Vince Ward, Project Officer at the Southern Housing Group

By Vince Ward

What started out as a community-based energy project on the Isle of Wight has morphed into a bona fide social movement.

Encouraged by the work of IBM Distinguished Engineer, Andy Stanford-Clark, who created a “smart” house that monitored, managed and optimized energy use, three years ago the Village of Chale created the Chale Community Project, which seeks, among other things, to reduce home energy costs by up to 50 percent. While the project has indeed raised awareness and helped residents lower costs, it has also had a serendipitous outcome – it has brought the community together.

From the very beginning of the Chale Community Project – during planning and roll-out phases – we worked on ensuring the local community was on board. Going from door to door, the team would communicate with residents about the plan of action, encourage participation and try to boost morale.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With confidence growing we continued by introducing schemes that would improve quality of life for the village. Local residents embraced the training schemes we provided on renewable technologies which not only offered new skills but opened up employment opportunities in areas previously unavailable. The schemes also benefited other parts of the island as residents could now act as ‘local green champions’ to educate other villages that were developing plans to become more sustainable.

These successful early activities encouraged the village to grab hold of the project and take it further. For example, local resident Peter Atkinson now manages a new data centre filled with computers donated from a local school that had closed. The computers are being used to train residents in core IT skills to help them use the Internet to pay bills and access online Government information. Atkinson believes that around 50 percent of the village is without Internet access in their homes, so the project has made a massive difference to people’s lives in that respect.

These activities have provided a solid foundation from which we built and expanded our sustainability project.  In addition to the aforementioned, the team has:

• Persuaded the local transport company to halve bus fares to encourage the use of public transportation for residents
• Seen a dramatic drop in rent arrears as energy monitoring has made utility bills more manageable; some residents have reported reductions of up to 50 percent
• Created an allotment area in the village, where young and old residents are brought together to reinforce a new sense of community spirit

Planning For The Future

Though we have achieved so much so far, we still have a lot of plans for the future.

For example, we are very excited to be the first village on the island working on a roll out of SMART meters that will replace electricity meters.

Additionally, we are talking to residents about launching a new electric vehicle project in the village which establishes clusters of electric vehicles (EV) to mimic a future network. If residents take part, we will offer the use of a brand new electric vehicle at a discounted rate for an 18-month trial period and install an EV charging point free of charge for each trial participant.

For us, the emphasis in all of these activities is on the community helping itself to live more sustainably. That is why we are pleased to be working with IBM to support the Business in the Community’s Start campaign called Be the Start. Start is an initiative inspired by HRH The Prince of Wales and the campaign is running throughout May with over 40 brands and organisations inspiring people to live sustainably by demonstrating how it can be rewarding and meaningful.

On 14 May IBM will bring sustainable living to life with a Chale focus on www.smartertrends.co.uk. IBM supported the installation of energy monitoring technology in the village which helped save energy and water so I’ll be hosting a Twitter chat with Andy Stanford-Clark on 14 May at 10:00AM ET to provide insights and top tips. So please come and join us by following @smartertrends or #IBMChale to find out more about the Chale Community Project.

Technorati Tags: Andy Stanford-Clark, Big Data, environmental stewardship, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, Isle of Wight, smarter analytics, Smarter Cities, Smarter Energy, sustainability

Mike Ray, Vice President, Business Integration & Transformation, Integrated Supply Chain, IBM

By Mike Ray

It started 40 years ago, before it was trendy or being taught in business school.

Thomas J. Watson, Jr., IBM Chairman at the time, said: “We accept our responsibilities as a corporate citizen in community, national and world affairs; we serve our interests best when we serve the public interest…We want to be in the forefront of those companies which are working to make our world a better place.”  That was 1969.

IBM’s values shape and define our company and permeate all of our relationships; between our employees and our shareholders, our clients, the communities where our employees live and work, and among our network of suppliers.

We know that IBM’s sizable purchasing power is a unique resource that we must manage responsibly. We have a responsibility to hold ourselves, and our suppliers, to high standards of behavior including taking environmental programs beyond compliance with applicable laws and regulations. It entails a strong commitment to work with suppliers to encourage good practices and develop sound global markets.

