Eating right, exercising regularly, flossing -- we know we should be doing these things every day but they're just not that exciting. For many businesses, energy efficiency feels the same – it's clearly a good idea, but somehow it always falls to the bottom of the corporate "to do" list.

Ho-hum as it may sound, energy efficiency packs a punch. Consulting mavens McKinsey and Co. estimate that the U.S. has the potential to reduce its annual energy consumption by 23 percent over the next 10 years through cost-effective energy efficiency measures.  That would be enough -- by itself -- to meet President Obama's climate goals.

Energy efficiency is doable now, it's cost-effective, and it's too big a part of the solution to be ignored. But it is lagging. To accelerate energy efficiency, we need to capture the imagination of individuals from college dorm rooms to corporate boardrooms across the country.

Target Corporation signed onto an innovative program called Climate Corps -- a symbol of its ongoing commitment to energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Like the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, and Teach for America, Climate Corps energizes young people to help solve our tough challenges.

The heart of the program is the Climate Corps intern. EDF recruits students from the country's top business schools, trains them and places them in summer internships at enrolled companies. The interns bring a laser focus to their task and build a rock-solid business case for energy efficiency.

This past summer, EDF placed interns at 23 companies, and together they found 100,000 tons in annual greenhouse gas savings and electricity savings that could power 14,000 homes -- all at a net cost savings of $54 million dollars.

Target is a good fit for the program. The company is already known for its innovative design, its commitment to communities and a longtime record of building energy efficient stores that have a low impact on the environment. With energy saving programs in place at Target stores, distribution centers and office buildings, the Climate Corps intern will have lots of opportunities to help on innovative projects to further improve the company's energy programs.

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By the end of summer, the Climate Corps intern at Target may have a compelling story to tell, like this one from technology company Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD):

Neelam Bhatia, a business student from Cornell University, spent last summer at the company's building and data center in Austin, Texas. She looked into opportunities from lighting retrofits to energy management software, and even investigated a unique way to cut costs by storing energy in the form of ice at night (when prices are low) to use during the day (when prices are higher). Bhatia identified $1.3 million in energy saving opportunities, as well as several hundred thousand dollars worth of available rebates for energy projects the company undertakes.

At networking equipment company Cisco, Emily Reyna and Sarah Shapiro, both from the University of Michigan, helped spread a technology for managing energy use in the company's many data labs. Once the technology is adopted companywide, it will cut Cisco's global greenhouse gas footprint by 3 percent while saving the company $8 million per year.

Carin Dopieralski from Rice University spent her summer as a Climate Corps fellow at the Toyota Center, home of the Houston Rockets. She assessed lighting retrofits, window films, occupancy sensors and power management software, and found a suite of actions that would reduce annual energy costs by $68,000 while avoiding over 650 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Today's generational challenge is climate change, and we're thrilled to see these young superstars responding to the call.

Climate Corps is creating a movement for energy efficiency, grounded in smart economics and fueled by the talents and the enthusiasm of the tomorrow's business leaders.

Whether you're a business student or a corporate executive, it's time to move energy efficiency to the top of your list.

[greenbiz]

At the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, MIT researchers will debut the Copenhagen Wheel — a revolutionary new bicycle wheel that not only boosts power, but can keep track of friends, fitness, smog and traffic. Though it looks like an ordinary bicycle wheel with an oversized center, the Wheel's bright red hub is a veritable Swiss army knife's worth of electronic gadgets and novel functions.

"Over the past few years we have seen a kind of biking renaissance, which started in Copenhagen and has spread from Paris to Barcelona to Montreal," says Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT SENSEable City Laboratory and the Copenhagen Wheel project. "It's sort of like 'Biking 2.0' — whereby cheap electronics allow us to augment bikes and convert them into a more flexible, on-demand system."

The first goal of the Copenhagen Wheel project is to promote cycling by extending the range of distance people can cover and by making the whole riding experience smoother so that even steep inclines are no longer a barrier to comfortable cycling.

Toward this end, the Wheel can store energy every time the rider puts on the brakes, and then give that power back to provide a boost when riding uphill or to add a burst of speed in traffic.

"The Wheel uses a technology similar to the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), which has radically changed Formula One racing over the past couple of years,” says Ratti. "When you brake, your kinetic energy is recuperated by an electric motor and then stored by batteries within the wheel, so that you can have it back to you when you need it. The bike wheel contains all you need so that no sensors or additional electronics need to be added to the frame and an existing bike can be retrofitted with the blink of an eye."

