What do Buildings and Sustainable IT have in common? Regulation!

When I tell people that I’m a Sustainable IT or Green IT expert, the immediate assumption is that I’m sort of techie and that gadgets, terabytes, server loads, redundancy, and disaster recovery are words that turn me on. But the truth is that apart from being very adept at troubleshooting my own PC – and now my Mac, a brief flirtation with C++ MANY, MANY moons ago and an occasionally dalliance in web development and html, I’m the furthest thing from a technical expert working in IT that you’ll probably find.

In fact, I started my career in IT at Fujitsu Services, where I was hired as the first of ten Innovation Consultants brought in to introduce leaner, sometimes disruptive practices and new ways of thinking into the company. The person who hired me, Marc Silvester, was particularly interested in my varied experience – which ranged from four years as a Smart Start Analyst at JPMorgan Chase, a teacher to learning disabled teenagers in Florida, a stint as a Project Manager and Coordinator for Biosphere 2, a highly successful environmental program that my alma mater, Columbia University once managed, to a half-finished Ph.D in Political Science and a very rewarding period as a Research Officer in Education at the University of London. This richness of experience means that I can draw on a variety of real-world experiences and approaches and apply them to new problems, questions, issues and areas of interest.

Yet even the variety in my professional life doesn’t fully capture the range of experiences that I sometimes bring to my work in IT. Take my interest in the built environment and real estate, for example. Very few people know of the many years I spent on construction sites with my father in Jamaica as he and my mother designed, built from the ground up, lived in for a few years then sold only to repeat the cycle all over again. I guess they were property developers long before the term was popularised! I have fond memories of that time and still have a fascination with blueprints, architects and yes – buildings.

So that explains why after participating in a 2degrees web forum linked to Cisco's Annual CIO Conference in San Diego till past midnight last Tuesday, I found myself sitting in a room at Linklaters on Silk Street at 8:30am waiting for the kick-off of a breakfast seminar titled “Climate, sustainability issues and real estate”.

As you might suspect, there were architects, representatives of construction firms – large and small, some folks from private equity firms and strategy consultancies, and me – the lone representative of IT.

I think the lack of representation of IT in seminars like this one is indicative of the inability of many IT firms to engage with topics and in areas that are outside their comfort zone. Yet this inability to engage is – I think – a huge missed opportunity. And I’ll tell you why – because while IT is a huge contributor to the emissions of buildings, well-designed, properly procured, well-run IT estates can play a significant role in helping organisations to reduce the emissions of buildings. And while – with the exception of some notable legislation – there is little regulation to stipulate efficiency standards around IT specifically, IT will ultimately be affected by legislation in other areas.

I’ll give you a few examples. At this seminar, the speakers Vanessa Havard-Williams (who is the Global Head of Environment at Linklaters) and her colleagues ran though a raft of legislation – current, draft and future -- that affects buildings. For example, Mayor Boris Johnson’s draft of the London Plan calls for a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2025; some new planning guidance calls for developments to achieve BREEAM Very Good Standard and continue to maintain that standard, which has implications for – among other things – energy usage in buildings. Part L of the Building Regulations aims to achieve zero carbon homes by 2016 and zero carbon non-domestic buildings by 2019.

It is expected that much of the reduction in CO2 emissions will be achieved through the reduction in energy use and an increase in energy efficiency, areas in which IT has a role to play. Interestingly, the proposed changes to Part L, which would come into force in October 2010 include:

• a further 25% incremental increase in energy efficiency
• energy efficiency requirements that apply to all building spaces where energy is used to condition indoor climate and not just those areas used for human comfort

What this means is that if the proposals are accepted, the New Building Regulations would also impose energy efficiency requirements on server rooms and potentially, on datacentres. Server rooms and datacentres, and the IT equipment in them would need to be more energy efficient, dissipate less heat and require less cooling. There are also significant implications for areas in buildings with large, concentrated IT requirements – think trading floors. The proposed changes to Part L would have the greatest implication for equipment manufacturers, but also, huge implications for IT Services companies like mine, Computacenter, who often operate server rooms and datacentres on customers’ behalf. As Huw Baker, the Linklaters Construction attorney noted, the desire of some large clients to move from their old premises into new ones is often driven by their need to cope with the ever-increasing capacity requirements of their IT systems.