Our work in the area of environmental management within the supply chain goes back to that time. In 1972, for example, IBM instituted environmental evaluation of suppliers providing hazardous waste management services. In 1980, we expanded environmental evaluations to cover certain production-related suppliers. Ten years later IBM expanded environmental evaluations to cover suppliers who provided product-recycling and disposal services.

In 1998, IBM began encouraging suppliers to align their environmental management system with the ISO 14001 standard and pursue registration. Then in 2002, we published the first IBM Corporate Responsibility Report and two years later issued IBM’s Supplier Conduct Principles.

In 2008, IBM joined the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Supply Chain program (the date of the program’s inception) and in 2010, we established management system requirements for suppliers regarding corporate responsibility and environmental management, including specific requirements for Greenhouse Gas emissions management.

I personally had the chance recently to join the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at its annual 2013 Climate Leaders Award. There, IBM was honored for its environmental leadership, including its supply chain management that advances sustainability.

And on Thursday, May 9, I was a guest speaker the U.S. EPA Center for Corporate Climate Leadership webinar where I shared our best practices for climate leadership in supply chain management. I was pleased that more than 150 representatives from corporations, government agencies and non-profits attended to learn more.

As we move forward in the 21^st century, I’m encouraged by an ever-expanding awareness of the social and environmental responsibility incumbent upon by corporations like ours. It’s a responsibility that IBM with the support of our 20,000+ suppliers in 90 countries has been committed to for many years, and will be for many to come.

Technorati Tags: environment, environmental protection, environmental stewardship, EPA, green, IBM Smarter Planet, integrated supply chain, Smarter Planet, smarter supply chain, sustainability

Richard Dicks, General Manager,
Global Asset Recovery Services,
IBM Global Financing

By Richard Dicks

Today, businesses are making enormous investments in Big Data and analytics to secure new customers, enhance existing client relationships and gain a competitive advantage. Worldwide, the trend is accelerating rapidly.

What you may not know, is that many organizations are turning certified refurbished IT equipment to make it all happen. Refurbished equipment is a cost-efficient and often environmentally beneficial solution to meeting the growing demand for mined data. In fact, according to research firm IDC, up to 70 percent of companies have purchased used, reconditioned equipment in the past two years.¹

The facts are clear. Refurbished machines extend the life of older IT equipment that otherwise would require disposal; they serve as an affordable alternative to new equipment; and, they can help a company improve its business case to acquire much-needed analytics solutions that will help them make better decisions and grow.

Click here to view the embedded video.

From a quality standpoint, refurbished machines are reconditioned, tested and certified for resale using rigorous processes and original manufacturing standards. They can even be rebuilt to meet specific client needs, such as a new analytics application that transforms information into insight and helps a company improve its marketing outreach. Maintenance contracts and guarantees can also be attached, to provide even greater assurances.

In addition to all this, refurbished IT equipment works seamlessly with new technologies to help organizations:

• Support innovation, grow, and transform
• Reduce total cost of ownership so capital can be used for other needs
• Meet business and IT requirements despite financial or credit limitations

The combination of high quality and low price can also make pre-owned equipment a good solution for special projects, temporary capacity and unexpected changes, for example when a physical move doesn’t require the latest technology. Pre-owned technology can also help businesses maintain a legacy environment or facilitate a disaster recovery solution.

In the end, the reuse of IT equipment is not only a cost-effective approach to expanding/upgrading IT infrastructures, it is an environmentally responsible course to take.

To be sure, a wide variety of used equipment is available, including personal computers, servers, storage, printers and networking devices. IBM uses refurbished equipment to meet certain IT needs within its own infrastructure.

On this Earth Day 2013, we recognize the positive impact of refurbished IT equipment on the environment, as well as a company’s bottom line.

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1. Source: IDC Survey, 2012

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Earth Day, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, refurbished IT, Smarter Buildings, smarter systems

Terry F. Yosie, President and CEO of the World Environment Center

By Terry F. Yosie

Environmental issues are big, thorny problems. Scarcities in water, food and raw materials are too complex for any single company or non-governmental organization to solve on its own.  In order to make a difference, it’s necessary to collaborate with like-minded partners to achieve shared goals.

Collaboration is a normal feature of customer-supplier relationships, government-business partnerships and initiatives with universities and other partners. It’s also typical for organizations looking for new business models that can sustain profitability while addressing societal needs, natural resource management, product and service innovation, and differentiation of brand value, to name a few.  Collaboration can spur organizations to redefine their business purpose by utilizing society as another kind of R&D lab for innovation. 

