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The latest high profile debate concerning New York City legislation has surrounded Mayor Bloomberg’s efforts to pass the “congestion pricing plan” for reducing automobile congestion and carbon emissions. The plan involves charging motorists an additional fee to enter the city’s most congested areas during peak times.

If you ask me, that plan is more about generating revenue than helping the city achieve a long-term solution towards congestion and pollution problems. It’s no surprise that the London-style plan fore mentioned appears to be a dead one in Albany.

The fact is that New York’s subways and buses are already at capacity, and as we prepare to add one million new residents by 2030, our existing mass transit will require improvements that will take years to put in place. If anyone wants to know what it feels like to be a human sardine, just step into any NYC subway during rush hour and see what I mean. Since the MTA has not bothered to make any subway improvements over the past 50 years, there is less than ample time now to catch up now with the rapid population growth.

If we want to look towards Europe as an example, then let us consider Holland, where bike riding is an everyday part of life. In fact, their entire road infrastructure is designed to accommodate bicycle traffic as well as cars and pedestrians. I know this because when I was visiting Amsterdam, I made the mistake of strolling haphazardly into one of these designated cycleways, only to be greeted by an onslaught of angry cyclists who narrowly missed me as they commuted. I, like many other absent-minded tourists before, no doubt, realized that these bike paths are not to be taken lightly. They are a traffic route like any other, complete with lights, road signs and crosswalks.

Earlier this year, Paris, France introduced the world’s largest and most ambitious bike-share program. The mayor procured 20,600 bikes, which are available at 750 “docking stations” situated every 1,000 feet. With just a credit card, Parisians (and tourists) can now pick up or drop off a bike in any neighborhood in the city for a small fee. Riders no longer need to worry about where to store their bikes. The program’s high-tech stations make theft virtually impossible. And with about twice as many bike stations as Métro stops, a free bike is pretty much always within reach.

When you consider that most automobile trips in New York City are less than five miles, it’s astounding that we have not made bicycle travel more accommodating. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. As an avid cyclist myself, I find that bicycle travel is virtually impossible in the streets of New York during normal business hours, not to mention that there are few if any locations to securely lock your bike when you reach your destination. If we really want to reduce emissions and cutback on congestion, then bicycle travel needs to be embraced in NYC.

Of course the city would need to create hundreds of designated bike lanes, but this is simply a political issue, not a financial one. This would require a comprehensive road-sharing plan for bikes as well as cars on existing city streets, and the mayor can do that without having to gain state approval. There are so many benefits to a bicycle-friendly New York that it’s hard to believe we have not embraced it sooner. Bicycling is a wonderful form of exercise; it has no carbon output, contributes to a quieter city, a better quality of life and most of all, it’s fun!!

By Joshua Levitt
E-Commerce Sales and Marketing Manager for UsedCisco.com

Reuse…Save up to 90% off list price and save the environment too when you shop at UsedCisco.com

General Electric Co. on Wednesday launched the nation’s first credit card with rewards dedicated to reducing cardholders’ carbon emissions.
The new credit card is part of GE’s “ecomagination” initiative, which includes growing research in cleaner technologies to $1.5 billion in 2010 and reducing the company’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Users of the MasterCard credit card, known as GE Money Earth Rewards, will be able to automatically contribute up to 1 percent of their purchases to buy greenhouse gas emissions offsets.

Credit card “rewards” will accrue over the course of the year and can be redeemed for emissions credit each Earth Day, April 22. Customers will have the choice to donate all of their rewards or receive a portion in cash.
GE AES Greenhouse Gas Services, a joint venture between GE’s consumer financing unit and power company The AES Corp., said the offsets will be scientifically verified by a third party.

Taken from: Business Week

Reuse…Save up to 90% off list price and save the environment too when you shop at UsedCisco.com

By Joshua Levitt
E-Commerce Sales and Marketing Manager for UsedCisco.com

The technology industry is brimming with new green initiatives. Dell (DELL) in June announced a plan to become “the greenest technology company,” by beefing up its recycling program and building more Earth-friendly PCs. Weeks before, rival Apple (AAPL) made a similar pledge to become “greener.” Panasonic has taken the lead out of its plasma TVs. Motorola (MOT) made its cell phone chargers energy-efficient. Sun Microsystems (SUNW) has even begun posting the amount of electricity it uses in each of its office parks, by month, on the Internet.

