CA Community






This Blog

April 2010 - Posts

CA World Preview: Tesco Session on Driving Down IT Energy Costs and Reducing Carbon Footprints

Published: April 28 2010, 01:10 PM | no comments
by Viki Paige

 

At CA World 2010, many of CA’s customers will take the stage to share their insights, implementation stories and best practices.  In the Energy & Sustainability track, we’re fortunate to have James NcNulty of Tesco joining us for a special session with Terrence Clark, who heads up CA ecoSoftware.  Visit the online agenda builder to add the session “Tesco: Unleashing the Power of ecoSoftware to Drive Down IT Energy Costs & Reduce Carbon Footprint,” to your schedule on Wednesday, May 19th at 2:30pm.
 
In this interactive session, you'll learn how the UK's biggest retailer and the world's third largest grocery retailer is using CA ecoSoftware to help fulfill its long-term commitment to drive down carbon emissions across its global operations. With more than 4,000 locations across 14 countries, the task of accounting for carbon emissions is time-consuming and complex. Learn how the organization is using CA’s technology today to help increase the efficiency, speed and accuracy of its carbon accounting process.

Based on ambitious targets announced in 2007 using 2006 as a baseline, Tesco plans to halve emissions from existing buildings by 2020; halve distribution emissions of each case of goods delivered by 2012; and halve emissions from new stores by 2020. The company has already halved its energy use per square foot in its UK stores and is diverting 100 percent of waste from its UK business away from landfill, achieving this target almost a year ahead of schedule.

For additional information on the Energy & Sustainability focus area at CA World 2010, visit our topic page here.

To register for CA World 2010, and to take advantage of our new social networking tools visit http://bit.ly/CAWorld.  For the latest event updates, follow @CAWorld2010 or search for our event hashtag #CAWorld.

Share this post:  

 

By: Viki Paige
Viki Paige has spent her 20-year career focused on marketing a wide variety of business software solutions. Currently, she’s the head of product marketing for CA’s new ecoSoftware solution. While at CA, she has also held product marketing positions driving programs for CA GRC Manager and Clarity PPM...
Read More..

Rental Car Energy Surcharges… What’s Next?

Published: April 26 2010, 08:05 AM | 2 Comment(s)
by Terrence Clark

There has been a great deal of noise in the news about the airline industry and how they charge for luggage.  It looks like the rental car business is now taking a page out of their book. 

The last few times that I rented a car on business trips I noticed that there was an energy surcharge line item.  While the cost was not much, $1.03, it still was unclear to me as to what this was.  After all I already pay for the fuel that I use in the car.   I asked the attendant who told me that it was for the electricity costs that powered the garage.  This didn’t sound right to me.

I decided to reach out to the company and get clarification on the reason for the energy surcharge.  To their credit they responded in a timely fashion.  The response I received was the following.

“The costs of energy needed to support our business operations have escalated considerably.  To offset the increasing costs associated with items such as utilities, bus fuel, oil and grease, we are separately imposing an Energy Surcharge of $1.03 per rental transaction.”

While I certainly understand that costs associated with electricity and fuel have gone up, it seems to me that a more appropriate response would be to raise their rates across the board by $1.03. 

Will the rising costs in energy lead to additional line items being passed onto the consumer?  Don’t be surprised.

I don’t know about you, but I hate being nickel and dimed by companies – just build it in to the rental fee and I’ll gladly pay it!

 

*Image used under Creative Commons License courtesy of Viernest.

Share this post:  

 

By: Terrence Clark
Terrence Clark is a senior vice president and general manager heading up CA's ecoSoftware Business Unit at CA. His vision is to help organizations evaluate their portfolio of green choices, while showing them how they can reduce their carbon footprint, save costs, seize on opportunities and be both...
Read More..

Climate Change – Is It Happening?

