It’s true. I’m in love with Google, and everything they do! From the rumored GPhone, which is apparently to be announced soon, to the simplicity and reliability of their search engine. But, most importantly, and relevant to my role here at Green Options, is their role in leading businesses towards a greener tomorrow.

Boston, Massachusetts, hosted the 3rd annual Conference on Clean Energy this past Monday and Tuesday. Panel discussions by clean energy investors, entrepreneurs developing emerging clean energy technologies for startups and more were on the agenda, along with Robyn Beavers, Director of Environmental Programs at Google.

Google, who already has the largest corporate installation of solar-powered electricity, is apparently not satisfied… and well it shouldn’t be. According to Beavers, Google intends to generate a total of 50 megawatts of electricity from renewable sources, for all its operations, by the year 2012.

Beavers outlined a number of steps that Google is taking towards those goals. A 1.6 megawatt solar installation at its corporate headquarters in Mountain View, Calif, and solar panels on building roofs are just the beginning. Not to mention the solar-panel-roofed carports, under which their plug-in hybrids are charged.

"Wind, solar, geothermal, fuel cells — you name it, we’re looking into it," Beavers said.

You may wonder though, why it is that Google are so invested in going green. Well, run by youngin’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company consumes a massive amount of power. Consider just how much you see Google online, and then trace that back to what is powering all that online presence. The power requirements for their operations and data centers are not small.

But the investments that Google has put in to these green initiatives will pay themselves off in 7 years — not that they need too, with shares selling for just under $700, and stockpiles of cash in back rooms. They have already managed to reduce their consumption from the power grid by 30%, and a subsequent reduction of 30% on their bills.

Why go green? Because it’s cheaper! Why else? Because someone has to lead the charge, and I’ve said all along it has to be big business. We know it won’t be governments! We’ve seen that time and time again. The big moves will only come when the big businesses make the move, and with Google and, more recently retailing giant Wal-Mart, investing in green and renewable initiatives, that leap forward is coming soon.

News.com — Google’s love for solar may extend to other renewables

Conference on Clean Energy

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Tech Industry Goes Greener and Greener

The world of journalistic reporting is a funny one, with revisions and corrections sometimes making a lot of work moot. According to Apple, this may be the case for a piece I wrote on the iPhone taking a beating from Greenpeace. So, in an effort to keep our reporting fair and balanced (oh gosh, now I sound like I work for Fox) here’s the other side to that article.

The article in question concerned a report that Greenpeace made about the latest gadget that everyone has to have: the iPhone. Apparently, in short, it was a danger to the environment as a result of its materials, and its lack of recyclability.

Their Rebuttal

The Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF) has swung back at Greenpeace, condemning their report as nothing more than a scandalous and hyped attack.

The international organization of the bromine chemical industry pointed out that none of the substances Greenpeace attacked Apple for using were banned under existing environmental laws. In fact, according to the BSEF, all the substances that were criticized by Greenpeace "…are approved for use, and provide critical performance and safety functions in a wide range of electronic products."

They went on to say that the brominated flame retardants that are used in the construction of the iPhone are all common ingredients in a wide variety of currently stocked products. The retardants provide a high level of fire safety, the Forum said, "essential in an age in which computer batteries randomly catch fire."

"The Greenpeace report does not say which brominated flame retardants are present in the iPhone because it does not know. Therefore, the report speculates about what substances might be present, and raises an alarm without any basis for doing so."

Apple also had something to say about the allegations brought against them.

"Like all Apple products worldwide, iPhone complies with RoHS [Restriction of Hazardous Substances], the world’s toughest restrictions on toxic substances in electronics," an Apple spokesperson, told Macworld. "As we have said, Apple will voluntarily eliminate the use of PVC and BFRs by the end of 2008."

My Rebuttal

So yes, in reality, the iPhone manages to stay within the rules. But the facts remain, that the tests commissioned by Greenpeace found problems.

