Tag: carbon footprint

Samsung Galaxy S III Gets Carbon Footprint Certification In Europe

Samsung’s Galaxy S III is a popular device among consumers, but it’s now well respected among the conservationist types across Europe. Just like its predecessor and the Galaxy Note, the Galaxy S III has achieved a carbon footprint certification across Europe.

Samsung UK announced today that they are the only mobile phone manufacturer to be granted the carbon footprint certification by the UK-based Carbon Trust Certification. The Galaxy S III achieved its lower carbon footprint by implementing a more efficient charger, using fewer raw materials, and reducing emissions during its assembly.

“At Samsung, our philosophy is to ‘design for humans’ and be ‘inspired by nature’. So by design our products are not just smart and easy to use, they also strive to achieve the highest environmental standards,” said Bill Skeates, Head of Sustainability, Samsung Electronics Europe. “Yes, our customers want to own a great smartphone, but they also want to be responsible consumers, and the Galaxy S III helps them to do both. Measuring the carbon footprint helps us to understand the environmental impact of our mobile phones and identify where we can continue to improve. Samsung aims to calculate the carbon footprint for all of its mobile flagship devices.”

Samsung began their journey into eco-friendly manufacturing in 2009 with the Green Management Strategy. Since then, the company has developed “innovative solutions for environmentally friendly products.” As such, the company “reviews the production, usage, and end-of-life disposal of its handsets.”

“The number of mobile devices, like smartphones in use worldwide is growing exponentially, so it’s important that they meet key environmental standards. We are very pleased that Samsung is showing industry leadership here,” said Darran Messem, Managing Director, Certification at the Carbon Trust. “Samsung not only submits its smartphones for independent assessment, but is also taking action to improve the environmental performance of its products.”

Samsung is expected to announce a new 10-inch tablet alongside Google at an Android event next week. The same eco-friendly manufacturing practices will surely be used in the creation of said device. It could be used as a good company image boost for both Samsung and Google.

October 22, 2012
Your Annual Facebook Use Has The Carbon Footprint Of A Latte

In the spirit of transparency and such, Facebook has decided to share some figures on how the company affects the environment. Today, Facebook is releasing data about their 2011 carbon footprint and energy use.

It’s interesting to find out that any given Facebook user stamps a carbon footprint (greenhouse gas emissions) of 269 grams. Given that Facebook just announced 955 monthly active users, we can calculate that the total worldwide carbon footprint of Facebook use is about 256.8 billion grams a year (256,800 metric tons). Facebook says, however, that when you include everything (data centers, office space, employee commuting, employee air travel, data center construction and server transportation), their total carbon footprint for 2011 was about 285,000 metric tons.

The individual footprint of 269 is roughly equivalent to that of making and consuming a couple glasses of wine, three bananas, or one medium latte.

Facebook has also released their total energy use from offices, data centers, and other facilities for 2011, and it clocks in at 532 million kWh.

Also part of this release: Facebook’s energy mix, nearly one-quarter of which came from clean and renewable energy.

“In the short-term, reducing our impact and significantly altering our energy mix will be challenging,” says Facebook. “The reality is that as a fast-growing company our carbon footprint and energy mix may get worse before they get better. When we bring our Lulea, Sweden, data center online in 2014, we expect to see a steady increase in the clean and renewable sources powering our data center operations. And we’ve set a company goal to derive at least 25% of our energy mix from clean and renewable sources by 2015. We know this is going to be a stretch for us, and we’re still figuring out exactly what it will take to get there.

Our goal is to understand where we have the most opportunity—and responsibility—to minimize our long-term environmental impact.”

[Lead image via Kansir, Flickr]

August 1, 2012
Google Discloses Carbon Footprint Rating

In a recent study, environmental activist organization Greenpeace commended Google for its renewable energy rating, and now the search giant’s Finance Blog has Google+Finance+Blog%29″ target=”_blank”>updated its carbon footprint ratings.

Sam Arons, self-proclaimed Carbon Maven and member of the company’s energy team, discusses Google’s partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project, a global environmental information management firm. Google’s carbon disclosure ratings are now posted in tandem with their financial reports, and measures the company’s greenhouse gas emissions, as well as how environmental changes can affect business. The CDP scores are listed as “Carbon Disclosure Rating,” and appear in the “Key stats and ratios” field on the right of Google’s Finance page:

Google began adding carbon reports to its financial information in April of 2010, marking the first time this class of data was made available to investors. The data is revelent, as a big carbon footprint can foster environmental changes, which in tern can prompt financial risks – Arons cites regulatory risks (e.g. legislation placing costs on carbon-intensive activities), physical risks (e.g. sea-level rise threatening a company’s facilities) and market risks (e.g. consumers switching to another company’s products because they believe that company to be a better environmental steward). The CDP utilizes all of these factors when compiling a company’s carbon score, when is a useful tool for investors.

Google had also recently been commended for working with local authorities in Georgia to conserve water while cooling its servers at its Douglas County data facility. Below is a clip of the system in use:

May 3, 2012