Coca-Cola’s Global Water Strategy is a good example. Water is clearly essential to the company’s business – for its beverages and also for growing the agricultural products they need. The company instituted a global program to promote water resource sustainability. It set global strategic direction on water, established policy and requirements, and formed and managed key partnerships with organizations such as the WWF and USAID.

Another example is IBM’s work with cities in emerging economies such as Africa. It requires years of building on-the-ground relationships and capabilities while turning projects into partnerships that generate positive economic, environmental and social results. IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge – the company’s single largest philanthropic initiative — deploys teams of employees to work with cities around the world to deliver detailed recommendations addressing key urban issues identified by local elected officials and other stakeholders. A recent report, “A Vision for Smarter Growth: an IBM Smarter Cities Report on Accra, Ghana” highlights how this rapidly emerging West African city should turn to technology to transform key city systems such as transportation and energy.

Many companies are still finding their footing as they try to build global collaboration to match their global business strategies. This requires a “system-level” understanding of societal and environmental changes that can transform global economy and society. At the World Environment Center, we’re seeing more companies beginning to recognize how issues such as population growth, urbanization, food security and natural resource management may affect their business and impact return on investment.

Such decisions rarely occur in a vacuum. For example, investment decisions to upgrade power generation should take into account interconnected energy and water use in building design and maintenance. Only a “system-level” understanding of goals will enable companies to develop more innovative approaches to understanding both customer and societal needs.

For collaboration to succeed on a larger scale, we need global networks of companies, national agencies, NGOs and foundations, such as those created to eradicate malaria. Organizations can jointly develop licensing standards and transparency practices. They can work towards specific goals, performance metrics, and accountable behaviors to make a difference — from individual projects, to Big Bang transformational initiatives.

Collaboration is key to developing solutions to the mounting global challenges of current and future generations.

Technorati Tags: collaboration, Earth Day, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, Public Health, Smarter Planet, sustainability

George Elliott, P. Eng., Commissioner of Transportation and Public Works, City of Cambridge, Ontario

By George Elliott, P. Eng.

In the city of Cambridge, Ontario, we’ve always taken pride in our long and proud tradition of delivering quality services to our citizens with the bottom line in mind. We know that with a growing city, our infrastructure needs are also growing. In these hard economic times, we wanted to address funding gaps through efficiencies and limit the impact on taxes. We looked for ways to give us more analytical ability to refine and enhance our systems and gain greater return on investment.

Given the aging physical infrastructure challenges that all Canadian municipalities are facing, we needed to better understand the competing priorities, and look to refine ways we address our infrastructure to avoid costly repairs.

Our team was challenged with addressing preventative maintenance as most of our resources were being increasingly used to respond to emergency repairs. 

We needed the ability to put resources to proactive programs to start to get ahead of the curve. Through ongoing work in asset management and technology implementation, we’ve uncovered the insights needed to shift to a preventative maintenance model – to begin the shift away from a break-fix mentality of operations and embrace a more proactive approach to maintenance. We are gaining more efficiencies and developing a plan for long-term infrastructure sustainability. 

The technology helped quantify the extent of reactive activities and the resources we used for these emergencies to free up time for prevention. In turn, that prompted change at both Capital Re-construction Planning and day-to-day operations and, in some cases, we could refocus on repair techniques in the field.  We can drill down into the data and create automated, detailed workflow plans that cover all activities that are performed.

For example, by knowing that major infrastructure in the ground is due for renewal, we can better coordinate repaving work so that part of the city isn’t dug up several times – it’s about greater coordination and reducing the impact on our citizens. Effectively we’ve achieved a symbiotic trend reversal developed through collaboration – all starting with the insight gained from analytics.

These analytics touch everything we do and allow us to make more informed decisions – we think differently about how maintenance is done, which is the key to our success going forward. These analytics will also support our city leaders’ decisions to invest in infrastructure and help us to make wiser decisions for future stability. 

