How Sustainable ICT boost employment! (Final Workshop of GRIN-CH)

The GRIN-CH final Workshop took place on 29 October in Lausanne, Switzerland. Would you like to know what topics where discussed? Then have a look at the presentations:

• "The economic importance of Sustainable ICT in Switzerland and in Europe", Dr. Babak Falsafi, Prof. EPFL 
• "Strategic opportunities/potentials of Sustainable ICT for SMEs in CH and in EU", Ms Susanne Sinclair, CEO Morgaja Ltd
• "How Sustainable ICT Consulting works: Case studies and success stories in Green-IT consulting", Christian Marchand, ICT Consult
• "Sustainable ICT as a driver for new jobs - in CH and in EU", Frédéric Bordage, Founder of GreenIT.Fr, Green ICT expert
• "Presentation of a new Sustainable PC", Ms Tu Wuest, Vice-President Why Ltd
• "Training for job roles in the field of Sustainable ICT", Prof. Jean Hennebert, HES Fribourg 
• "Competence needs for Sustainable ICT jobs in Europe: Results of GRIN-CH", Dr. Adriana Baer, Project Coordinator

All sessions were moderated by Roland Grunder, SwissMedia.
Press Release (FR)

Does cloud computing really offer a way to reduce energy demands?

Increased use of cloud computing services could  reduce the dependence on energy and help reduce global environmental damage with savings of over $2.2 billion (€1.65 bn) and a cut in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 95% according to the findings of a study released on the 27th of June 2013 in Brussels by researchers from Harvard University, Imperial College London and Reading University sponsored. 

Full article available at http://www.microsoft.eu/cloud-computing/posts/does-cloud-computing-really-offer-a-way-to-reduce-energy-demands-cm19l.aspx

Cloud Computing May Reduce 95% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), the global association that promotes Green IT and promote the goal IT equipment a tool for assessing the sustainability performance of suppliers of raw materials and components to manufacture, revealed in a report that increased use of cloud computing services will reduce the dependence on energy and save over US$2.2 billion. 

To download the full article please visit http://cloudtimes.org/2013/07/02/cloud-computing-may-reduce-95-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

From Green-IT to sustainable ICT

ICT plays an important role in the current days, it does not only change the way we work but also the way we live, organisations and individuals request more and more IT driven services, each day new e-applications appear and cloud computing (private or public) is present everywhere. To sustain this never ending demand, new ICT infrastructure comprising servers, storage systems, physical and wireless networks are developed.

This fast evolving change has a dual impact on the sustainability of our world. On one hand, ICT considerably helps to reduce the global environmental footprint of our society; for instance home working and teleconferencing solutions, e-commerce and e-government services clearly help in the diminishing of polluting travels. But, to operate these services, organisations more and more rely on new and powerful ICT infrastructures … that have negative environmental impacts. Huge quantities of energy are needed to feed the cloud and the datacenters; the networks and all the individual devices. Moreover, the conception of ICT equipment emits considerable CO2 equivalent emission, need precious and rare commodities and the end-of-life of these electronics equipment is far from green.

This has brought the issues of a greener and sustainable ICT to the attention of various entities including governments, NGOs, international standardization bodies, companies and individuals. The solution to this concern is commonly named Green-IT. Green-IT refers to environmentally sustainable computing. It is the study and practice of using computing resources with minimal or no impact on the environment. Green-IT strives for economic practicality and improved system performance while satisfying social and ethical responsibilities; it includes the dimensions of energy efficiency, sustainability, economics, and total cost of ownership (which includes the cost of disposals and recycling).

Green-IT is made of two interconnected domains, the greening OF IT and the greening BY IT. The greening OF IT refers to all actions taken by an organisation to make its IT more environmentally friendly by developing ecofriendly products, increasing the datacenter and IT infrastructure efficiency, reducing the paper consumption, introducing green criteria in the IT procurement and preparing for green project lifecycle and green software development. The greening BY IT refers to all IT projects and products allowing an organisation to reduce its global environmental footprint; like home working and smart work center policy, web based videoconferencing, electronic document management, e-services and applications.

It is sure that ICT has become unavoidable; making the role of Green-IT profiles pivotal to the success of green and sustainable initiatives by ensuring that the technology being used is "green" and power efficient, and by providing the IT tools and services needed to support organizations’ overall green investments. These Green-IT profiles must also help organisations in implementing a state of the art Green-IT governance in line with their corporate sustainable business development strategy.