Chemicals that, among others, include phthalates, were found in the vinyl plastic earphone wiring that were above levels deemed safe for children San Francisco and the European Union (EU). These levels were prohibited for children’s toys in both locations.

The Center for Environmental Health, basing their decisions on the report conducted, gave Apple 60-days legal notice (lawyer speak for "we’re about to sue you!").

What really gets me is the way in which the BSEF responded. Two things primarily:

• They said that the chemicals found in the iPhone are available in a wide variety of products. Doesn’t that just mean that there are a whole heap of products out there that shouldn’t be using this stuff?
• And apparently, according to the BSEF, every other computer battery is catching fire. Sadly for them, this is far from the truth. How many stories have we seen over the past year or so about exploding batteries in laptops and iPods? Well, yeah, there have been a dozen or so!

But compare that to how many were sold, and it is a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the total sold. We are not entering an "age" where everything goes kablooie at the drop of a hat. To throw that in as if their intervention is the only thing saving us from a veritable palooza of pants on fire is ridiculous, and sensationalism at its best!

The End

The news is fair and balanced. Apple will be moving to change their manufacturing standards by the end of next year! Their products aren’t above the law, but nor do they need to be, as they fit within the law. And no, they’re not going to be sending our world further in to a cataclysmic spiral any time soon.

But is that the justification you want to use? That they won’t kill us anytime soon?

Network World - Bromine group slams Greenpeace iPhone report

Network World - Apple says iPhone complies with eco standards

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On the top of the rollercoaster that is environmentalism once again, we find that Richard Branson, everyone’s favorite billionaire, is greening up the Virgin Atlantic skies. His Virgin Group is hoping to start producing clean biofuels hopefully by the beginning of the next decade.

Speaking at a Mortgage Bankers Association meeting in Boston, Branson said that Virgin hopes to provide clean biofuels to buses, trains and cars within the next three to four years.

However, of more immediate importance is the decision to test a Virgin Atlantic 747 on renewable fuel next year. "Early next year we will fly one of our 747s without passengers with one of the fuels that we have developed," Branson told the annual conference. The company is developing fuels in conjunction with Boeing Co and engine-maker GE Aviation, a unit of General Electric Co.

Virgin is in a race against Air New Zealand to be the first to test such a flight. Air New Zealand said that it hoped to run a test flight on a combination of biofuel and kerosene in late 2008, so Virgin at least has a deadline to try and beat.

Branson suggested that the more popular and well known biofuel – ethanol – would be unsuitable for aircraft. Ethanol freezes at 15,000 feet, making it extremely risky, despite measures that would be put in place. Butanol is a gas similar to gasoline, and is one of the options that Branson believes will work.

Branson is one of those billionaires that can see through the mess of politicism and criticism when it comes to global warming. He has pledged to spend all of the profit he makes off his 51% stake in Virgin’s airlines and rail businesses to fight global warming.

As part of that pledge, he has created Virgin Fuels, an initiative that has already invested $400 million over three years in renewable energy initiatives. Virgin Fuels hopes to have a branded biofuel product in the near future.

ENN - Virgin Atlantic 747 to test biofuel in early 2008

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The Apple iPhone — the geeks very own messiah — has been the hot topic of conversation the world over. Geeks and lay men and women have all been gathering around the proverbial water-cooler with one thing on their mind (two if you include Britney Spears). But the water-cooler at Greenpeace has not been yielding the same happy vibes as Apple would have hoped.

September of 2006 saw Greenpeace launch the Green My Apple website. Rather than asking for green iPods, they were asking for "green" iPods. The question they asked was this: why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have agreed to abandon?

May of this year saw Steve Jobs — the Apple god, if you will — announce to the world that "Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors" on environmental issues. But with the release of the iPhone in June in America, Greenpeace was left alone in the cold. Apple seemingly had just talked the talk, and sat at home on their couch.

So Greenpeace set out to see just what the iPhone was made of, literally. Purchasing an iPhone, and sending it to their UK labs, they found that the iPhone contained "toxic brominated compounds (indicating the prescence of brominated flame retardants (BFRs)) and hazardous PVC."

