What is Sustainability?
I keep hearing about sustainability – so I just had to pony up $200 bucks and hit the San Jose Value-Based Sustainability event the other week. It was put on by the folks at Executive Council. Mind you – I am not a fan of any event that starts at 8:00 in San Jose – 101 or 280 at that time is not what I would classify as a “value-add ride” – but I did manage to get there in time to catch some key presentations. Who was there? It was the heavy hitters of the fortune world – companies such as PG&E, Autodesk, SAP, Microsoft, IBM, Coca-Cola, UPS, 1E, Verdiem, EnerNOC, and Stirling Energy.
What is Sustainability? If you are a Googler like me – the first place you go today is to Wikipedia for education. The Wikipedia folks will tells you that:
Sustainable business, or green business, is enterprise that has no negative impact on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line. Often, sustainable businesses have progressive environmental and human rights policies. In general, business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria:
1. It incorporates principles of sustainability into each of its business decisions.[1]
2. It supplies environmentally friendly products or services that replaces demand for nongreen products and/or services.[1]
3. It is greener than traditional competition.[1]
4. It has made an enduring commitment to environmental principles in its business operations.[1]
Ok cool. I am down with that. This was the theme that was echoed at this event. I did find some posting quotes from the event on a cool site called Conference Bites. Let me share a few:
“Metrics are still the holy grail in this (sustainability) space.”
~ Libby Reder, Head of Environmental Initiatives, eBay“We…need to get value by extracting it out of information, rather than out of the ground.”
~ Kathrin Winkler, VP of Sustainability, EMC
I had a chance to briefly chat with Libby and Kathrin – it’s always refreshing to meet folks who are leaders in their respective spaces and who are also real and fun to chat with.
There was a strong take away that I had from this event – and it was embedded in both Libby’s and Kathrin’s quotes. What was it? It was the word “Metrics”. If you want to do anything in the enterprise these days – you absolutely need to associate a metric with it. A metric tell you if you are wining, failing or somewhere in between when it comes to delivering on an initiative. It separates reality from vision. It separates execution from planning. I am going to start to hone in on metrics in the next couple of blog posts.
A metric is only a number… so why is everyone is scared of them?







Everybody like a party right? Well I had the chance to attend the past SVLG event in Silicon Valley (where else?) hosted at the rocking NetApp campus. Nice digs! Super presenters and crowd.



If you think you’ve got the right stuff – then I am extending an open invitation to participate in this season’s “American Data Center” contest! I’m sure everyone is familiar with
This the question I ask and it shall be the community that helps answer this question! I thought it might be interesting to see what views the folks in twitter universe have on this topic. Seems like there is a lot of talk these days around data center energy savings – but talk is cheap. Who really cares and who can take action? Let’s go to the people and find out!
Got PUE?

Green IT. It Starts With Research.
CSR. Getting started…
Spot on on the human factor of the hot aisle, especially if you’ve got great hot aisle containment.
Vern