OPEN Thought
DON SAMBANDARAKSA
Is there really a green agenda? Or have the forces of capitalism enveloped what we used to think was green and turned it into a greed is good type of mentality?
Years ago, people who wanted to save the environment went around in VW campers, hugging trees, smoking pot (obviously the CO2 argument was not as strong back then) and occassionally chaning themselves to trees or lying down in front of diggers and bulldozers to prevent workers from clear-cutting a forest or building a new bypass or what have you.
Today, the green brigade goes around in suits, often calling themselves CIOs and talking about how their latest data centre initiative has cut so many tonnes of carbon emissions a year.
While this is no doubt a good thing, how is it green? All too often, these green data centre initiatives are driven by another type of green, the Greenback (the US dollar) as energy bills soared and more power has become hard to come by. By reducing energy usage, CIOs can extend the life of their current data centres and save lots and lots of money on their electricity bill.
The difference between these new age eco-warriors and the hippies of the seventies is that for the former, it is business as usual. It is all about greed is good, economic forces and the company's bottom line by cutting fuel costs. The eco-warriors probably did the environment a great deal of damage in their polluting, smelly VW campers, but the intent, the will was much, much different. Green and business are no longer on a collision course, thanks to rising oil prices.
I was recently in Singapore where I asked one spokesperson who had spent the past hour talking about green data centres if he has seen anything implemented which actually cost more, upset the bottom line but was good for the environment.
He probably was not expecting this kind of question and babbled on before one of his aides jumped to his rescue.
"Many companies use recycled paper for their namecards," he said. "It costs more, but it is good for the environment because it saves trees."
Yes. Obviously when sales hit US$100 billion it makes sense to spend a few more dollars on recycled paper namecards to save the environment.
It reminds me of the crisis we are having in religion right now where some Buddhist sects are allowing people to buy allotments in heaven and some even offer stage payments for the privilege.
Isn't saving the world all about using less and using what we have for longer? Even modern IT has destroyed that notion. All the server vendors are more than happy to point out that in many cases, server upgrades are better than free as the reduced energy bill more than offsets the cost of the new server.
In the world of telco, everyone says how much greener and more energy efficient modern air-cooled 3G base stations are to their 2.5G air-conditioned container predecessors. I am sure that our landfills would not agree with that line of thought.
Teleconferencing to cut down on travel? As someone who made 21 trips for press conferences last year (14 of which to Singapore), I for one would be delighted at the possibility of doing a videoconference at home rather than jump on a plane to Changi. Yet, the last video conference I attended was one to Hong Kong from Singapore. Yes, I had to get on a plane and fly to Singapore to use Tandberg's Experia system. Why not Bangkok? It has something to do with expensive Internet charges here. Teleconferencing, on the other hand, is something I do once in a while, but while most of the time I can get some or most of the answers I put forward, it fails miserably at building the relationships between the reporter and the interviewee compared to a face to face interview.
Even the idea of corporate philanthropy has successfully married the greed is good mentality. Today companies such as Salesforce.com and IBM preach how generous and caring they are to society and how many days of paid leave they give their employees to go forth and do good things for underpriviliged people in developing countries. Yet, both have admitted that a generous corporate social responsibility programme helps them to attract and retain the best and brightest.
Faced with that comment, the sceptic cannot help but wonder if it is being kind or just a way to attract and keep top talent for the good of the company's performance and bottom line.
But on the other hand, I cannot help but be persuaded by the argument of the men in suits. Analysts are all to happy to point out that today three percent of the energy produced in the United States is used in data centres. However, they also are quick to point out that it is not a three percent problem, but a 97 percent opportunity. It is what the power of IT can do to save the world that is important. Reducing waste here, optimising supply chains there and spreading the word about how nice it is to be green via the Internet and sites like treehugger.com that can help mankind survive.
What happened to the green of old? The tree huggers? The Body Shop users (who paid more for what could be argued as inferior goods)? The families that used hand-me-down clothes for generation upon generation? Today, we are in a world where often mending something costs more (both in CO2 and financial terms) than throwing it away and starting anew; where the idea of going cycling means driving to an air-conditioned gym and riding a bike on a stand, then driving back home; where green and greed are now in bed together.
What happened to saving by doing less in absolute terms rather than just doing things more efficiently. Surely there is more we can do to save the world than use recycled paper namecards and working for multinationals who give us a few days off each month to have fun.
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