"Steve Jobs has missed the call on making the iPhone his first step towards greening Apple’s products," said Zeina Alhajj, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner. "It seems that Apple is far from leading the way for a green electronics industry as competitors, like Nokia, already sell mobile phones free of PVC."

Now, this may seem like just an attack at Apple, but the reality is far from it. Greenpeace has previously run similar campaigns that have led to companies such as Dell and Lenovo phasing out the worst toxic substances from their product ranges. In fact, Dell has turned a literal 180, and has become a leading force in the big-business charge towards a greener future.

Closer to the iPhone home, companies such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have all bent to the pressure placed on them by environmental groups such as Greenpeace. Nokia is totally PVC free, and the other two already have released products with BFR-free components.

In addition, Nokia and Sony Ericsson have a global take-back policy for phones that have been manufactured by them. They accept responsibility for the reuse and recycling of their own phones. This is one of those really awesome measures taken by some companies. Unlike the once-off manufacturing changes that, in reality, will save the companies money, a take-back policy forces the company to fork out cash to keep the world clean. Instead of landfills piling up with millions of cell-phones each year, they are recycled at the behest of the manufacturing company.

I doubt I need to say that Apple are yet to implement any such plan, leaving the fate of some 10 million iPhones hoped to be sold this year well up in the air.

The Apple Iphone may very well be the second coming of the technological revolution, but it ain’t doing much for the good of the planet.

Disclaimer: I own Apple products, including a fifth generation iPod. I am a big fan of Apple, and have written about them at Daily Galaxy favorably. This bites!

Greenpeace - Missed call: the iPhone’s hazardous chemicals

Greenpeace - Green my Apple bears fruit

Green My Apple

I’m not going to kid anyone and suggest that I’m the only or biggest proponent of this theory, but over the past year or so, I’ve written several articles in various locations expressing the belief that it is businesses that are going to be the ones to break the global warming shackles. In fact, there are many out there who share this view. It will be big business that pushes us all in to a new way of life: a green ecological and sustainable way of life.

The latest big business to jump on this bandwagon is Panasonic, the leading brand owned by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Back in April of this year, Panasonic launched their "GP3" — their three year business plan. It was the standard boilerplate plan of achieving steady growth with profitability. Panasonic has now added ecological goals to GP3, and they give us reason to smile.

The first smiley goes to their method of determining their reduction of emissions in terms of total global levels, rather than on a per basic unit basis – the latter being the volume of CO2 emissions divided by consolidated sales or production volume.

They’re also using the 2007 production capacity level as the measure by which all future progress of carbon elimination will be measured.

Panasonic is on the ball, both from an ecological and a PR standpoint. They know that we’re going to give them a pat on the back for not changing their levels of "acceptable emissions reached" even if their production goes up. But, we’re giving them a pat on the back because it is a good ecological move.

But they’re not just settling with making their manufacturing green: they want these new initiatives to be a yardstick for all facets of their business.

Panasonic is looking to reduce CO2 emissions from aspects of their business including (but not limited too) product planning, procurement, sales, logistics and recycling by improving productivity. They’ll also be looking not only at CO2 emissions, but also their use of water and their energy consumption from electricity, gas and fuel oil.

In addition to the manufacturing and business side of their new green policies, the products that are a result of all these new initiatives will also be ecologically friendly. They hope to make products that they say will "lead the industry" in "energy-efficiency," meanwhile reducing the amount of products "with poor energy-efficiency."

Lastly, Panasonic is planning on reaching out to communities and movements across the world, and encourage the spread of environmental activities. "Panasonic will take initiative in promoting ecological movements…," they say, and one can only hope that they are true to their word.

It is these kinds of business models that are going to contribute to a reduction in climate change. Let us hope that, following in the wake of companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and IGN, more companies will jump on board.

Panasonic Press Release via ENN — Panasonic to Reduce CO2 Emissions by 300,000 Tons Over Three Years

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