Finally, new greening BY IT or ICT for sustainability profiles are emerging; they actively help to reach the ambitious 2020 European Commission energy target by participating in and promoting the most promising green-IT challenges like smart grids and smart cities projects and innovation 2.0 projects mixing ICT and sustainability.

So, let’s talk now about sustainable ICT profiles who will help organisations in a vital transformation from sustainable ICT to ICT for sustainability, open innovation and sustainable business models.

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About the author:

Thierry Holoffe is Sustainable ICT Consultant of Green-ICT. Since 2009, he realizes Green-IT missions, gives public and onsite training and participates to events as speaker, focusing on Green-IT and sustainable business activities. He is a Green-IT Ambassador and endorser of the EU Code of Conduct for Datacenter.

Call for proposals in Eco-innovation

Got a great business project that could make Europe greener but don't know how to get it off the ground? The 2012 Eco-innovation call for proposals may be for you!

The EC published a new call for green innovation within the CIP programme. The participation of SMEs is encouraged! Topics include:

• Materials Recycling
• Sustainable Building Products
• Food and Drink Sector
• Water
• Greening businesses

More information about the info-day here.

Important dates:

Closing date of call for proposals: 6 September 2013

Green ICT helps reduce climate change impact

The Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment (ISPONRE) recently sponsored a Green Growth and Green ICT (information and communications technology) for Sustainable Development in Vietnam seminar. 

Specialists from the Republic of Korea (RoK) said at the seminar that the rapid increase in the number of ICT users had increased the amount of electronic waste, as well as global warming, so constructing a strategy on using green ICT to minimize carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions remained vital. 

To read the full article please visit http://vietnambreakingnews.com/2012/12/green-ict-helps-reduce-climate-change-impact/#.UXDqDco-VmI

ICT for Sustainability 2013 conference: Outcomes - How to Improve the Contribution of ICT to Sustainability

The event was held in Zurich last February 2013. The experts provided a set of guidelines which are summarized in the Conference Recommendations report. The speakers and participants of ICT4S 2013, in fact, endorsed a set of recommendations to stakeholders derived from the research results presented and discussed at the conference. Statements provided by the speakers before the conference were compiled to a draft document that was then being discussed in plenary sessions. The main directions of impact of this document can be grouped into three categories with two main issues in each category: 

• Sustainability in ICT: there is a large unused potential to save energy by designing software for energy efficiency. The power of software should be used more systematically to reduce the energy consumption of hardware.
• Sustainability by ICT: ICT offers a high potential for more intelligent energy management in buildings, in particular for heating and cooling and in connecting the buildings to smart grids. Smart homes and offices can substantially contribute to sustainability.
• Overarching Aspects: ICT applications can and should be used to create incentives for more sustainable behavior and to support people systematically in adopting more sustainable lifestyles.

Green ICT for Sustainable Consumption in Europe: Experts Explore Potentials and Trends

In January, more than 50 professionals from 20 countries across Europe, the US and Australia discussed in Vienna at the event “Green ICT for Sustainable Consumption?” how ICT can increase energy and resource efficiency and make consumption more sustainable. 

Modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can have a great influence on shaping a more sustainable world. The mega-trends Cloud Computing and Smart Systems in the areas of energy, transport and housing, have the potential to substantially reduce environmental impacts and, thus, green Europe’s future. The time to adjust the future development of these technologies is now, say Europe’s leading ICT- specialists.

Read the full press release.

Green IT : The squared circle

More and more companies and organisations over the world want to move to a more "Green" approach of their business but for this they need well trained and qualified employees and it is where the system lacks.

Several reasons can push a company or an organisation to become more "Green": To be more planet friendly as it is more and more important for citizens and specially for our children. To appear more "Green" to customers and public drives more customers and increase business and benefits. The example of Mc Donald's turning his logo from red to green is a good illustration. Also becoming more green decreases the energy charges for the company as well as decease the cost of waste re treatment. Facebook for example plan to build new data centers in Scandinavia as for cooling the computers, you just need to "open the window" (of course this is an image...) By this way the electricity costs of the company decrease strongly.

For "Greening" companies or organisations is needed to employ competent and qualified "Green" professionals. Unfortunately there are very few "Green" specialists available on the job market and few are trained by Universities and VET providers.

We also have to recognise that the profile of a "Green" specialist is not obvious ! They need to have a strong technical basis, and moreover to have strong transversal and "soft skills" competences. We can point out some difficulties of the job : To deal with change resistance in the company or organisation is something who need strong communication competences, leadership, sense of teaching, anticipation of difficulties ...

