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This comprehensive website describes HP's global citizenship policies and programs, as well as our performance through the 2009 fiscal year (ended October 31, 2009). It is our primary communication to people who want in-depth information about our global citizenship efforts and progress. Our audience includes customers, industry analysts, socially responsible investors, nongovernmental organizations, employees and corporate responsibility specialists.
RT @gerryvz: If you didn't see it, HP published interactive 2010 Global Citizenship Report: http://bit.ly/iBnTkz

via:packrati.us greennumbers hp csr corporate social responsibility global citizenship

Google challenges Internet censorship in China. It invests in solar power, electric cars, geothermal energy and the smart grid, and runs an array of programs to help its employees become more “green.” It’s consistently voted one of the best places to work. And it has an inspiring mission: to organize all of the world’s information.

Yet Google doesn’t even come close to making the 2010 list of 100 Best Corporate Citizens put together by CRO Magazine, now known as Corporate Responsibility Magazine.
who did?

Oil companies Hess Corp. (No. 10 on the list) , ExxonMobil (No. 51, which for years sought to delay action to deal with climate change, says Greenpeace), Occidental Petroleum (No. 26, accused of contaminating the Amazon) and Chevron (No. 56, targeted in a landmark class action suit for creating en environmental catastrophe in Ecuador).

The Southern Co. (No. 71), a coal-burning utility which led the fight against the administration’s climate change bill.

And the Newmont Mining Corp (No. 16)., whose gold mines in Nevada have been major sources of mercury pollution."
@drgrist Did you read @MarcGunther's superb post on the last CR Magazine list http://bit.ly/eOpKiT

via:packrati.us greennumbers 100 Best Corporate Citizens List Corporate Responsibility Magazine csr google

Last year tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record for global surface temperature, US government scientists said in a report on Wednesday that offered the latest data on climate change.

The Earth in 2010 experienced temperatures higher than the 20th century average for the 34th year in a row, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Overall, 2010 and 2005 were 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 Celsius) above the 20th century average when taking a combination of land and water surface temperatures across the world, it said.

Those two years were also the highest in temperature since record-keeping began in 1880.

Last year was the wettest on record, NOAA said citing Global Historical Climatology Network which made the calculation based on global average precipitation, even though regional patterns varied widely.

When it came to hurricanes and storms, the Pacific Ocean saw the fewest number of hurricanes and named storms, three and seven respectively, since the 1960s.

But the Atlantic Ocean told a different story, with 12 hurricanes and 19 named storms, which include tropical storms and depressions, marking the second highest number of hurricanes on record and third highest for storms.

greennumbers climate change global surface temperature

With 2010 finally behind us, and a full year of data to play with, it appears that green technology investments are firmly shifting from the supply side of the equation to the demand side. In other words, solar and wind power were on the outs last year, and energy efficiency was the up-and-comer.

That’s the conclusion I draw in my weekly update at GigaOm Pro (subscription required), and while it may not come as a surprise to industry watchers, it’s nice to have some numbers to back it up. Although solar startups continued to draw the most money in venture capital investment last year, energy efficiency startups garnered

greennumbers green technology investments investments supply demand energy efficiency

Siemens Energy is currently erecting the power converter stations for a high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission link between Baixas, to the west of Perpignan in France, and Santa Llogaia, south-west of Figueras in Spain, as important components of the Trans-European Network for electrical power. The installation can transmit a rated power of 2000 megawatts (MW) – enough to transport large amounts of electric power with a minimum of transmission losses.

siemens hvdc greennumbers france spain

General Electric today said it will spend $520 million to acquire Lineage Power Holdings, a company that specializes in fine-tuning power for servers, storage devices and other equipment inside datacenters.

GE bought the company from the Gores Group. Lineage pulled in $450 million of revenue in 2010.

ge general electric lineage power greennumbers

Corporate greenhouse gas emissions reporting continues to evolve at a rapid pace. As we celebrate the New Year, it's instructional to take the opportunity to reflect on the highlights of 2010 and their impact on this market. Many of the changes are healthy as sustainability and emissions reporting moves away from "feel good" disclosures towards risk identification and competitive advantage.

Here is my list of the top 10 Carbon Reporting Trends in 2010...

greennumbers carbon reporting trends

General Electric has made its first move into the fast-growing business of cutting electricity consumption by the telecoms and computer industries, buying Lineage Power for $520m from The Gores Group, a private equity firm.

The deal is GE’s third acquisition of an energy business in the past three months, as the group implements its plan to focus on infrastructure markets and reduce its reliance on financial services.

lineage power greennumbers ge general electric energy

Chris left BT after a long and influential career in the company to pursue new pastures in sustainability. He kindly agreed to provide some personal reflections after a 20 year career in the field.

Reflecting back over twenty years of corporate sustainability and then attempting to summarise that into a 500 word blog is an almost impossible task.

Much has changed. Twenty years ago...

bt chris tuppen greennumbers csr sustainability

IBM formally unveiled the fifth annual "Next Five in Five" – a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years:
• You'll beam up your friends in 3-D
• Batteries will breathe air to power our devices
• You won’t need to be a scientist to save the planet
• Your commute will be personalized
• Computers will help energize your city

ibm greennumbers innovations batteries commute

The current world market for Smart Grid software and data management applications is $1.4 billion in 2010, and it will grow to $2.9 billion in 2015 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.6%, according to The Smart Grid Utility Data Market by market research publisher SBI Energy.

