Green ICT is More Than "Greenwash"

by JASON GROSSE, Communications Manager, ITAC

In last years’ Green ICT issue, Andy Canham argued that separating true innovation from what he called “greenwash” is often difficult, echoing the concerns of many about some green efforts ringing hollow. In the past year, the pace of the greening of technology has quickened — we recognize that we all have our part to play. Take the internet for example, a tool that for the most part we take for granted. The electricity and infrastructure required to “keep the lights on” is nothing short of incredible.

When it comes to reducing our own carbon footprint, it is going to take a combination of small changes, large movements, industry leadership and proper governance to help reduce our effect on the planet. The large movements often start out as small grassroots initiatives, like HP’s power to change campaign — which in its simplest form, urges all of us to power down our workstations when not in use.

These small, grassroots initiatives also spawn large, advanced programs, where companies like Xerox work for decades and lead the industry charge in order to “enable tomorrow today.”

When grassroots meets industry and we involve government and academia, we get collaboration — under the leadership of NGO’s like Sustainable Waterloo, who are working hard to develop a working framework for voluntary emission reductions — with a focus on high-tech companies in the Waterloo region. It all begins, however, with small changes at the grassroots level.

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Xerox Canada is Enabling Tomorrow Today: Sustainability at Xerox Canada

by JASON GROSSE, Communications Manager, ITAC

Eme Onuoha, Director Sustainability and Federal Government Relations, Xerox Canada

By harnessing the power of some of the world’s best R&D facilities — and people, Xerox is setting industry benchmarks in climate protection and energy conservation, preserving biodiversity, preserving clean air and water and waste prevention and management.

“For us, it’s about enabling tomorrow today,” says Eme Onuoha, Director Sustainability and Federal Government Relations, Xerox Canada, “The whole point is to try and ensure we’re in a position to address the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to address their own needs.”

“We’ve built priorities around four key areas where we can have the greatest impact,” he said. Climate protection and energy; preserving biodiversity and the world’s forests; preserving clean air and water; and waste prevention and management are primary focal points for the Xerox Canada sustainability agenda.

“In 2003 Xerox Corporation made a commitment to decrease our carbon footprint throughout global operations by ten per cent in ten years. By the end of 2006 we had secured an 18 per cent reduction surpassing our initial target six years early. So we raised the bar and now we’re on track to achieve a 25 per cent reduction in our carbon footprint by 2010.”

Eme notes Xerox was also one of the first partners in the Energy Star program — and in 2008 was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency as a “Corporate Leader” in the EPA’s Performance Track program. “We are particularly proud of this achievement as it is based on decades of unswerving commitment to energy conservation and environmental stewardship.”

In terms of preserving biodiversity, clean air and water and waste management, Eme points to a number of initiatives and successes.

“We’ve partnered with the Nature Conservancy,” an international conservations authority committed to protecting the world’s vulnerable land, forests and water sheds.

In terms of waste management, he says simply, “At Xerox we believe that the best way to manage waste is by not creating it in the first place — we recognize that all commercial activity has an environmental impact so we are always looking for ways to minimize impacts particularly in our manufacturing operations.”

Eme says “Innovation clearly plays a major role in Xerox’s sustainability efforts - It has a lot to do with who we are, how we thrive and the ceaseless pursuit of progress through creative problem solving.” Many of these innovations, says Eme ad driven by Xerox’s world-class research facility, XRCC or the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, where over 100 scientists from 39 countries around the world produce more than 120 patentable ideas each year. The XRCC holds Xerox’s worldwide corporate mandate for materials research.

Xerox’s customers also help drive innovation, says Eme, “Over the last couple of years, environmental stewardship has really influenced mainstream market demand. We’re finding that more and more, our customers have their own sustainability goals. Our customers are trying to demonstrate to their customers that they are going green. They prefer to do business with like minded suppliers who can help them achieve their sustainability objectives. We’re finding that our customers are increasingly savvy in terms of the partners, products and services they choose.”

”We’ve moved beyond mere compliance. Xerox has fundamentally embraced the concept of sustainability as a responsible and profitable way of doing business…it’s about helping our customers, colleagues, communities and stakeholders do great work by enabling tomorrow today,” he says.

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HP is Empowering us to Change

by JASON GROSSE, Communications Manager, ITAC

Frances Edmonds, Director of Environmental Programs, HP Canada

For decades HP has distinguished itself as a market leader in the development of products and services designed to reduce their impact on the environment. Recently, HP has introduced several initiatives as part of its HP Eco Solutions program, initiatives that have the power to help Canadians reduce their environmental footprint.

“HP has always had a commitment to environmental responsibility,” says Frances Edmonds, Director of Environmental Programs at HP Canada. “I would say if you took the breadth and scope of our goals, we are very far out in front.”