The technology captures information from all relevant sources and brings it conveniently together in one place to enhance our knowledge of the big picture while ensuring we are capturing the information the corporation needs. Our use of the technology has also helped leverage new funding opportunities from other levels of government and be in a ready-to-go position to maximize new opportunities. As we continue to build our capabilities, demonstrate our fiscal responsibility through solid financial planning tools, we’re able to get more done with the same resources. Our good roads rating has increased from 30 percent of roadways to almost 50 percent and we are excited about the additional gains we’ll see in maintenance management activities moving forward.

The City of Cambridge’s assets are now inventoried and part of a compressive package to help safeguard them for the future. As analytics continues to evolve, we look forward to leveraging the technology as it provides even deeper insights into the health of the City’s $1.5 billion assets so we can come up with more proactive measures to avoid system breakdowns and mitigate the consequences when they do occur. This will be the big pay off in the future – not only from financial and sustainability standpoints, but in the quality of infrastructure for our citizens.

Technorati Tags: Analytics, Big Data analytics, Government Services, IBM Smarter Planet, smarter analytics, smarter government, urban infrastructure

Robert Waymouth, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry, Stanford University

By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications

Robert Waymouth, Ph.D., maintains the sense of awe that he’s had since his earliest days as a chemist, savoring those “marvelous moments where it just takes your breath away, you can’t believe something worked like that.”

Waymouth, a professor of chemistry at Stanford University, had one such moment in 2004 when he and his grad students discovered a new way to make molecules using organic catalysts. That breakthrough, followed by years of research with colleague Jim Hedrick at IBM Research in Almaden, Calif., has yielded a process to make environmentally sustainable plastics that could lead to smarter recycling methods, a drastic reduction in plastics pollution and even a safer, more efficient way to administer drugs.

Waymouth and Hedrick’s work represents a major advance in green chemistry (also known as sustainable chemistry), which uses substances and processes designed to reduce or eliminate negative environmental impacts. For their pioneering work, they were recently awarded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Presidential Green Chemistry Award.

“The plastics we use today are truly modern marvels, but the way we’ve produced and disposed of them for the past 50 years is not sustainable,” Waymouth said. “We need to change the way we think about and synthesize the materials we use everyday so we create them in a sustainable way.”

Breakthrough could revolutionize plastic bottle recycling

Waymouth and Hedrick teamed up in 1997 as part of an industry-university partnership between IBM and Stanford, funded by the National Science Foundation. They initially collaborated to make metal-free plastics to coat microelectronics, but their focus quickly grew in scope.

Traditionally, plastics are created using metal catalysts — however, some heavy metals get left in the plastic, contaminating it and impeding recyclability. Waymouth and Hedrick invented a whole new family of organic catalysts to create plastics that have no metals in them at all.

By removing hazardous metals from plastic production, they’ve opened the door to safer end-products that are biodegradable and biocompatible. Because these new materials break down into harmless small molecules, it’s safe to dispose of them in a landfill or use them in the human body.

“This new research provides a strategy for designing materials that can be made in a sustainable way, so after we use them they can be readily recovered, reused and recycled again and again,” Waymouth said.

Redesign is crucial because today’s plastics were developed and commercialized with little thought to their ultimate environmental fate. Recycling has improved, but is more difficult than most people realize. The material commonly used to make water bottles — polyethylene terephthalate (PET) — is generally recycled one time and then the second generation plastic is discarded in a landfill.

Conceivably, Waymouth and Hedrick’s breakthrough will one day make it easier to recycle the 13 billion plastic bottles disposed of globally each year.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“We want to be awesome”

Waymouth and Hedrick have published 80 papers and share ten patents on the design of organic catalysts for polymer chemistry. Meanwhile, as they continue an active research agenda to develop the science of sustainable materials, they’re also focused on demonstrating that their processes and materials are both economically and environmentally sustainable.

“The petrochemical industry has been so successful and it’s so well established that to compete with existing technologies with new approaches you need to be awesome, and that’s what we’re after: We want to be awesome,” Waymouth said.

In the near term, the most likely and practical application of this science will be in biomedicine. For instance, researchers recently designed a polymer that can be used to fight superbugs and drug-resistant bacteria in humans.

In addition, Waymouth’s research offers great promise in the area of drug delivery, where one of the biggest challenges is getting a drug into specific cells. Many cancer drugs, for example, are so potent that they attack cancerous and healthy cells alike.

“The small, biodegradable molecules we’ve developed can transport drugs through cell membranes, straight into the cells or regions they’re targeted for,” Waymouth said.

