Thursday Mar 01, 2007
The Economist reports today:
THE people, places and things inside Second Life, a thriving online
world with millions of residents, may be imaginary—but the power
consumption of the computers that maintain the illusion is all too
real. Nicholas Carr, a business writer and blogger,
recently worked out that each of the 15,000 or so residents logged in
at any one time consumes electricity as a result of their activities in
the virtual world almost as fast as the average inhabitant of Brazil
does in real life. Second Life's residents, Mr Carr concluded, “don't
have bodies, but they do leave footprints.”
(Sun is also mentioned in this story.)
Full story here
Thursday Mar 01, 2007
This appeared in the March/April issue of Sierra Club Magazine highlighting Sun's role as an eco responsible company. The story is packed with facts and figures, which resulted in a very informative piece.
<SNIP>
IF IT CONSUMES ENERGY, Dave Douglas wants to know
about it. Vice president of eco-responsibility for Sun Microsystems, a
Silicon Valley company with $13 billion in annual revenue, Douglas
oversees all of Sun's environmental efforts. That includes managing the
environmental impacts of a 38,000-employee corporation and every one of
the products it sells--including computer servers, which run the Web
sites, networks, and databases of virtually any corporation or large
organization you can imagine.
No issue is too small: One of Douglas's recent blog entries fretted
over the volume of greenhouse gases emitted in the manufacture and
transport of the freebie briefcases he receives at environmental
conferences, as well as the planetary effect of traveling to those
confabs. "Are sustainability conferences sustainable?" he asked.
FULL STORY
Wednesday Feb 28, 2007
Sun was featured a couple of days ago on BBC The World on how the EU Product Takeback mandate (known as WEEE) is being handled by American companies. The program, reported by The World technology correspondent Jason Margolis features how Sun Microsystems is handling it, including soundbytes from a couple of Sun employees including Dave Douglas, Sun's vice president of eco responsibility, and also the manager from a recycling facility that handles the actual recycling of Sun's servers.
According to the program's introduction, Europe's average consumer produces 44 pounds of electronic waste each year the total of which could cover the City of Brussels with up to 3 feet of electronic junk each year. The report is worth the listen. As a sidenote, The World Podcast in general is worth subscribing to.
February 26, 2007
Electronic waste report (6:30)
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The World's Technology Correspondent Jason Margolis reports on how
some American electronics companies are responding to the European
Union's tough new standards on electronic waste. The EU rules are
forcing many US companies to design recyclable products.
Wednesday Feb 28, 2007
Today there is a "trend story" on Silicon Valley's efforts of being green and responsible, highlighting Sun Microsystems in the story lead -- with Sun's thought leadership with our servers, Open Work program, our approval by Ceres as a "Ceres company", and the naming of Sun's vice president of eco responsibility, David Douglas. (see his informative blog as well).
How
green is Silicon Valley? Well, with some heavy February downpours
following one of the driest Januarys on record, positively verdant is
the answer right now.
The same could be said for the environmental record of the Valley’s high-tech companies.
Sun
Microsystems this month became the first Californian technology company
to be approved by Ceres, a national coalition of investors,
environmental groups and other organisations, who work with companies
to address sustainability issues and global climate change.
Sun
has a vice-president of eco responsibility and announced “the
industry’s first eco-responsible servers” in December 2005, drawing
only as much power as a household light bulb, according to the
citation. It also kept nearly 7,000 cars off the road last year by
allowing employees to work from home whenever possible, and 95 per cent
of its products are being recycled.
FULL STORY
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