If technical skills are easy to identify and to assess, soft skills and specially interpersonal skills are difficult to evaluate and by the way difficult to train. This is mainly done by working experience , but can also be trained by VET providers if well identify and well assessed.

European Commission has stated that "Green" jobs and specially "Green IT" is one of the most important engines of European comptitivity, EU co-fund different EU projects in different frameworks to solve this problem. R&D projects are co-funded in a large scale as well supporting Vocational Training improvement . GRIN-CH project supported by LLP program aim to identify the most important jobs to support the industry, to define them in accordance with European Qualification Framework (EQF) and e-Competences framework (e-CF) and compatible with ECVET (to allow employees and students mobility.

5 Professional profiles have been drafted, and are now under evaluation by professionals , then will be officially published by the e-Jobs Observatory . Training guidelines for VET providers will be issued and published.

Source : In French language : Le Monde - Planète plus intelligente

Green ICT for Sustainable Consumption in Europe: Experts Explore Potentials and Trends

More than 50 international specialists discuss mega-trends, including Smart Grids and Cloud Computing attended the 2nd multinational knowledge brokerage event “green ict for sustainable consumption?” held in Vienna in January 2013. 

Modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can have a great influence on shaping a more sustainable world. The mega-trends Cloud Computing and Smart Systems in the areas of energy, transport and housing, have the potential to substantially reduce environmental impacts and, thus, green Europe's future. The time to adjust the future development of these technologies is now, say Europe's leading ICT- specialists.

To read the full press release of the results of this event.

"Green means business", A new generation of environmentally-aware entrepreneurs has emerged

“People don’t actually care about climate change too much because it’s a very long process. To motivate people you have to make them save money. And for us it is a business because we want to earn money in the process. We want to change the world that people live in,” says Greif, an ambitious young entrepreneur.

A new generation of environmentally-aware entrepreneurs has emerged, setting up business plans which aim at decreasing the environmental footprint. 

Interested in meeting some of these young entrepreneurs and finding out the concepts behind their business plans?

For more information, watch this video.

GreenIT.fr become supporter of e-Jobs Observatory

Created in 2004, GreenIT.fr gather more than 250,000 Green IT and sustainable ICT professionals living in french speaking countries, mostly France, Belgium, Swiss, Luxembourg, Canada, and Africa. This wide community is animated by Frédéric Bordage, one of the most knowledgeable french green IT experts with the help of the GreenIT.fr's team. GreenIT.fr is one of the top 5 most visited French environmental website!

GreenIT.fr goal is to help companies and institutions initiate Green IT and sustainable ICT projects to reduce their environmental footprint by providing them best practices, news about tools and regulation, a job board, and an agenda. They advise companies and institutions on topics such as e-waste management, software eco-design, reducing printing, computers power management, data centers power efficiency, sustainable IT buying, and carbon footprint of IT.

For this reason, it is a matter of course for GreenIT.fr to contribute to the Green IT node project and to become a supporter the e-Jobs Observatory.

The latest US Green Power rankings have been released, but where's Google?

The US Environment Protection Agency has released its latest quarterly rankings of US green power users. The leading players in the overall October rankings are similar to those for July, with Intel and Microsoft representing the IT sector in first and third places respectively. Other ICT companies in the top 50 mostly keep similar rankings to the last quarter: Cisco (17), Sprint (25) and Dell (38) – with the exception of Google, previously in 46th place but now no longer in the list.

More information about this news

"Ideas of IT equipment tolerances to heat are archaic" the Green Grid

The Green Grid, the non-profit industry consortium aimed at improving resource efficiency in data centres, has released its Data Centre Efficiency and IT Equipment Reliability report. This latest research looks at the robustness of modern IT equipment, along with new practices that enable data centre operators to reduce and eliminate the need for air conditioning.

More information about Data Centre Efficiency and IT Equipment Reliability report.

EnviroTech Report cleantech news digest launched

The GRIN-CH consortium is pleased to share with its readers the EnviroTech Report, a weekly roundup of information and analysis on the broader cleantech sector. It covers everything from renewable energy generation to e-waste management, including electric vehicles, smart grids, green ICT and much more. The information is taken from a wide range of Twitter, blog (including this one) and news sources from like-minded individuals and organisations.

