Filed under: News
The growing popularity of hi-tech devices, such as flat-screen TVs and digital radios, threaten to undermine efforts to save energy, a report says.
UK consumers spend £12bn a year on electronics, much of which is less efficient than older technology, a study by the Energy Saving Trust found.
By 2020, the gadgets will account for about 45% of electricity used in UK households, the organisation projected.
It said flat-screen TVs and digital radios were among the worst offenders.
(more)
Source: news.bbc.co.uk
Filed under: News
An organic climate change lobby group has issued green ratings for hardware and software-based IT suppliers as well as other businesses. IBM leads the IT pack while Apple, Amazon and eBay are bottom with zero green credentials.
The lobby group is Climate Counts and it is funded by Stonyfield Yogurt, a producer of organic yoghurt, and Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP), a non-profit organisation based in the USA’s New England region and dedicated to finding and promoting solutions to global warming.
Stonyfield and CA-CP got together with GreenOrder, a New York-based consultancy, to devise the supplier rating scheme. According to Fortune magazine, ‘Green Order advises Fortune 500 clients on how to make money by going green.’ The client would be Stoneyfield in this case.
GreenOrder provided strategic guidance on the Climate Counts program, assisted in the development of the scoring system, and has verified the scoring results for accuracy.
Climate Counts use a 0-to-100 point scale and 22 criteria to determine if companies have measured their climate footprint, reduced their global warming impact, support or oppose ‘progressive climate legislation’ and have made clear and comprehensive public disclosures about their climate actions’. The higher the Climate Counts score, the greater the company’s commitment to fighting global warming.
IT sector company scores are led by IBM with 70. HP has 59, Sony 51 and Dell 41. Yahoo! has 36, like Hitachi, and Microsoft has 31. Then Google is awarded a low 17 with eBay and Apple having a derisory 2 and Amazon zero.
It is apparent from the scorecard that the green analysis is not very sophisticated. For example, Lenovo is classed as an IBM brand and not treated as a separate company.
There is no attempt to rank companies on absolute carbon emissions or carbon intensity, that is emissions related to business model, head count and/or revenue. To give Google a 17 with all the efforts Google is making to reduce its emissions and couple that with Dell at 41 and Apple at 2; both companies making strenuous attempts to ‘green’ their operations, makes the Climate Counts effort seem almost naive.
Certainly its efforts differ substantially from those of Greenpeace.
The main founder, Stonyfield, claims it was ‘America’s first manufacturer to offset 100 percent of its CO2 emissions from its facility energy use’. There are doubts about the real effectiveness of carbon offsetting and thoughts that if sales of organic yoghurt increase Stonyfield will be ploughing a much greener furrow.
Source: techworld.com
Filed under: News
BRUSSELS – Cars sold in the European Union should be built so they cannot drive faster than 162 kilometres per hour to cut carbon dioxide emissions from driving, a Member of the European Parliament has proposed.
Chris Davies, a British MEP, said cars should not be able to drive any faster than 25 percent above 130 km/h – the speed limit in most of the EU’s 27 member states – from 2013.
“Driving a car (faster than) that is against the law in every country but Germany,” he said. “It’s nonsense. I believe it needs to be countered.”
His non-binding proposal could influence parliament’s opinion ahead of new CO2 legislation for cars expected from the European Commission in the next year. Davies also recommends giving the auto industry more time to improve motor technology.
The Commission plans to propose new rules by mid-2008 to force carmakers to cut emissions from new cars to an average of 130 grams of CO2 per kilometre across the fleet by 2012 through improved engine technology.
Davies’ report suggests moving that date back to 2015 but with a target of 120 g/km. It also suggests longer-term targets of 95 g/km by 2020 and 70 g/km by 2025.
EU environment ministers meeting on Thursday are expected to ask the Commission to set out CO2 targets for road vehicles for 2020 as part of the bloc’s efforts to fight global warming.
Source: nzherald.co.nz
