Dynamic Work : ecology

Gas prices encourage telecommuting

brucelynn — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:42:38 GMT

Good piece from MSNBC on telecommuting subtitled ‘Employers reconsider traditional in-the-office work week’ looking at the economic drivers to more flexible work.

“Some employers are reconsidering the traditional five-days-in-the-office pattern as the national average price for a gallon of gas hovers around $4. The idea is to whittle down commuting costs for workers by allowing them to work from home or switch to four days of 10 hours each… The [Telework Coalition] estimates that more than 26 million Americans now telecommute at least some days, which would be about 18 percent of people employed nationwide.”

Accenture’s ‘Green IT – Beyond the Data Centre’

brucelynn — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 16:07:45 GMT

Accenture, one of Microsoft’s top partners, has long distinguished itself in Business Process Re-engineering as a foundation to IT innovation and with that expertise have been a leading proponent of Service Oriented Architectures. So it is not surprising to see Accenture leading the way with a ‘Green IT’ message that goes far beyond the basics of saving a bit of electricity. Their ‘holistic’ perspective is laid out very effectively in their crisp whitepaper ‘Green IT – Beyond the Data Centre’.

“Think how pervasive IT's influence across the organization has become. Today, IT can shape and ultimately determine where and how people work, how much they travel, and how they behave when they get there. All of which translates not only into how much energy they consume, but also how much other costly resources they use ranging from paper to petroleum fuels. IT's impact can extend still further. The workplace environment, the procurement methodology and the sourcing supply chain are all within its sphere of influence. As are the automation and efficiency of the organization's compliance with environmental regulations such as WEEE and emissions.”

A great roadmap to Getting Greener with IT.

Electricity Saviour

brucelynn — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 10:59:11 GMT

At the heart of most Green IT initiatives is saving of electricity. These objectives are noble and helpful to the larger economic and ecological issues of global warming and resource conservation. With the current infrastructure, electricity consumption often equates to proportionate carbon emission. In some places, like central London, the power grid is so maxed out that companies cannot even obtain more electricity if they wanted and that creates a unique business imperative to conserve those volts which can be delivered.

But electricity is not the problem in the larger context or in the long term. In fact, in most respects is will be one of the critical saviours to our remedy of (a) climate issues brought on by carbon emission, and (b) hydrocarbon (petroleum and natural gas) dependence and increasing scarcity. You see, the thing is, mankind knows how to make clean and renewable electricity in many ways. Nuclear (clean from a carbon sense if that is the imperative), hydro, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal. All of these can produce serious amounts of electricity. We recently discussed on one of Microsoft’s internal forums the proposition that the Death Valley desert covered in solar cells could power the entire USA current electric consumption. And it does not take any major leap of innovation like fusion or other pipedreams of technological discoveries that are going to come along and save us from our profligacy.

Most of the challenges are logistical and engineering oriented. Electricity has significant challenges with regards to distribution and storage. Especially imagine the monumental undertaking of transforming the infrastructure for the largely petroleum-based transportation to be largely electric and for the largely petroleum and natural gas based heating (eg. household and cooking) to be largely electric. While they are not dismissible, they are manageable with investment and ingenuity.

Technorati Tags: green IT, electricity, renewable

Who is Driving

brucelynn — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:15:00 GMT

Given these drivers (energy, climate, social, intellectual), there are a number core constituencies who have an acute interest in these considerations and who will be on the vanguard to driving for change.

Energy/Climate: Public Policy is increasingly re-examining the rules and assumptions of the 21^st century economy with energy supply and climate change in mind. Tax incentives and penalties are being introduced to reduce carbon footprints especially from motor vehicles.

Social: Women/Families – Pressures at breaking points are driving people to demand greater flexibility in working practices (eg. hours, locations) in order to juggle it all. One organisation at the forefront of these reforms is Working Families.

Knowledge work: Top Talent – The constituency with the most to gain by reducing brain dead commute time are those for whose hour of concentrated knowledge work has the highest valuation, ie. professionals with scarce skills. More specifically it is the highest performers. Not only is their domain expertise scare, but their exceptional competency is even more scarce.

Preserving the World's Assets

brucelynn — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:01:00 GMT

A number of megatrends are all converging to drive this move out of concentrated workplaces towards more distributed work. All of these drivers are centred on preserving key and increasingly precious assets to the global economy.

Energy Assets: Peak Oil – Concern is growing to new levels about world oil supply. While eternal optimism abounds in the world’s ability to out innovate and out discover the depletion of existing sources, recent evidence is that the new finds are smaller and fewer, the existing supplies are less accessible and less productive (eg. more energy input is required extract and refine). The commodity of oil is not just a unique energy source in its combination of power and safe transportability, but it is also a critical substance in plastics, construction materials and range of everyday substances and its increasing scarcity represents a major pinch point to global economic health.

Ecology Assets: Climate Change – If the economic costs of oil-supply and demand don’t hit us in the wallet, then the environmental costs of greenhouse gas emissions will hit us there and elsewhere. Not much comment needed on the profile and intensity of this issue. But in terms of what we can do about it one of the most prominent sources of emissions is automobile commuting. 54% of US petroleum used is consumed by automobiles and in commuting to work, the average number of passengers-per-vehicle is 1.1.

Social Assets: Dual Income Social Pressures – One of the most significant contributors to post-war growth in the Western world has been new entrants to the labour force, especially women. While this infusion of economic muscle has been a boon to the second half of the twentieth century, the social consequences of this mass rise of two income families combined with longer and longer commuting to places of work (fewer people live and work in the same city or town), means less parental time to manage the household and intensifying demands to juggle work and home life responsibilities.

Intellectual Assets: Rise of Knowledge Work – Assuming we have enough power to continue running the machines we have invented and propagated to handle brute force and routine tasks, the value-add work that human beings do gravitates increasingly to creative pursuits employing intellectual capital. Increasingly people are recognizing the intellectual waste from sitting in a car and the upsides of each person finding places and environments most suited to their own individual inspiration (a library, a quiet den, a retreat, a café, etc.). MSNBC recently reported (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20829879) people lose on average 1 week per year ‘sitting in traffic…and it is getting worse’ costing the USA $78 billion.