Published: April 22 2010, 09:40 AM | no comments
by Duncan Bradford

Wow – am I going out on a limb to answer one of the most hotly debated (pun intended) questions of our times?  Well not quite, let me point out that rather un-controversially, I’m not going to offer forward my attempt at answering whether climate change is happening and whether it is being accelerated by anthropogenic activities or whether it’s all just a part of the Earth’s continually changing climate.  What I’m talking about is ‘climate change’ within organizations, particularly in the US, with regards to increased adoption and focus on finding more reliable, efficient and automated ways to manage corporate sustainability.

Considering that the US Federal government has not (yet) put a price on carbon within the United States and compared to legislative activities in the European Union and especially so in the UK with the new CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, US business is not quite the laggard that some may believe it to be. 

There are a combination of forces driving the increased adoption of sustainability solutions in the marketplace today.  One is in response to reporting requirements to the various programs and registries – the likes of the Carbon Disclosure Project, EPA Climate Leaders, the GRI and the Climate Registry in the US.  Once organizations start to measure, they can see that it makes good business sense to manage this data – ultimately the old adage holds true that efficiency leads to cost savings.  As a software vendor we are talking to organizations with this need on a daily basis and are seeing more and more ‘requests for proposals’ crossing our door – which is a good indication that market need is growing.  Couple this along with reports suggesting robust growth rates in this area (like this one from Pike Research), and the evidence starts to really stack up.

The real swing we see is in the brand and consumer facing organizations.  They see managing carbon and other natural resource data – and becoming even better corporate citizens -- as simply good business.  And we don’t expect this growth to stop with consumer-facing companies.  Organizations of all kinds are seeking out ways to cut costs, maintain compliance, and communicate their sustainability efforts and progress to their customers, partners, stockholders, employees, vendors and other stakeholders.  So is the climate changing?  I definitely think so… and I’m interested to find out if you are seeing a similar shift in thinking.

Share this post:  

 

By: Duncan Bradford
Duncan Bradford joined CA in 1998. Currently Duncan holds the position of Senior Advisor within the CA ecoSoftware business unit. He is currently focused on working closely with several customers to ensure the success of their CA ecoSoftware implementations. Duncan is also helping the internal CA...
Read More..

CA World Preview: Carbon Management: The next frontier of collaboration between corporate IT and corporate real estate

Published: April 19 2010, 11:45 AM | no comments
by Christine Needles


The Energy & Sustainability team is very excited to have Michael Jordan of Jones Lang LaSalle on tap at CA World to lead a session on “Carbon Management: The next frontier of collaboration between corporate IT and corporate real estate." Michael Jordan leads JLL’s corporate energy & sustainability services in the Americas and is the firm’s SVP of sustainability strategy.  Michael is a LEED AP, a six sigma master black belt, and a trained facilitator in The Natural Step sustainability framework.  His current clients include Deutsche Bank, Coca-Cola, Apple, and Pfizer and he sits on the supplier sustainability board for Procter & Gamble.  Michael lives near Portland, Oregon with his wife and 4 sons and took up kayaking last year.

We asked Michael a few questions about his session in a recent email conversation:

Q. Tell us about your upcoming session at CA World 2010.

A. I’m excited to be participating in CA World this year.  Although I am now in the commercial real estate industry, I spent 10 years in high tech in a company called Sun Microsystems (perhaps you remember it).  Long before sustainability was an issue, there were challenges aligning the Corporate Real Estate and IT departments.  And since Sun was basically one big IT department, the opportunities were many.  I thought that although the need for alignment is not new, sustainability does bring it to the forefront in new ways.  Let’s explore this symbiotic relationship.

Q. What are the top 3 things you want attendees to learn from your session?

A. There is no doubt that IT professionals possess core weapons that are important to the battle against climate change.  (Insert your favorite D&D metaphor here if you like.)  For one, I find my friends in IT to be tremendous systems thinkers.  We’ll talk a bit about how systems thinking applies in corporate sustainability and where IT and Facilities fit in the system.