What puts HP at the forefront, says Frances, are several programs and initiatives including the simple, yet ambitious, Power to Change campaign. Power to Change is a downloadable widget that reminds users to power down their computer when not in use — an act HP says can reduce energy usage, curb greenhouse gas emissions and help to save the planet.

“I believe that Canadians really do want to make a change — we know our customers want this,” said Frances. “We’re readying HP for the next wave where everyone will want to know the size of their carbon footprint.”

The HP Eco Solutions program also focuses on innovation at the product level. For instance, HP has already exceeded the goal it set in January 2008 to reduce the energy consumption of its desktop and notebook PCsby 25 per cent by 2010, a full year and a half ahead of schedule. There is also innovation at the shelf level with a new labelling standard for HP products. The HP Eco Highlights labelling system is designed to make is easy for customers to access product information. “What we recognize is that with the amount of green-wash in the marketplace it’s hard for consumers to differentiate,” says Frances. “Eco Solutions is comprehensive — we don’t just pick one product and say, ‘Let’s make it the greenest."

Another significant commitment by HP revolves around the use of recycled materials and advances in ink technology. In 2007 HP reached its goal of recycling over 1 billion pounds of products and materials.

In addition, by 2011, HP expects to use a total of 100 million pounds of recycled plastic in its printing products (cumulative from 2007). To provide perspective, this is the equivalent of diverting four billion plastic water bottles from landfill.

The company has already exceeded its 2008 goal to triple the amount of recycled content in its inkjet printer products and double the amount of recycled content used in its inkjet cartridges. To date, HP has sold more than 400 million inkjet cartridges made from its “closed loop” inkjet cartridge recycling process – the industry’s first and only.

For HP, the HP Eco Solutions initiative adds up to a strong commitment to sustainability. The company won three gold environmental awards this year at the Environmental Printing Awards run by PrintAction. “We believe in giving back to the communities in which we live and work,” says Frances.

For more information on the HP Eco Solutions program, please go to:
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/environment/index.html

To download the Power to Change widget, go to:
https://h30470.www3.hp.com/en_index.aspx

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Sustainable Waterloo Works to Lower Waterloo Region's Carbon Footprint

by JASON GROSSE, Communications Manager, ITAC

The Sustainable Waterloo Team

Taking a page from Silicon Valley’s book and localizing it, Sustainable Waterloo is championing environmental leadership in the Waterloo Region. Backed by NGO powerhouses like the David Suzuki Foundation, Sustainable Waterloo is a not-for-profit organization that facilitates collaboration between, industry, government, academia and NGOs — with a focus on Waterloo’s high-tech sector. The current focus of Sustainable Waterloo is voluntary reduction of carbon emissions.

Mike Morrice, Executive Director of Waterloo is leading his team of full-time, part-time and volunteer staff, in Sustainable Waterloo’s current work: the Regional Carbon Initiative. Mike recently spent some time with ITAC Online to talk about his organization.

What is Sustainable Waterloo?
We’re a not-for-profit organization focused on helping companies across the Waterloo Region become more environmentally sustainable… Our current work is focused on the Regional Carbon Initiative: supporting voluntary target setting and reduction of carbon emissions across the region.

What is the mandate?
Our mission is to guide organizations to a more environmentally sustainable future. The vision is for a healthy environment, vibrant economy and a socially equitable community — so it’s a broad aim in that sense … our first work focused on the Regional Carbon Initiative, but there is so much more for us to do in this community. There are other opportunities to collaborate with companies in the future, on any other pain points they may have and that’s everything from water consumption to waste management.”

What has the collaboration between industry, government, academia and other NGOs been like?
We’ve taken it from a model that’s been in place in Silicon Valley for several years now. They’ve been working with 95 companies there. Ours was more of a grassroots approach — from the bottom up - but the results have been the same. At both of our first two events we we’re seeing city staff and politicians talking to industry, as well as our NGO partners working together to try and solve these problems to better our community … it’s a unique way to go about seeing social change.

June 16 was the launch of the Regional Carbon Initiative, what are some of the details and goals of the program?
The goals are to ultimately have as many organizations as possible in Waterloo commit to voluntary reduction of their carbon emissions because they realize there is policy coming down the pipe, there is money to be saved, and the business case to do so is strong. At the (June 16) event we had a Professor from Wilfred Laurier University really frame collaboration and how that can be used as a means to initiate environmental change within a community, a business owner speak about how reducing emissions has improved his firm’s bottom line, and I introduced our first three companies that have committed to voluntary carbon reductions: Athena Software, VeriForm Inc, and Enermodal Engineering.