"Our city's ambition is that 50 percent of the citizens will take their bike to work or school every day," says Ritt Bjerregaard, Lord Mayor of Copenhagen. "So for us, this project is part of the answer to how can we make using a bike even more attractive."

But there are also a variety of extra functions hidden within the hub of the Copenhagen Wheel. By using a series of sensors and a Bluetooth connection to the user's iPhone, which can be mounted on the handlebars, the wheel can monitor the bicycle's speed, direction and distance traveled, as well as collect data on air pollution and even the proximity of the rider's friends.

"One of the applications that we have discussed with the City of Copenhagen is that of an incentive scheme whereby citizens collect Green Miles — something similar to frequent flyer miles, but good for the environment," says Christine Outram, who led the team of MIT researchers.

The project also aims to create a platform for individual behavioral change.

"The Copenhagen Wheel is part of a more general trend: that of inserting intelligence in our everyday objects and of creating a smart support infrastructure around ourselves for everyday life," says Assaf Biderman, associate director of the project. “For example, the Wheel has a smart lock: if somebody tries to steal it, it goes into a mode where the brake regenerates the maximum amount of power, and sends you a text message. So in the worst case scenario the thief will have charged your batteries before you get back your bike."

The initial prototypes of the Copenhagen Wheel were developed along with company Ducati Energia and the Italian Ministry of the Environment. It is expected that the wheel will go into production next year, with a tag price competitive with that of a standard electric bike. According to Claus Juhl, CEO of Copenhagen, the city might place the first order and use bicycles retrofitted with the Copenhagen Wheel as a substitution for city employee cars as part of the city's goal to become the world's first carbon-neutral capital by 2025.

The Copenhagen Wheel team at MIT is composed of Christine Outram, Project Leader, Rex Britter, Andrea Cassi, Xiaoji Chen, Jennifer Dunnam, Paula Echeverri, Myshkin Ingawale, Ari Kardasis, E Roon Kang, Sey Min, Assaf Biderman and Carlo Ratti. The project was developed for the City of Copenhagen in cooperation with Ducati Energia and with the support of the Italian Ministry for the Environment.









[mitnews]

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Of all the G20 countries -- those nations with the world's largest GDP -- Japan has come the farthest in putting green IT to work in reducing its carbon footprint.

That is the top-line finding of a new ICT Sustainability Index released this week by research group IDC. The report looked at G20 nations' use of technology in 17 areas to score their progress toward a low-carbon economy.

Of the G20 Industrial Nations, which are responsible for over 75 percent of the world's CO2 emissions, Japan was far in the lead, scoring 16 points in IDC's ranking.

The United States came in second in the list, with a score of 20, followed by a four-way tie for third between France, Germany, Brazil and the United Kingom, all scoring 21 points.

The lowest-ranked countries in the list were South Africa and Indonesia, each with a score of 41, while Russia and Argentina tied for next-to-last with 38 points.

Japan's energy efficiency policies, combined with its extensive adoption of IT, were the elements that put the country at the top of the list, making it the only Tier 1 nation in the rankings. The chart at the right lays out what the biggest opportunities for emissions reductions in each of the five tiers that IDC identified.

The 17 technologies that IDC included in its research for the Index fall in four categories -- Energy Generation and Distribution, Buildings, Transport and Industry -- and run the gamut from virtual conferencing and building energy controls to digital paper and industrial process automation.

IDC's researchers found that the Energy Generation and Distribution category has the biggest potential savings, and that Renewable Energy Management Systems offer the best opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The country that has the most potential to benefit from this technology is China, which can save almost 200 million tons of CO2 by adopting renewable energy management systems.

In the Transport category, the United States was found to have the most potential for carbon footprint reductions, and that it could reduce its emissions by more than 500 million tons through supply chain logistics and transportation optimization.

In the industrial sector, there are plenty of CO2 reductions to be had from technologies like Intelligent Motor Controllers. China, with its role as the world's workshop, stood to benefit the most from the adoption of these technologies.

The full list of country rankings in IDC's Sustainability Index is below; more details about this Index and IDC's overall green IT research is online at IDC.com.

[greenbiz]

Faced with growing demands to identify, disclose and substitute potentially harmful chemical ingredients in the products they sell, innovative retailers are incorporating product chemicals management systems into their sustainability strategies.

This report examines the influences on retailers to encourage the adoption of chemicals management systems; the systems that Apple, Boots, Green Depot, Patagonia, REI, Staples, and Walmart have adopted; and the challenges, benefits, and best practices identified in the development and implementation of these systems.

[greenbiz]