At the end of the day, I’m at this session representing Facilities Managers (and Energy Managers) in corporations everywhere.  We have something to say to you, IT People!  We need things from you.  I can’t promise you bigger offices in return, but if you bear with me, you can improve your power over the planet and perhaps earn some sort of eternal salvation (so you’ve got THAT going for you, which is nice.)  Let’s look at trends in SMART BUILDINGS that can affect corporate networks, not to mention the fact that sustainability is a new driver for employee mobility and mobility has implications for corporate technology.

We will also talk about where all this is coming from.  What’s going on in the outside world and how can IT and Facilities stand together with the right data and information (“right” being what’s needed by our business colleagues around the company).

Q. Tell us about some of the end user cases you will highlight in your session.

At one company, we were exploring energy efficiency opportunities in datacenters and I think we’re still waiting for access to the consumption data.  Elsewhere, we’ve used some great analytical tools to help improve energy efficiency.

I’ll also talk about corporate efforts at managing and reporting energy efficiency programs within the IT department.  What is in this report that makes the CFO read it?

Elsewhere, Facilities is plugging in more devices that generate more data.  We’ll talk about what the devices are that were installed and what else that company would like to have done.
       
Q. What do you hope to take away from attending CA World 2010?

A. I will be there to take the pulse of the community.  Follow my experience on Twitter @thetravellingmj.

Be sure to visit the Jones Lang LaSalle Green Blog for the firm’s take on sustainability and energy topics.

For additional information on the Energy & Sustainability focus area at CA World 2010, visit our topic page here.

To register for CA World 2010, and to take advantage of our new social networking tools visit http://bit.ly/CAWorld.  For the latest event updates, follow @CAWorld2010 or search for our event hashtag #CAWorld.

Background on Jones Lang LaSalle

Jones Lang LaSalle (NYSE:JLL) is a financial and professional services firm specializing in real estate.  JLL manages 1.4 billion square feet of property worldwide.  JLL is an EPA ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year, having saved clients in 2009 about 840 million kilowatt hours of energy consumption equating to 465,000 tonnes of carbon and over $100 million in cost savings across 20,000 facilities.  They have over 500 LEED APs on staff and have advised clients on over 110 LEED certification projects around the world.  For further information visit www.joneslanglasalle.com.

Share this post:  

 

By: Christine Needles
Christine Needles ( @cmneedles ) is a director of communications at CA Technologies, working with the Cloud Computing business. She is immersed in the world of B2B public relations and marketing communications, with 11 years of experience spanning several PR firms, until joining the communications team...
Read More..

CA World Preview: Panel on Best Practices in Green IT and Corporate Sustainability Management

Published: April 14 2010, 09:55 AM | no comments
by Christine Needles

Next up in our CA World 2010 preview blog series is a panel session on “Best Practices in Green IT and Corporate Sustainability Management.”  I’m really excited to attend this session featuring Lee Ditmar of Deloitte, David Brown of Datotel, and Jim Lampert of Global Green Consulting Group.  Terrence Clark, SVP and GM of CA ecoSoftware, will moderate the panel session scheduled for Monday, May 17 at 1:15 p.m. PT.

In this interactive panel session you’ll learn first-hand how leading organizations are developing best practices to deal with significant environmental and operational pressures, including increasing energy costs, reporting on policies and regulations, and improving supply chain transparency. Whether you deal with energy management, data center operations, or carbon reporting, this panel of experts will provide you with insight on how IT can help improve your sustainability management efforts.

Visit the Agenda builder and sign up for our new CA World social networking site here to add this session to your personal schedule.

For additional information on the Energy & Sustainability focus area at CA World 2010, visit our topic page here.

To register for CA World 2010, visit http://bit.ly/CAWorld.  For the latest event updates, follow @CAWorld2010 or search for our event hashtag #CAWorld.

Share this post:  

 

By: Christine Needles
Christine Needles ( @cmneedles ) is a director of communications at CA Technologies, working with the Cloud Computing business. She is immersed in the world of B2B public relations and marketing communications, with 11 years of experience spanning several PR firms, until joining the communications team...
Read More..

More Posts Next page »