UK government finally approves the carbon budget through to 2027

According to the Observer newspaper yesterday and subsequent reports this morning, the UK government has agreed to abide by the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change for its fourth carbon budget, which takes us through to 2027.

The independent Committee was set up by the Climate Change legislation, which requires Parliament to set carbon budgets for the maximum emissions in a series of five year periods through to 2050. The Committee on Climate Change is required to recommend the level of these budgets, and a proposal must then be put before Parliament.

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Europe’s Energy Efficiency Economy | 1E Blogs

Europe’s Energy Efficiency Economy | 1E Blogs: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

After a series of events in Brussels in April, is Europe now ready to commit to energy efficiency for 2020?

The EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) organized over 700 events across Europe to show, promote, discuss and celebrate energy efficiency and renewable energy. There were a number of events held in Brussels attracting 30,000 attendees, including a 3-day policy conference organized by the European Commission where they announced the next steps to deploy smart grids throughout Europe.

The Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) and the European Alliance to Save Energy (EU-ASE) co-hosted the Energy Efficiency Global 2011 as an official EUSEW side-event. The Energy Efficiency Global Forum (EE Global), now in its fourth year, is a launching pad for ideas that change the energy landscape, bringing together high-level officials from government, business and NGOs.

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Plant trees while you surf - Ecosia - The green search engine

Great idea, 80% of revenue generated via sponsored advertising is donated to the WWF forest conservation programme. I can't help but think if it were powered by Google rather than Bing and Yahoo the donated revenue would be double what it is today (£107,825K). Come on Google, get involved!

10 Greentech Predictions for 2011

Yep, it’s that time of year again: get ready for the flurry of end-of-the-year market prediction posts. While last year, I laid out what I thought would be the 5 Biggest Hurdles for Greentech in 2010, this year Jeff St. John makes 9 predictions (plus 1 that I add in) about what the greentech sector will look like in 2011. Read more....

RedMonk TV Interviews 1E Head of Software, Sophie Chang, about the NightWatchman 6 release

RedMonk TV Interviews 1E Head of Software, Sophie Chang, about the NightWatchman 6 release

Energy Hungry Zombie & Ghost Servers

Zombie and Ghost servers are a real threat to organizations everywhere – they consume energy and resources that could be used more effectively to drive business. Zombie servers masquerade as useful and ghost servers are typically just forgotten. 1E helps organizations measure and remove IT inefficiencies like zombie and ghost servers reducing unnecessary energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

The IT sector has reduced equipment emissions by 32m tonnes worldwide since 2007

A recent study has concluded that the IT sector has reduced annual CO₂ emissions associated with IT equipment by more than 32 million metric tons worldwide since 2007.

The report, which is here, was conducted by Natural Logic to assess the progress of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative’s (CSCI). The organisation was set up in 2007 and is led by CSC, Dell, Google Inc., HP, Intel, Microsoft and the World Wildlife Fund, but now has a total of 645 members. It’s aim is to reduce the environmental impact of IT equipment through energy efficiency, with a goal of reducing annual CO₂ emissions from the IT sector by 54 million metric tons by June 2011.

The research shows that annual CO₂ emissions from IT equipment have decreased by 32 million to 36 million metric tons worldwide since 2007 and is on target to achieve the CSCI’s reduction goal by the end of its 2010 fiscal year in June 2011. The report puts the success down to the CSCI’s efforts to promote the adoption of power management, new IT efficiency standards and the use of higher-efficiency computing equipment.

The CSCI has said that in the future it will expand its focus to include commercial and home networking equipment, helped by new board members Cisco, Emerson Network Power and Juniper Networks. The organisation will set new energy efficiency criteria for networking technologies and network devices will be included in the organisation’s environmental targets, with the goal of reducing annual CO2 emissions by an additional 38 million metric tons by 2015.

There’s an interesting comment in the conclusion that in fact the use of PC power management has been much lower than the organisation estimated when it set its goals; “CSCI’s original estimate was based on an assumption that the use of power management features on desktops and notebooks would be in the range of 90% by the end of the 2010 program year, but the latest research shows it is only around 10% (22% at the most)”. So it looks like there will be a particular effort by these companies to push power management in the coming months.

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