More information about EnviroTech Report

«State of Art» in the field of Green IT

In Europe energy is mostly provided by a mix of fossil energy sources and nuclear power with small addition of renewable sources such wind, solar, hydroelectricity…Last studies shows that 10% of the total electricity produced is use by computers in large parts of the world.

Reducing footprints from IT industry is one of the main aims of the European Commission and from the governments of member states. The IT industry has started from last years to develop a more sustainable approach and reduce footprints of the industry.

This move starts since the conception of the devices, organised and designed to produce less wastes, less sub products, and of course less consumption of electricity. For this purpose Green IT specialists are engaged in companies to support the “Green Approach”. The benefits for the IT industry stay in less costs of production, less waste to retreat and of course, when devices consume less electricity this costs less for the companies. This is the “Win-Win” Green approach! To sustain this strategy, more and more companies try to engage specialists, of Green IT, or specialists who are able to support the green implementation.

Few training organisations such universities or high schools provide specific teaching for green. It is why a consortium of different organisations dealing with IT, and trainings are studying the Green IT market needs, define European Specialists Profiles for Green ICT, and will provide training guidelines to training organisations to train the future specialists of the sector.

The first findings by analysing the working field are clear, Green IT competences are transversal; Technical competences are the basic to integrate companies with green objectives. Those competences can stay in designing, organise new devices, or process, but to be efficient specialist have to do their work with a long term perspective on how to manage the technical change in the line of the global strategy of the company. They also have to understand the business of the company and to stick with it. Also a very important competence is to deal with change resistance inside the company or with customers and network of the company! This is not the most easy to acquire but is decisive in the recruitment process : ability to analyse, to assess, to teach, to guide colleagues, and customers, to deal with ability and psychology with partners and members of the team is absolutely decisive. The European Specialist Profiles for Green IT professions show the most important competences in this emerging field who take more and more space in the business area.

Author: Francois Adoue

Maison de la promotion Sociale

Director of e-Jobs Observatory

Région de Bordeaux , France

Green Corner on the e-Jobs Observatory

GRIN-CH project

Commission launches innovation partnership for Smart Cities and Communities

By launching a Smart Cities and Communities European Innovation Partnership (SCC) the European Commission aims to boost the development of smart technologies in cities – by pooling research resources from energy, transport and ICT and concentrating them on a small number of demonstration projects which will be implemented in partnership with cities. For 2013 alone, € 365 million in EU funds have been earmarked for the demonstration of these types of urban technology solutions. Green ICT

Vice President Neelie Kroes said: "ICTs put the 'smart' in 'smart cities'. It challenges legacy industries to rethink how to reduce congestion and increase energy efficiency in the urban environment; enabling new business models and empowering people."

More information about this initiative.

Mobile networks could save 1.7% of global CO2 emissions by 2020

Last week the GSMA, the mobile network operators’ industry body, published its second Mobile Green Manifesto. It’s an update of the 2009 report, highlighting the initial results from the GSMA’s Mobile Energy Efficiency (MEE) benchmarking and optimisation initiative as well as progress around mobile’s enabling role.
As part of the original Green Manifesto the GSMA said that it would reduce its total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per connection by 40% by 2020 compared to 2009. Green ICT

More information about the full article

Europe leads the way of green initiatives worldwide!

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) has released a report - Seven Climate Change Lessons from the Cities of Europe -analysing the responses from the 22 European cities that replied to its global information request. The report concludes that European cities have had an impact on global climate change efforts. One reason is that the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, an organisation of cities dedicated to reducing GHG emissions, currently counts 17 member cities in Europe, more than in any other region of the world. Green ICT

More information about the full article

Governments and employers must act to help people develop skills for green jobs

The greening of the European economy, as outlined in the EU 2020 strategy, will have profound effects on the labour market. Yet not enough is being done to make sure people are acquiring the right skills.
Cedefop’s new report Green skills and environmental awareness in vocational education and training shows that difficulties of employers to influence the development of new, green qualifications in VET and the uncertainty surrounding regulations and policies are slowing down developments towards a greener economy. Learning providers report difficulties in understanding the skill needs of employers and employees.
The study identifies main challenges and priorities in eight EU Member States (Germany, Greece, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Finland and the UK), and takes as examples nine occupations affected by the green economy. Overall, the report found little evidence that green policies are influencing skills development and hiring policies. There is clearly a need for policy-makers and social partners to raise awareness and take common action.

More information about the full article on CeDeFop.
To see the press release click here.