Technology and the Environment DD's Eco Notes

In a recent post I laid out the various areas that we need to account for in the overall environmental footprint of a product. One thing you'll notice is the the product travels at least twice (once from the manufacturer to the customer and once from the customer to the recycler), but the bulk of the product may travel more times than that. For example, parts may flow through a supply chain such that the heavy parts take two or three hops before the manufacturer, and may take an additional hop after being initially sorted for recycling.

While the number of hops isn't important, its important to know they exist. You may think you're buying a product from someone in California, but if all of the subcomponents originated in China, then all of that weight started there, even if they weren't assembled yet.

As noted a year or so ago, the environmental cost of shipping varies wildly depending on the method used (per "Let My People Go Surfing"):

• Rail or boat: 400 BTUs per ton per mile
• Truck: 3,300 BTUs per ton per mile
• Air cargo: 21,760 BTUs per ton per mile

So lets make up a scenario and see what the impact is. First, assume a 250W server which will run all year long (roughly 9000 hours/year) for 3 years. That makes a total of 6,750 kWh. Second, assume that the parts start in China, end up as a product in New York, and meet their final resting place in a recycling facility in Oregon, for a total of approximately 13,000 miles. Finally, lets assume that the server weighs 50 pounds.

If we use only one type of transportation, the three options above would check out as follows:

• Rail or boat: 130,000 BTUs or 38kWh
• Truck: 1,072,000 BTUs or 314kWh
• Air cargo: 7,072,000 BTUs or 2,072kWh

So in this case, if we use either of the less costly ways, the overall product impact is not overly affected. However, if we fly the parts around for each hop, the environmental cost is the same as using the product for a whole additional year!

Apparently our corporate "greenness" is going to be measured by the size of our investment in the environment. Bank of America came out first with a $20B commitment, but was soon out-greened by Citibank at $50B. Most recently, IBM came out at $1B.

So what do these numbers mean? Is IBM really 50 times "less green" than Citibank, and 20 times less than BofA?

Obviously not, but apparently that's the conclusion that their marketing department is begging us to make. I know for a fact that they have some really good programs going on, but some marketing person decided that their press release would somehow be more interesting if it had said $1B. Details behind all of these large dollar figures are vague, with key assumptions and allocations unstated, so comparing them is silly. Why throw it out there if you aren't going to back it up and you don't want people to use it as a yardstick of goodness? Maybe that's why IBM's environment group doesn't have a link to this release.

The world is already getting savvy about green marketing, and even companies with a good story to tell, like IBM, can hurt themselves when someone tries to tell a "bigger story". Fun "who's greener than who" articles like this one are starting to crop up.

At Sun we're trying hard to stick to the facts, and I think we're succeeding most of the time. We debate a lot about specific words and phrases, and worry that our message won't break through. Its tricky today and its going to get trickier. Its important to us that people see what we're up to, and we hope that it helps us in the marketplace, but also that others can learn from what we've done.

Recently we got some nice indirect feedback from a post in Green Wombat about our work with JavaOne - it's good to know that a stunt-free press release can still get some attention.

Microsoft is bringing software patents to the forefront with their article this week in Fortune. My sense is that they are testing the water - if you have a reaction to this you need to tell them what you think, either directly or through your purchases.

The Sun bloggers have already produced some interesting reading on this. Greg P and Jonathan are laying out Sun's position more and more clearly, and Tim provides his thoughtful-as-always commentary (follow the links to his earlier work, but the last line says it all..."Shut up or litigate"). But make sure to read Mike Dillon, Sun's general counsel and senior most legal guy - it'll open up your eyes to what's happening.

I'm not going to tell you that this is as important as dealing with climate change, but if you run a business it is important to you, and if you run a technology-driven business, then it is critical to the future of your business.

I'm at the TTI/Vanguard conference and have just had the honor of hearing a presentation by James Lovelock, one of the historical leaders and visionaries of global environmentalism.

His message is pretty straightforward. I'll try to paraphrase it here: We've screwed things up so much that we have to start thinking of big things we can do to counteract the mess we've made. Nothing we can do as humans can operate at a large enough scale and fast enough to stop the processes we've put into place. What we need to do is use the power of the earth itself to correct the problem.

He's proposing a systems approach to the earth, and with radical ideas like large scale heat pumps. He believes is that we're already making dramatic changes to the earth, so the risk of other radical changes is negligible compared to what we're already doing.

Spent most of the day at Eco Live 2007. Got to spend a couple of hours with RFK Jr. this morning, then did a short speech and introduced him as the main speaker. An honor to meet him, and personally exciting to spend some time together. We had a little less than 1000 in the audience, but it was a great and very interactive crowd. Mr. Kennedy talked a lot from his latest book, but added on some great comments about the role of the wilderness in religion and the role of the environment in American history. I think both of our talks got taped somewhere, and if I find them I'll link to them here. We talked about how to use sensors and real-time websites to start to raise awareness about the changes that are happening in the environment. We both thought this might be a good fit for his work with our nation's water resources. We also got a Flex Your Power award today, which was awesome! Now at the airport for the redeye trip home - looking forward to getting there in the morning.