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After famously stating that the threat from climate change is graver than that posed by terrorism, former government chief scientist Sir David King has this week issued another stark warning, arguing that oil supplies could peak far sooner than anticipated by politicians and businesses.

Speaking this week in his role as director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (SSEE) at the University of Oxford, King accused governments around the world of having their “heads in the sand” over the risks associated with their continued dependence on fossil fuels.

Smith made the comments at a press conference ahead of the Smith School’s World Forum, which is being held in Oxford from 27-29 June. He warned that the problem was particularly concerning in the UK because any economic recovery would result in increased reliance on imported oil.

“For the UK, a growing dependence on oil imports creates a new challenge as oil prices begin to rise again following the current economic downturn,” he said.

Outlining an argument familiar to those who believe oil supplies could peak within the next decade, Smith said that he expected oil demand to outstrip supply by 2015.

He added that oil companies were consistently overstating the scale of their reserves and accused politicians of being too ready to believe predictions that “oil will be squeezed out of the ground pretty much forever”.

According to Smith, the government should act now to promote low carbon transport and accelerate the development of an economy that is less dependent on fossil fuels. “Our transport sector is hugely dependent on fossil fuels and it is down to the Government to steer us towards a de-fossilised economy using the regulatory and financial incentives available,” he said.

He argued that viable low carbon alternatives already exist but that governments must do more in terms of subsidies to encourage their uptake. “We need to incentivise the private sector to deliver these solutions to the market place,” he said.

For more go to: BusinessGreen.com

Over reliance on fossil fuels is driving companies to take unnecessary environmental risks as typified by the recent oil disaster in the Gulf Of Mexico.

That is the conclusion of a major new report from insurance giant Lloyd’s and UK think tank Chatham House, which argues that a rapid shift towards low carbon energy sources represents the only way of tackling the energy industry’s soaring risk profile.

The report, titled Sustainable Energy Security: Strategic Risks and Opportunities for Business, highlights how the risks faced by the oil industry have increased as it has been forced to shift its focus from relatively “easy” reserves to deep sea drilling sites, such as the one at the centre of the ongoing BP disaster.

The report cites a recent article from Canadian newspaper commentator Jeff Rubins, which predicts that the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig will affect the oil industry in a manner comparable to the nuclear incident at Three-Mile Island in the US, which effectively put an end to the building of new nuclear plans for a generation.

“The real legacy of Three Mile Island wasn’t what happened back in 1979, but rather what happened – or more precisely didn’t happen – over the course of the next 40 years in the US,” Rubins noted. “Literally overnight, the near-meltdown of the reactor core changed public acceptance of nuclear power plants. No company in the US has built a new one since.”

Commenting on the report, Richard Ward, Lloyd’s chief executive, said that the environmental and economic costs of fossil fuels are simply too high to justify on-going investments.

“The current generation of business leaders need to rethink their approach to energy risks or be left behind as energy becomes less reliable and more expensive,” he said. “We need a long-term plan to reduce consumption and diversify our energy sources.”

According to the Lloyd’s report, up to $500bn (£346.5bn) a year needs to be invested in low carbon energy sources by 2050 in order to enable the shift away from fossil fuels, a transition that is likely to lead to significant business risks and opportunities.

“Businesses across the board need to make a serious assessment of their vulnerability to change and volatility on the energy scene,” said Bernice Lee, research director at Chatham House. “There are huge opportunities as energy systems evolve to include users and increase resilience and efficiency. There is also the potential for heavy or even catastrophic financial and environmental losses.”

For more go to BusinessGreen.com

Apple iMac 24″, Apple Wireless Mouse, Apple Wireless Keyboard, Apple Wired Keyboard, Apple iPhone 3G, Apple iPod Shuffle, Apple iPod 30G, Asus Eee Netbook, Seagate External Drive, HP Photosmart Printer/Scanner/Photocopier LG 50″ Plasma TV, XBbox 360, PSP, M-Audio Speakers, Canon PowerShot S5IS, Sony Wireless Headphones, Bose headphones, Sennheiser headphones, and a Logitech Squeeze Box.

My name is Andrew and I am a technology addict. The list above is proof. The really worrying thing is that most of that has been bought in the last couple of years. It doesn’t include the myriad gadgets and other tech toys accumulated and discarded over the last ten years or so.