Transforming how chemistry is practiced and perceived

As exciting as the prospects in plastics and medicine are, for Waymouth they’re steps on the road to an even grander goal.

“My greatest objective is to change the way people think about chemistry and science. So while I’d be delighted if some of our science turned into a practical product, it’s this transformational power of an idea that inspires me,” Waymouth said.

“Fifty years from now I hope people will say that what we’re doing today changed the way polymer chemistry is practiced,” he said. “That’s what drives me.”

Technorati Tags: green chemistry, Hedrick, organic catalyst, PET, plastic bottles, plastics, polyethylene terephthalate, polymers, recycling, water bottles, Waymouth

Andrew Hoffman, University of Michigan, Director, Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise

By Andrew Hoffman and Terry F. Yosie

The students of today are the business leaders of tomorrow. It’s important for them to understand how to solve the big, vexing problems that impact the quality of life for current and future generations.  

With that in mind, the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, together with the World Environment Center, have announced a partnership to get graduate students involved in planning and implementing sustainable development initiatives while working with leading global companies.

The program, which will be called the Erb/WEC Fellowships, will be supported by IBM as part of the company’s long-term commitment to environmental sustainability and developing next-generation skills for the 21^st century workforce. IBM was recently recognized for the second consecutive year as the greenest company in the U.S., according to the Newsweek 2012 Green Rankings survey, and the company is working with WEC and other companies to solve major sustainability challenges.

Terry F. Yosie, President and CEO, World Environment Center

The Erb/WEC Fellowships will provide practical experience to dual-degree MBA/MS students who are aiming for careers that advance sustainable development. The program adds a new dimension to both WEC’s and the Erb Institute’s expanding portfolio of initiatives to improve the teaching of sustainability at leading educational institutions.  

Erb/WEC Fellows come from a program that connects them to the best minds at the University of Michigan, which is at the forefront of advancing sustainability concepts and practices. Meanwhile the WEC, through its membership, will provide students direct access to senior level sustainability executives.  

Why now? Sustainability has migrated to the core of business strategy for global companies. It provides an operating framework and best practices to improve energy, water and resource efficiency while attending to social and economic equity. 

Sustainability reduces consumption and waste around water use and other natural resources. It’s a way to strengthen environmental, health and safety performance and drives innovation across business functions – manufacturing, product development, distribution, logistics and customer relations.  It also spurs initiatives to align global value chains.

In short, sustainability thinking has evolved to the point where it influences everything from global brand enhancement and competitive differentiation to the need for economic development in local communities and strengthened small-and-medium sized enterprises.

It’s a complex problem that can be solved only by reaching deep within organizations. Today’s students need to understand how companies evaluate and apply sustainability data to make decisions that affect the planet.

We feel that education in both business and sustainability must transcend the classroom. That includes engagement with business professionals who are on the cutting edge of the issue. This new initiative represents the spirit of that goal, with real-life learning opportunities for our students.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Terry F. Yosie is President and CEO of the World Environment Center; Andrew J.  Hoffman is Director, Erb Institute and Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise
Ross School of Business/School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan

Technorati Tags: environmental, Green & Beyond, IBM, smarter collaboration, Smarter Planet, sustainability, University of Michigan, WEC

Andy Stanford-Clark, Master Inventor and Chief Technology Officer, Smarter Energy, IBM UK & Ireland

By Andy Stanford-Clark

About four years ago, I set out on a personal mission to significantly reduce the energy use in my home. Today, I’m pleased to say that I have made some big steps towards that goal, but more importantly – my home turf – the Isle of Wight, is embarking on a journey for the whole island to become energy self-sufficient, in a project called “Ecoisland.” My efforts at home were my own personal hobby: the Ecoisland project is a much larger, collaborative effort!

Why am I writing about this now? Well, this week IBM took part in the Ecoislands Global Summit. Ecoisland is an ambitious transformation program which aims to turn the Isle of Wight (home to 140,000 citizens) into the ultimate eco-region, with a dramatically reduced carbon footprint by 2020. IBM and other companies are working with the Ecoisland project to develop innovative ways to save energy and reduce emissions and waste, while also cutting the islanders’ fuel bills – potentially by up to 50 percent. 