And we haven’t even mentioned CRC! Clearly, IT is part of the problem. However, what’s clear to me is that IT has a significant role to play in delivering part of the solution. There’s clearly a need for innovative thinking here. Even though it isn’t part of my job title anymore, I for one am playing an active road in getting the IT industry to recognise and seize the opportunities. I believe that the first step on any road to innovation is understanding – awareness of the scale of the problem and the size of the opportunity. Over the next few months, I’ll be doing just that at Computacenter with a Green IT roadmap and a series of thought leadership pieces that I’ve been asked to put together. Which means I’ll be going to even more of these Linklaters seminars! Next one is 3 November 2009 on Carbon Capture and Storage.

A new energy management tool for the server room and datacenter

With its unveiling of its Nightwatchman Server Edition on Tuesday night, 1e took one more step to extending its success in power management into the datacenter. Nightwatchman Server Edition is describes as “the first power and efficiency management solution to analyze whether servers are providing Useful Work and deliver actionable data that allows IT administrators to ensure that data centers are as efficient as they can be, reducing infrastructure and spending” (Source: Server Energy Efficiency Report”).

Last night I went to the Nightwatchman Server Edition Launch party, staged by 1e, a power and patch management software solution provider. There were approximately 40 people comprised of 1e’s customers, suppliers and partners at the low-key, intimate event held at the Russell Hotel in London. 1e, with offices in London and New York and headed up by CEO Sumir Karayi, was founded in 1997 with $1500 of Series A funding. 1e’s Nightwatchman PC Power and Patch Management solution has proved popular with customers like AT&T, Dell, HSBC, British Airways, Microsoft and others. 1e’s list of blue chip clients, crisp, clear messages and high visibility means that it is more well-known that its closet rival Verdiem and their Surveyor PC power management product. It has decided to build on the success of the original Nightwatchman and hopes to extend its power management success to the datacenter arena.

Nightwatchman Server Edition is intended to address the Datacenter Manager’s challenges around energy efficiency and power. At a time when many datacenters are running out of space and power, and when organisations are looking to IT to reduce its own carbon and cost footprint and drive efficiencies across the rest of the business, it has become even more important for Datacenter Managers to understand the power consumption profile of their server estate.

The conventional response to space and energy constraints in the datacenter has been to recommend consolidation and virtualisation of the server estate. However in many cases customers 1) can’t afford the initial and ongoing investment virtualisation requires 2) have already consolidated and virtualised their estates and are STILL running out of space and power 3) simply have no idea where to start because they don’t know which servers are actually doing useful work. This is where Nightwatchman Server Edition fits in. It claims to identify, measure and report on the energy usage profile of each application on each server, information that Datacenter Managers can use to aid their decisions about 1) what applications can be consolidated onto single servers 2) which servers can be decommissioned or reallocated 3) enabling power management features on servers that are doing useful work.

Organisations can expect to achieve 15% or more reduction in server power consumption. According to 1e, “By power managing unproductive servers and freeing up unused capacity, an organization with 1,000 servers can save close to a million dollars per year. The power savings alone are equivalent to the amount of CO2 absorbed by 151,000 trees each year.”

I certainly enjoyed the launch event and it was great to speak with 1e customers who are trialling some of their power management software. (I have a newly discovered respect for one particular pharmaceutical company after hearing about how they utilise IT in a very strategic way inside their organisation). Nightwatchman Server Edition's clever reporting and grouping features which displays energy usage easily alongside CO2 emissions, could make the potential for chargeback of datacenter servers more of a reality and will, I suspect, appeal to organisations trying to drive accountability around energy usage.

I think we'll definitely see and hear more about Nightwatchman Server Edition as it hits the market. Perhaps I'll even write a blog post about how I think it fits in with other software power management solution, and hardware power management solutions like Raritan's Intelligent PDUs.

I’m sure the techie types at Computacenter can’t wait to get their hands on this newest invention so they can play with it!

CRC: New branding and clearer guidelines … sort of

Late last week (7th October 2009), the Government published its report on the final Carbon Reduction Commitment consultation that closed in June. There are some clarifications and a few notable changes. I’ll focus on a few of them here.