But eventually you have to say enough is enough. And that is what I am doing today. Writing about green issues and technology leaves you wide open for accusations of hypocrisy and I have to hold my hands up to being guilty on all charges. Shooting holes in the tech policies of companies such as Apple, Dell and HP while also continuing to happily consume a good chunk of the new products they churn out is pretty shameful.

So from today I have decided to draw a line. I am going to take my own advice, and that of numerous environmental experts, and sweat my tech assets. No new tech unless it’s replacing something broken. Citing the claim in numerous articles that 75 percent of the environmental impact of new tech is incurred during manufacture but continuing to buy new kit on a regular basis cannot continue.

Why now you ask? Well my epiphany came during Steve Job’s latest sermon. Despite knowing all about Jobs’s infamous reality distortion field, the environmental costs of creating and disposing of tech, not to mention the shocking series of suicides at one of Apple’s main manufacturers in China, I felt myself being sucked in – again. I felt that nagging little voice in the back of head whispering that my old iphone is looking a bit tired and the new one is so lovely and shiny. So shiny and precious. I have turned into a tech Gollum without realising it.

A Technology Gollum

Yes, the iPhone 4 does have some genuine new features. Better battery-life for one is a fantastic improvement. And so is the idea of video-calling. As a new father I was shamefully sucked in by the saccharine promotional video from Apple which shows some road-warrior Daddy gazing lovingly at his wife and child via an iPhone video chat.

For more go to eWEEK Europe UK

What is going to be the main motivation for people moving off Windows XP? Faster apps? Improved efficiency? Exciting functionality? No. Companies will abandon XP because Microsoft and its partners will stop supporting the platform by 2014.

That appears to be the conclusion from analyst Gartner at least, which released a research note this week urging companies to consider moving off XP in the next 12 months. True, Windows 7 has been getting some “positive reviews” the analyst concedes but the real issue is not embracing the wonders of Microsoft’s latest OS but jumping clear of the Windows XP boat before Microsoft sinks it.

“With Windows XP getting older and Windows 8 nowhere in sight, organisations need to be planning their migrations to Windows 7,” advises Michael Silver, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

Ancient Windows XP

Now, Gartner probably believes it is just being pragmatic with its latest missive. Windows XP is pretty ancient in software terms. The supposed PC refresh cycle for most enterprises was supposed to be three years but Windows XP has been hanging around since August 2001. If Gartner is accurate in its report that 80 percent of respondents skipped Vista and are still using XP then that means swathes of machines are running software conceived nearly a decade ago.

So it makes sense to abandon the clunky old platform and embrace the future which is Windows 7, right? Windows XP is dead, long live Windows 7. That would be true if this was still 2001 but a lot has changed in the last ten years. The rise of Linux, a resurgent Apple, and most importantly the era of cloud computing ushered in by Google. All these factors combined with some hairy economic conditions of late have conspired to make Windows XP a much more permanent fixture than anyone – least of all Microsoft – imagined.

There are other factors at play here. Not least the turkey that was Vista. But the failure of Microsoft’s last baby to take hold was as much to do with the environment it was born into as the functionality – or lack of it – of the operating system itself. Vista was clunky and annoying but if there had been a real impetus to adopt it then more businesses probably would have. The single biggest factor in Vista’s demise was probably the fact that Windows XP works so well. Actually, that should probably be clarified. Windows XP worked well enough and well enough is all most people want – certainly in the business world.

For more go to: eWEEK Europe UK

(from eWEEK Europe UK)

When I first used my iPhone, I actually smiled. Recent events connected with the device may change that.

Smilling at the iPhone might sound like a sad admission but it’s probably a common reaction. Apple has worked hard to make sure that the user has a very special relationship with the device. It’s all about what the company leaves out, rather than what it includes. Too much functionality actually detracts from usability, according to iPhone guru Jonathan Ive.

Just as an expert Radio DJ can give his audience the impression he is speaking to them alone, Apple has worked the same magic with its handset. You might be surrounded by other iPhone users, but it still feels as if the device was made specifically for you.

So It is blackly ironic that a device that engenders so much positivity in its users has been linked to negativity of the worst kind amongst the people who produce it.

