CSR conferences out to a larger audience, as well as being the absolute best source of CSR news. CSR reports are always announced on Twitter and it is used as a CSR jobs recruitment platform too. It is also used to promote brands, customer service, or to announce new products and services, which all these link to CSR as well. This is all helping to create greater interest in the CSR body of knowledge. Ultimately, Twitter makes CSR info accessible to more people and it is changing the way people view it.
It is a common myth that green building costs are often much most expensive than they really are. Often you can save money when going green. When considering the costs to green building, the key is to consider the whole cost of the systems involved, as sustainability is about the big picture and the long view, not just the individual components.