Advocacy group Greenpeace recently released a scorecard rating the largest PC and electronics makers on their recycling, hazardous-chemical and other environmental policies. Only one, Nokia (NOK), scored an 8 out of 10.

Going green is not easy. For one, the cost associated can be staggering. I have not seen any data indicating total amount spent on green initiatives but it is no doubt well into the billions, and growing.

The trend is encouraging to say the least, but until now there is no real data supporting a ROI for these green initiatives. Forrester Research published a report showing that 85 percent of 124 IT procurement officers surveyed thought environmental matters were important. However, despite the availability of products in the secondary market, or ones that consume less power, only one quarter of the IT managers surveyed said they had formalized “green” criteria in their processes.

I sincerely hope consumers keep up with the commitment and examples being set by environmentally conscious corporations globally through making decisions to support green companies when all other factors are equal.

Taken from: USA TODAY

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By Joshua Levitt
E-Commerce Sales and Marketing Manager for UsedCisco.com

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Get this, Google has pledged to go carbon neutral by the end of the year. A far cry from where they were a few months back when they mentioned “With the company growing 60 to 70 percent a year, we can’t hold our energy use flat for now,” said Bill Weihl, head of Google’s energy strategy.

Here are some of the ways they plan on achieving this goal:

• Completed a 1.6 megawatt photovoltaic system, enabling it to power 1/3 of its corporate headquarters using solar energy.
• Backing the Climate Savers Computing Initiative with a number of other high tech companies to promote energy efficient computing.
• Launched a green initiative called, RechargeIT, to develop plug-in hybrid vehicles that can serve as batteries for the electrical grid as well as reduce carbon emissions.
• They are offering to pay members of its AdSense publishing network via Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) in 25 countries. This can significantly reduce our dependency on paper, and protect the tree’s.

Taken from: Information Week

Reuse…Save up to 90% off list price and save the environment too when you shop at UsedCisco.com

By Joshua Levitt
E-Commerce Sales and Marketing Manager for UsedCisco.com

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Jon Beyer, cofounder and CIO of plant food manufacturer TerraCycle, says his company’s entire mission is to be green. The company harvests worm waste to create plant food and then sells it in recycled soda bottles. That corporate mission extends to his IT organization.

“We just try to reuse older equipment as much as possible,” Beyer said. “Rather than purchase new workstations and laptops, we pay for refurbished equipment. We’re fairly small now, so we are able to do that. As we continue to grow, I like to think we can continue to do that.”
Beyer said some larger companies may not want to use older equipment, but there are incremental ways for them to be green as well. Incremental change can work for those companies that don’t have a lot of money to spend on big, comprehensive solutions. Taken from SearchCIO

At UsedCisco.com we’re finding that more and more companies are applying that sustainable cost saving philosophy of ‘reuse’ to their network infrastructure. IT budgets can often be one of the largest budget burdens for many organizations, particularly in developing areas like India and parts of Eastern Europe. Start up companies all over are no exception to that rule, and now even many large enterprises have begun sourcing spares through reputable vendors in the secondary market. We’ve seen it in the auto industry, and now the secondary market for used Cisco equipment is rapidly approaching the 3 billion dollar mark annually.

The fact is, when you consider a savings of 60-95% off list price, coupled with a 3 year warranty; and now, tack on the environmental benefits to that equitation and you’ve got a no brainer. Buying refurbished computer equipment is becoming the new standard for many cost conscious organizations with smart fundamental attitudes about protecting our planet.

Learn more about how ‘reuse’ of older computer equipment can help the environment and save you cash at the same time.