The latest in a spate of apparent suicides at Taiwanese technology manufacturer Foxconn was reported this week, when a man fell to his death from a building on the company’s campus. The incident is the eighth death by falling this year and there have been a further two cases in which the victims survived. This so-called suicide cluster has resulted in unwanted media attention on the facility and the compaies which it serves including Apple, Dell and HP.

Suicide Cluster

The tech industry has always been dogged by reports of poor working conditions in the facilities that actually produce the technology. Companies such as Apple, Intel and IBM are keen to appropriate the images associated with manufacturing tech – engineers in white coats and those trade-mark Intel bunny suits – but the Foxconn incident and others of its kind highlight the reality of high-tech manufacturing. It’s not happy bearded techies tinkering with soldering irons in some Californian campus but thousands of low-skilled foreign workers being cycled through de-humanising Asian mega-factories.

For more go to: eWEEK Europe UK

(from eWEEK Europe UK)

A conference on sustainability in Dubai might sound as sensible as a Gamblers Anonymous convention in Las Vegas. But that is where I found myself last week courtesy of HP.

Unless you’ve been living on Mars – in which case you’d be at home in Dubai – you already know the city is not a very sustainable place. Air-conditioning isn’t so much a luxury as a life-support mechanism given that temperatures in the summer regularly top 40 degrees if not 50 Centigrade.

Gleaming taxis shuttle you between space-station-like hotels,  so walking is not really an option. In fact holding your breath and dashing from vehicle to building is a must to avoid the hostile atmosphere.

And to top it all, Dubai also has a snow dome. Yes, a snow dome in the desert. It doesn’t get much more unsustainable than that.

To be fair, the actual event (entitled the HP Executive Energy Conference) covered energy rather than sustainability, so I suppose Dubai makes sense from that perspective – although since its own reserves of oil have dwindled, Dubai has moved to an obsession with building.

But as I heard from a local, most of the occupants of the myriad skyscrapers are people building other skyscrapers. Draw your own conclusions on sustainability from that one.

For more go to: eWEEK Europe UK

(From BusinessGreen.com)

Notorious American comedian Bill Hicks once famously invited members of his audience who admitted to working in marketing to kill themselves. Whether the controversial stand-up would have taken a more sympathetic view of marketing professionals who ply their trade pushing sustainable products is doubtful, but maybe he could have been convinced to stop short of advocating suicide.

Extremist comedians aside, it is probably fair to say that the majority of consumers are more well disposed to products or services that hold some societal or environmental worth. A poll by European polling outfit Eurobarometer in 2009 revealed that the majority of Europeans, 83 per cent, said the impact of a product on the environment played an important part in their purchasing decisions. Add in the potential for the marketing team concerned to actually believe in the green product they are selling, and sustainable campaigns should be a doddle.

Unfortunately, sustainability is a uniquely tricky concept to take to market.

As incredible as it sounds, some corporate marketing departments have actually been guilty of making unwarranted and even false green claims. As a result, the public’s positive disposition towards environmental messaging has been hijacked by the spectre of greenwash in recent years. Reacting to this growing tide of exaggeration, and in some cases explicit untruths, bodies such as the Advertising Standards Authority have taken action against numerous companies and even government departments.

The same Eurobarometer survey last year also showed that Europeans were divided about the claims made about sustainable products with about 49 per cent saying they trusted claims but 48 per cent stating the precise opposite.

Ensuring marketing and communication campaigns get the sustainable message across without falling foul of increasingly exasperated regulators means that the whole notion of green messaging has become a veritable minefield for agencies and internal marketeers. It takes a lot of coordination and creativity to make sure that messages remains coherent and punchy, but still within the increasingly stringent guidelines laid down by the ASA, Defra and even the European Commission.

Given this blend of consumer scepticism and vigilant regulators, what are some of the dos and don’ts when it comes to combining the disparate parts of a green marketing campaign?

For more go to BusinessGreen.com

(From Silicon.com)

Instead of cracking down on staff using Twitter and Facebook at work, firms will soon be exploiting social networking’s business potential and drafting policies to control its use. Andrew Donoghue reports.

The days of companies being able to dismiss social networking as a consumer issue are numbered. That’s the outlook from analyst companies including Gartner group, which predicts by 2014 social media will replace email in about 20 per cent of businesses.