How was the program received?
Very well - we had about 250 people in the room, including many business leaders from our community and the high tech sector. And we were thrilled to have the evening sponsored by companies like RIM, Open Text and DALSA, the City of Cambridge and Waterloo, and a local tech start-up, RapidMind.

How will the program continue to roll out in the future?
We have quite a bit of work to do to deliver on this — a big part of this is the education, the community building piece. We’re going to be running quarterly educational forums where companies can share best practices on emission reductions, and technical workshops for firms to build capacity with respect to how to reduce emissions and energy use.

For more information on Sustainable Waterloo, go to:
http://www.sustainablewaterloo.org/index.php

For a video of the June 16 event, go to:
http://www.sustainablewaterloo.org/index.php?p=eJn1609

ITAC NEWS

 Audrey Diamant Recognized as ITAC Volunteer of the Year

Audrey Diamant, Indirect Tax Partner, PriceWaterhouseCoopers receives her award from outgoing ITAC Chair  Bob Courteau

On June 23, at the ITAC Annual Chairs’ Dinner, Audrey Diamant was recognized as the 2009 ITAC Volunteer of the Year. Audrey is the Indirect Tax Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers and is also considered ITAC’s resident expert on Ontario Retail Sales Tax. Since 2002 Audrey has been working to change the rules surrounding the application of RST to ICT goods and services, which are at best notoriously difficult to navigate. Working first as the co-chair of ITAC Ontario’s sales tax sub-committee and more recently, with ITAC’s Tax and Finance Committee, she has worked diligently to soften the impact these rules have had. In recent years, the rules governing the application of RST have shifted, creating even more confusion, unexpected audits and significant penalties for the producers of custom software in Ontario. Audrey has written a number of papers on this and has, with ITAC, advocated strenuously for a rationalization of the rules. She has made the point many times with the Ministry of Finance that the custom software producers, and the ICT industry as a whole, craves clarity and simplicity above all, and the best way to achieve this would be retail sales tax harmonization.

Good News for Large SR&ED Filers
Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), in an effort to simplify SR&ED filings especially for smaller companies, changed its T661 form last Fall. The change required all SR&ED claiming companies to file claims for every project. Previously, filers were required to file for only a maximum of 20 projects as long as they retained documentation to support all other projects. The shift to require claims for all projects raised concerns among large filers for this represented a major increase in workload and overhead. In March, CRA met with several of ITAC’s large filers in order to understand the impact of the change on their claims process. CRA has undertaken to find a long term solution to this problem and has asked ITAC to explore several options with its members. But in the meantime it has decided to extend the time required to adapt to this change. Claimants can continue to provide a separate part 2 of the T661 for only their 20 largest projects for tax years ending before 2010. For further information, contact Lynda Leonard (613-238-4822 x223).

Upping our Game: A National ICT Strategy for Canada
ITAC has released a white paper outlining the information and communications technology industry’s vision for a more competitive Canadian economy predicated upon more widespread deployment of technology. “Upping our Game” also details the key elements necessary for a sound national ICT strategy for Canada. It also lists a number of metric-driven objectives and recommendations to build this strategy. To download the paper, go to: http://www.itac.ca/uploads/news/upping_our_game_may2509.pdf

ITAC EVENTS/OTHER NEWS AND EVENTS

Doing Business With OPS
July 9, 2009, 08:30 AM - 10:30AM,  Queens Park, 900 Bay St. Toronto, 2nd Floor, Ontario Room
This session is sponsored by IT World Canada, the producers of Showcase Ontario, and ITAC

Opening Remarks: Marty Gallas, Corporate Chief Infrastructure Technology Services, Ministry of Government Services

• Doing Business Session Speakers: Jason Hildebrandt, Senior Procurement Consultant, Operational Procurement

• Policy and Eric Smith, Manager, IT Procurement Implementation Section

• Strategic Direction of Greening: Neil Sentance, Assistant Deputy Minister, Ontario Public Service (OPS) Green Office Service (OPS), Green Office

You must RSVP in advance for complimentary admission RSVP http://www.showcaseontario.com/2009/ops

McGill University Announces IT Diploma Program in Internet Business
In today’s competitive environment, businesses are in desperate need for analysts who are able to enhance their day-to-day decision-making capabilities through the analysis of the web traffic data, and the understanding of the impact of the ubiquitous social media technology on Internet marketing. The new graduate level credit programs offered by McGill Centre for Continuing Education represent the exciting prospect of an information technology career of high demand internet business knowledge skills. It is a unique program on Web Analytics and Business Intelligence conducted by instructors who are industrial top experts and highly successful entrepreneurs in the international platforms. For more details, go to: http://www.mcgill.ca/conted-cms/programs/ebusiness/

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