A significant portion of this growth is going to occur in 2011 and 2012, as more American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funded projects in the U.S. are finally given approval.

greennumbers arra Smart Grid software Smart Grid

The government on Tuesday revealed the first nine electric vehicles that will be eligible for their purchasers to receive subsidies of up to 5,000 pounds under a plan to promote low-carbon transport.

Under the scheme, the government has pledged 43 million pounds until the end of March 2012 to help British motorists shift to low-carbon vehicles.

They will receive up to 5,000 pounds towards the purchase of a low-carbon car from January 2011 to the end of March 2012.

greennumbers uk electric cars electric vehicles subsidies low-carbon transport

Catastrophic floods in Pakistan, wildfires in Russia, hurricanes in Mexico: 2010 has so far been an "exceptional" year for weather disasters, German reinsurance giant Munich Re said Thursday."This year really has been a year of weather records," Peter Hoeppe, an expert from Munich Re's Geo Risks Research department, told journalists. "The first nine months of the year have seen the highest number of weather-related events since Munich Re started keeping records," he added.
Hoeppe added that a clear pattern of continuing global warming was contributing to the natural disasters. 2010 has so far been the warmest since measurements began 130 years ago. New temperature records were set in Russia (37.8 degrees centigrade) and in Asia (53.5 degrees in Pakistan).

Lighting Electricity Macys greennumbers led led lighting

Catastrophic floods in Pakistan, wildfires in Russia, hurricanes in Mexico: 2010 has so far been an "exceptional" year for weather disasters, German reinsurance giant Munich Re said Thursday."This year really has been a year of weather records," Peter Hoeppe, an expert from Munich Re's Geo Risks Research department, told journalists. "The first nine months of the year have seen the highest number of weather-related events since Munich Re started keeping records," he added.
Hoeppe added that a clear pattern of continuing global warming was contributing to the natural disasters. 2010 has so far been the warmest since measurements began 130 years ago. New temperature records were set in Russia (37.8 degrees centigrade) and in Asia (53.5 degrees in Pakistan).

greennumbers extremem weather weather-related catastrophes munich re insurance

... emerging EPA regulations on air quality and water for coal-fired power plants could result in over 50,000 MW of coal plant retirements and require an investment of up to $180 billion for remaining plants to comply with the likely mandates.
Both those numbers go up substantially -- retirements by 11-12 GW and needed investment by $30-50 billion -- if EPA requires cooling towers in addition to smokestack scrubbers. (This is consistent with the FBR Capital Markets report, which finds a total of up to 70,000 MW of coal on the line.)
By 2020, the authors say, coal plant closures will reduce coal demand by about 15 percent, increase natural gas demand by about 10 percent, and (assuming the coal is replaced by gas) reduce CO2 emissions by 150 million tons.

greennumbers coal plant co2 emissions coal cooling towers epa epa regulations

The massive industrial conglomerate Halliburton has reportedly offered to pay $250 million to settle charges against its former chief executive, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, in a multi-million dollar bribery case.

greennumbers halliburton nigeria bribery dick cheney

Buyers of video game hardware who like to compare costs and features may want to consider the various systems’ energy consumption after the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) tested three top-selling systems and found that a Nintendo Wii™ system uses six times less power than a Sony PlayStation ® 3 or Microsoft ® Xbox 360 in active mode.
“We included only a small sample of the many gaming systems available, but it reveals that the differences in energy use can be significant,” said Mark McGranaghan, vice president of Power Delivery & Utilization for EPRI.  “With the holiday shopping season in full swing, now is a good time to consider this factor.”
EPRI tested each system for one hour of active play using EA Sports’ Madden 2011 football game, which is widely played on all three game consoles. EPRI found that the Nintendo Wii system used an average of 13.7 watts, the Sony PlayStation 3 used an average of 84.8 watts, and the Microsoft Xbox 360 used an average of 87.9 watts.

epri greennumbers Nintendo Wii Sony PlayStation Xbox 360

LED is Coming of Age
To paraphrase William Gibson, the future of lighting is here, it's just not evenly distributed. Light-emitting diodes (LED) lightbulbs have been coming on the market in the past few years, but their quality varies greatly, from "almost perfect" to "horrible" (kind of like the early compact fluorescents). I had the opportunity to spend a few days with two LED lightbulbs from Qnuru, and I'd like to share my impressions with you. Read on for more photos and my review.

greennumbers qnuru led lighting led lamps led

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced today the Department is accepting applications for up to $184 million over three to five years to accelerate the development and deployment of new efficient vehicle technologies that will reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, save drivers money, and limit carbon pollution.

Projects will span the broad spectrum of technology approaches, including advanced materials, combustion research, hybrid electric systems, fleet efficiency, and fuels technology.

Secretary of Energy greennumbers steven Chu phev bev ev electric vehicles

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has voted to license the 500-MW Palen project and the 150-MW Rice  project in Southern California, which now brings to nine the number of solar thermal power projects approved in the last four months.

Altogether the solar projects comprise 4,142.5MW of solar thermal power to be added to the California grid and will provide more than 8,000 jobs in initial construction, and then more than 1,000 ongoing jobs in operations.

greennumbers California Energy Commission solar solar concentrating solar thermal