Energy is certainly a hot topic at the moment: climate change, rising energy prices and technology advances are all forces that have been reshaping the collective mindset of consumers, turning many of us from “passive bill-payers” to highly informed, environmentally-conscious customers who want a role in deciding how the energy for our homes is provided. 

Representing that demographic, and with fully paid-up “geek” credentials, I took energy monitoring in the home into my own hands and turned my house into a living laboratory using various home automation technologies to help me better understand our energy consumption.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I have sensors monitoring many of the appliances to track how energy is being used around the home. The sensors wirelessly transmit data to a “message broker” on a low-powered (just 10 Watts!) computer server, which sends data to various display devices, and also sends updates to my phone via Twitter, notifying me when an appliance is using too much power at an unusual time of the day. You might think that this information isn’t very useful if I receive it on my phone when I’m miles away from home, but from a cool application on my phone, using a technology called MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport), I can control home appliances via the internet – so if a light has been left on, I can switch it off from wherever I am in the world.

I also use a “traffic light” LED colour-changing orb as a means to encouraging my family and I to save energy – when it turns red we know that something has been left on by mistake or we are consuming an excessive amount of energy. Since monitoring our electricity usage and making some changes to our behavior patterns, our quarterly electricity bills have reduced by approximately a third.

So how does this relate to the Ecoisland initiative? Well, my home is acting as the trial lab for some of the monitoring, automation and messaging technologies being used for the project.  Next week, I will be blogging about a community project here on the Isle of Wight – The Chale Project – which is helping other people on the island save energy in their homes. If you are interested in how communities can reduce energy and save money, then check back here next week to find out more about how this can be done.

Technorati Tags: Ecoisland, efficiency, green buildings, IBM, Smarter Energy, Smarter Planet, sustainability

David Bartlett, Vice President, Industry Solutions, Smarter Buildings, IBM Software Group

By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications

Every time you walk into a building, think about this: it’s alive and kicking and wants to be fed.

It’s not just some static structure standing there. As Dave Bartlett, vice president of smarter buildings at IBM, sees it, a building is remarkably analogous to a living organism.

The heating and cooling system is also the building’s respiratory system, bringing in fresh air and removing carbon dioxide. It consumes enormous amounts of energy and water along with producing the associated waste.

The musculoskeletal system provides form, support, stability and movement to the building. Sensors, computer monitoring and other instrumentation make up the building’s nervous system.

And, just like in the human body, all these systems are interconnected and affect one another.

Bartlett developed his “physiology of buildings” concept to help illustrate how buildings work and how they should be managed to optimize operations and maximize energy efficiency. In other words, how to make them healthy.

“Today we have the ability to get a constant stream of data from our physical infrastructure and run analytics to derive deeper insight into how to better manage our buildings,” Bartlett said. The key is to monitor and manage buildings from a system of systems perspective, rather than view each piece of equipment independently.

“If we can think of buildings and listen to them holistically, we open up a whole new way of understanding buildings that will allow us to heal them of their wild energy and water wasting ways,” Bartlett said.

Leading the drive for smarter buildings

Bartlett is known in industry circles as the “Building Whisperer” because of his ability to listen to buildings and tame them of their excesses. On that front, the world has much work to do.

Buildings consume over 40 percent of the world’s energy and emit more carbon dioxide into the environment than cars. By 2025, buildings will be the largest energy consumers on earth. Today, in large cities, buildings are already the largest energy consumers and producers of greenhouse gases.

Bartlett evangelizes far and wide about the urgent need for more sustainable, energy-efficient buildings and IBM’s unique capabilities to help achieve this.

“IBM is doing something in the building space that hasn’t been done before,” Bartlett said. “We’re listening to all the data that’s coming from buildings  - not just from the heat and air conditioning units, but from all the systems across all the buildings a company manages.” This can include lighting systems, security systems, utilities interfaces and even city command centers.

IBM’s TRIRIGA smarter building solution integrates with all building systems, regardless of manufacturer to provide a real-time view of a building’s energy use and overall operation. It also supports holistic management of the building environment.

According to Bartlett, smarter buildings can save as much as 40 percent on energy costs, 50 percent on water, and up to 30 percent on building maintenance. “Understanding what’s happening in a building in real-time means you can tell when something needs to be fixed before it breaks,” he said.

Click here to view the embedded video.