By Joshua Levitt
E-Commerce Sales and Marketing Manager for UsedCisco.com

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Have you ever wondered what goes on inside of those earth saving electronic recycling plants, where tons of e-waste gets broken down and processed daily. Well, Erica Ogg of ZDNet News was recently granted exclusive access inside HP’s “Grindhouse”, a 200,000-square-foot recycling facility just north of Sacramento, which processes 4 million pounds, or 24,000 tons, of electronic hardware per month. Here is Ogg’s account of what he saw:

“Inside the massive facility, pallets of gray copiers are stacked next to shrink-wrapped packages of mismatched monitors awaiting slow, painful deaths. But before they get to the grinding machine, most electronics first have to face a horde of men and women armed with air guns and screwdrivers.
Hunched over their desks in blue lab coats, the recycling center employees swiftly strip machines of their innards, separating them for the grinding process. One petite, affable-looking woman made quick work of a stack of black notebook PCs–folding the screen open, snapping the plastic hinge with a loud crack, removing the LCD screen, then flipping it over to remove both the main battery and smaller button cell battery. The PCs’ plastic casing, batteries and screen are all divided and ground separately.
The hazardous materials–mercury bulbs in old CRT televisions and monitors, batteries, and inkjet and laserjet cartridges–are teased out and sent elsewhere to be melted down right away, but the rest face the granular shredder, which sounds as painful as it looks.
We tourists got to see the grinding action up close. Climbing the metal steps of the gigantic machine, we were met with a cacophonous rumble. My notebook and hands were instantly covered in a fine sheen of dust, or more likely, the remnants of unwanted technology. The first step of the process minces the material into 4-inch shards. The precious metals, like gold, silver, platinum and copper, are collected and sent to a smelter, where they are melted down and sold for reuse. What’s left rumbles by on a conveyor belt for a second grind, this time into 2-inch pieces. A giant magnet then picks out the small pieces of steel.
Next is another conveyor belt with positively charged tubes on each end. The tubes create an Eddy current, which causes the aluminum pieces to bounce around, separating itself from the plastics.
The end result is a 5,000-pound box of silicon, glass, and plastic confetti, which is shipped out to a separate contracted facility and reused to make auto body parts, clothes hangers, plastic toys, fence posts, serving trays, roof tiles–and maybe even your next PC.”

HP’s recycling efforts are rumored to cost the enterprise, “millions of dollars” a year, said Kenneth Turner, HP’s manager of product takeback operations. “It’s not profitable, but it’s worth doing for our reputation. Ensuring that the process is done the right way–not putting hazardous materials into the ground–also lessens HP’s vulnerability to environmentally oriented lawsuits”, he added. I think it’s a noble effort on their part and I hope it pays off for them in the long run.
Something tells me that their efforts will be soon be rewarded when our consumption culture matures into a culture of ‘reuse’. HP will have a leg up, and hopefully continue to lead the way on that front.

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Environmental concerns are undoubtedly on the forefront of the latest trends to gain corporate mind share for most forward thinking CEO’s in today’s competitive landscape. However, there continues to be a disparity between Europe and the US when it comes to ‘green’ awareness. Green action is less obvious in the US where, “just 22 per cent of organizations look at green factors when choosing suppliers compared to almost half (48 per cent) of the European respondents”- Forrester research.

The European Union set a world wide example when they implemented, WEEE the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive, setting collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods.
The U.S. is now considering legislation of their own to address the mounting e-waste problem. The general consensus is, “Any argument to go green has to have a powerful cost argument” – Forrester senior analyst Euan Davis.

With that in mind, a carbon tax offers certainty about the price of polluting. A recently proposed bill on Capitol Hill applies a simple tax for each ton of carbon emissions a company produces. That would offer a more efficient and less bureaucratic way of curbing carbon dioxide buildup, which scientists have linked to climate change. Hopefully; if that happens, firms will be looking at ways to cut emissions and make their business as carbon neutral as possible.”

Environmentalists are split on a carbon tax. Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, called such a tax “an interesting distraction” and continued to say, “It doesn’t give us the guarantee the emissions will go down,”.
What do you think, should such a tax be implemented nationwide and would it help to neutralize companies carbon footprint in a fair and effective manner?

Taken from The Washington Post and Business Week

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