1. No payment for the first year of the CRC
It seems the Government is bowing to concern from business about the effect of the CRC on cash flow. Under previous guidance, CRC participants would have been required to purchase allowances in April 2011 to cover their emissions for the 2010-2011 period AS WELL AS the 2011-2012 period. This is no longer the case. CRC participants will only have to purchase ‘forward-looking’ allowances, so allowances for the 2011-2012 period.

This essentially means that the first year of the CRC scheme will be a "dummy run". Sort of. Although participants will not have to purchase retrospective allowances, the first year's performance is still important because the league tables will be based on the first year’s performance and will determine the amount of recycle payments (and penalties).

2. Early action gets a boost and Carbon Trust Standard’s monopoly nipped in the bud
Until the publication of this latest guidance, the Carbon Trust Standard essentially monopolised the early action metric because it was one of only two ways (the other being the installation of AMRs - Automatic Meter Reading Systems) that CRC participants could earn early action credit. That is no longer the case. Participants who achieve equivalent energy efficiency standards will benefit under the early action metric, provided certain criteria are met.

Also, early action gets a boost, with greater credit being given to those who are proactive before the commencement date. In fact, early action will now account for 40% of a participant's overall performance in the second year of the CRC rather than 20%. Since many organisations I advice have been delaying implementing energy efficiency measures for fear of being penalized for being “too energy efficient”, this re-weighting of the early action metric has essentially taken away any rational for delaying action and in my opinion has given the CRC even greater ‘teeth’. Energy Managers and Sustainability managers now have even greater impetus – and a stronger business case to convince their Boards to just get on with it.


3. Public Sector Organisation defined
All public sector organisations are automatically included in the scheme. But it seems the definition of a public sector body isn’t as simple as may first meet the eye. For purposes of the CRC, the government has now defined a public sector organisation as a “public authority” in the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) 2002 on the basis of their individual FOI/FOI (S) listing, unless they are legally part of another body, in which case they would participate as part of that parent body. Exactly what the practical implications are is something I’m still looking into. If anyone can shed light on this quickly, please get it touch.


And finally….
The CRC has been rebranded. The CRC is now officially the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, reflecting the Government's primary aim of incentivising businesses to become more energy efficient (rather than reducing carbon emissions per se, a subtle but important difference).


Other changes refer to the treatment of renewables and further clarification on the definition of principal subsidiaries.

Further guidance will be published by the end of October, while the Order itself is due out around the end of the year.

In the meantime, for more information, visit http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/consultations/crc/crc.aspx

President Obama's 'Green' Executive Order

On the 5th of October, the Administration of President Obama put a stake in the ground establishing its intention to have the Federal Government setting the standard for environmental performance.

In the Executive Order titled "FEDERAL LEADERSHIP IN ENVIRONMENTAL, ENERGY,AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE", President Obama set sustainability goals for Federal agencies in a number of areas, including the area I'm most interested in -- energy efficiency and the lifecycle environmental impact of technology. The Order promotes "green technology" and encourages Federal agencies to procure environmentally preferable technology such as those that are EPEAT-registered [the Order says EPEAT-certified but the Green Electronics Council or GEC which administers the EPEAT program does not certify products, but instead enables manufacturers to declare the environmental attributes of their IT equipment, currently laptops, monitors and screens. To ensure that the self-registration system is not abused, the GEC also administers a verification program for EPEAT).

In all fairness to President Bush, from what I can see, the recommendations in President Obama's Order with respect to green IT merely extend and reinforce President Bush's Executive Order of January 2007 requiring all federal agencies to purchase EPEAT-registered products for at least 95% of their needs.

There were also other boosts in President Obama's order for green IT. For example, a recommendation that federal agencies implement and enable desktop power management as well as the implementation of energy efficiency measures in Federal datacenters (I wonder how many federal agencies are Green Grid members ....?) Even duplex printing and end-of-life management of IT equipment were mentioned!

In the UK, we've had no such orders or mandates. The next best thing is the UK Government's CIO/CTO's Green IT Council founded by the wonderfully persuasive Catalina McGregor which aims to establish best practice in UK Government Green IT.

In my day-to-day role at Computacenter, I'm certainly seeing a lot of interest in Green IT from government. As we get closer to the launch of the start of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Scheme here in the UK, that interest is only intensifying as organizations and particularly government bodies try to get their heads around how technology can be used to increase their energy efficiency and reduce their carbon footprint and costs.