Rather than trying to stamp out social media use, companies may actually look to build their own social networking platforms, or at least take greater advantage of existing sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

In a recent research note, Gartner vice president Matt Cain said the rigid distinction between email and social networks will erode. “Email will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering, while social networks will develop richer email capabilities,” he wrote.

Given this outlook, it appears those companies that have dodged making explicit decisions about social network use will soon have to face up to the issue. According to anecdotal evidence from IT consultancy Accenture and technology-specialist law firm Morrison & Foerster, about 50 per cent of companies have a social media policy in place. The rest have some catching up to do.

Most companies will already have policies in place to govern staff use of technology such as email and the web generally. They will also probably have codes of conduct for behaviour both within the company and with external partners and clients. But social media sites have the ability to cross the boundary between what is traditionally deemed business activity and an employee’s personal life.

This blurring of lines creates challenges not only for developing a policy but for which department should be charged with managing it. Is social media use an issue for IT or HR exclusively, or does the new medium cross departmental lines?

silicon.com asked several experts for their perspectives on whether social media policies are really necessary and, if so, how to go about developing them.

For more go to Silicon.com

Conservative-Liberal coalition might look unlikely, but it has nothing on so-called “green” technology.

Left-leaning Liberal Democrats are concerned that their ideas on education, Trident and Europe may not survive an alliance with the Tories – and so they should be. There is a track record of conservative values co-opting and defusing more altruistic attitudes.

The green movement is a classic example. Its roots go back decades to the 1960s when books such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring were more than just flower power. Over the last ten years, green has been taken up – or hijacked – by politicians and corporate marketing departments, and has become a different animal altogether. Instead of saving Pandas, green means hoarding pounds.

More Is Now Less

Right-leaning capitalist theory has encroached on lefty green-thinking very heavily in the realm of IT. It might seem obvious that we need less production, less consumption, and less technology, to conserve natural resources and protect the planet. Instead, tech companies and governments argue that what we need is more.

Clean and sustainable technologies should replace their polluting predecessors but it should occur at the natural rate of attrition. The car scrappage scheme is a clear example of how the green message has been muddied to serve economic needs. Yes an old clunker might be more polluting but crucially the environmental cost of keeping it on the road is significantly less than the total cost of its shiny new replacement, which comes with a huge carbon debt thanks to the raw materials needed to make it.

The same carbon and materials debt theory applies to computing. According to a 2003 academic study, Computers and the Environment: Understanding and Managing Their Impacts, 75 percent of the environmental harm caused by PC use occurs in the extraction and manufacture phases of the life-cycle – before a PC is used for the first time. So it makes sense to hang onto old kit longer rather than rushing out to replace it with a supposedly more efficient machine.

The marketing departments of tech companies have seized on the efficiency message and quietly stifled the issue of material consumption and carbon debt. There have been moves to remove some toxic compounds from PCs, and even some push towards the use of lower impact materials for packaging and casings, but the fundamental message of consumption and upgrading remains. Just as the Tories have chosen to embrace elements of the Liberal Democrats’ policies which they find conducive, tech companies have coopted the parts of the green movement which serve their purposes.

For more go to: eWEEK Europe UK

It’s fair to say HR departments have been more focused on dealing with redundancies than new hires in the last couple of years.

But as the economy begin to emerge from recession and businesses look to the recovery, the challenge of dealing with new employees will return. And this next generation of workers will be more demanding than any of their predecessors, especially in terms of technology.

Unprecedented levels of technical literacy, the rise of remote working and focus on sustainability mean younger workers will have very definite ideas on how they’re expected to be treated by potential employers.

Projecting ahead to what businesses and HR departments will face in the Britain of 2020, insurance company Friends Provident expects to see the emergence of demanding “elite workers”.

“By 2020, the balance of power between employees and employers will have shifted in favour of elite workers. This means employers will require more robust and rigorous HR strategies to shape the future success of the business,” says Friends Provident human resources director Gillian Fox.

And it will be the job of HR departments to put the policies in place to attract these elite workers and retain them: “Only by fostering a culture that truly allows talented employees to prosper will employers be able to attract, recruit and, more importantly, retain this powerful band of employees,” she said.

Consultant Accenture has been analysing the emergence of this new generation, also dubbed “Millennials” – and companies that fail to tune their corporate culture to meet the needs of these future workers, aged between 14 and 27, will suffer in the long run, it predicts.

For more go to Silicon.com