An optimist on a mission

Bartlett’s on a self-proclaimed mission to change the way we think about and manage buildings and bring them front and center into the conversation about smarter cities and a healthier planet.

“The way we waste energy and water today is crazy,” Bartlett said. “Why is it that when you go to the movie theater, you have to take a sweater, warm socks and a scarf? Why do office buildings have the lights and air conditioning on when no one is in them — or the sprinklers turn on even when it’s about to rain outside? It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Bartlett’s vision for the future goes well beyond instrumentation of individual structures to include a much broader, systematic approach to designing and managing our entire building environment. He advocates strategies to integrate buildings into their surroundings that may radically reduce energy use and improve the quality of our lives.

“Imagine contiguous corridors of green that traverse up the sides of buildings and across roofs, not only providing better water absorption, oxygen and insulation, but also an ecosystem for butterflies, birds and small mammals that will begin to blur the harsh lines that we’ve drawn between cities and countrysides,” Bartlett said.

“Maybe that seems too optimistic, but that’s my vision of the world and I think we can achieve it sooner rather than later,” Bartlett said. “We have the technology and there’s an awareness of the need for sustainable solutions that I’m confident will stir decision-makers to action.”

Technorati Tags: Dave Bartlett, green buildings, smarter physical infrastructure, Tririga

David Lee, Executive Partner, IBM Global Business Services, Ireland

By David Lee

Internal combustion engines fueled by petroleum continue to power the vast majority of vehicles around the world and continue to produce the largest percentage of CO2 from the transportation sector.

Since transportation is one of the largest sectors in Europe, it’s no wonder the mission of the European Green Cars Initiative is to support research and development on technologies that help advance such things as renewable, non-polluting energy, transportation safety, and traffic flow. In other words, the group’s objective is to help create a smarter, greener, integrated transport system.

As part of this effort is a campaign to increase the number of electric cars on our roads.

The benefits of electric cars go beyond transportation. By adopting more sustainable transport methods such as electric vehicles (EVs), we could save kilotons of C02 each year while achieving annual net cost savings for consumers and governments, alike. EVs offer a viable solution to the problems faced byEurope’s auto sector.

Yet, the introduction of any new technology such as electric cars requires extensive research and pilot projects. In Ireland, ESB Networks is involved in a number of trials and projects to analyze the charging infrastructure and collect data on ongoing consumer behaviors and trends.

ESB Networks is also a member of the Green eMotion research project that aims to develop and deploy interoperable charging solutions for electro-mobility across Europe. This project focuses on achieving mass-market adoption of EVs through the development of standards, policies and interoperable systems so that motorists can easily charge their vehicles anytime and anywhere throughout Europe.

The selection of Ireland as one of the ten demonstration regions within Green eMotion was an obvious one, since it already operates an advanced charge point network that covers 82 percent of the country’s main towns and cities.

To be sure, Ireland has many natural advantages that make it an ideal location for the successful adoption of EVs. There are short distances between urban centres, we have the capacity to generate high levels of renewable energy, we have a single service provider that operates a unified distribution network across the country, and we have high levels of home ownership for overnight charging.

In addition to all of this, there is a growing desire by Irish consumer to maintain a responsible lifestyle and to embrace the EV opportunity. For example, in June 2012, ESB Networks invited citizens and organizations to apply to join a team of EV ambassadors and drive an electric car for one year. The hugely positive response of more than 12,000 applicants highlighted the level of interest the has in this innovative driving technology.

In support of this campaign, ESB Networks, in collaboration with IBM, which has worked extensively on EV technologies including batteries, is implementing a charging infrastructure as well as the IT and communications systems needed to support EVs across Ireland. Beginning this month, the system will have open accessibility for all energy supply companies and all types of electric vehicles.

(Left to Right) Peter O’Neill, IBM Country General Manager, Ireland; ESB Chief Executive, Pat O’Doherty; and Allan Schurr, Vice President, Strategy and Development of IBM’s Global Energy and Utilities Industry, announce joint partnership in which IBM will help ESB ecars implement a fully-integrated smarter charging IT system. The system will manage electric vehicle public charge points, which are being rolled out across Ireland by ESB ecars. The IBM EV platform will enable EV drivers to select convenient payment options and access all charge points using a single ID card.

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Technorati Tags: Battery 500, electric vehicle, electric vehicles, green energy, ireland, sustainability