Chicago, USA September 25-26 2007

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Gold Sponsor
      

Gary Rancourt, Business Development Executive, IBM Big Green Innovations

Big Blue sees a future in corporate climate initiatives

An escalating need for companies to lower their carbon footprints will drive an increased demand in sustainability products and services, according to the head of business development for IBM’s new green unit,. Last year, Big Blue launched Big Green Innovations in order to offer corporate clients environmental solutions. The idea came out of the company’s online brainstorming sessions with employees, customers and partners and will offer a variety of products and services including energy-efficient data centres and carbon management tools.

Rancourt, who has over 25 years of experience in business development, will give an update on Big Green Innovations at this year’s Corporate Climate Response event in Chicago. Here he gives a taster of what IBM is working on:

Tell us a bit about what IBM is doing with Big Green Innovations?

Big Green Innovations is a portfolio of environmentally-focused initiatives that IBM has launched under the heading of “innovation that matters for our company and for the world”. There are four principle offerings: (1) Water management; (2) Energy management and (3) Carbon Management, all supported by 4), IBM's computational modelling resources.

What do you think will drive the demand for sustainability products and services?

An escalating need for companies to lower their carbon footprint as the true cost of greenhouse gas output is reflected in the cost of their operations and supply chain. Also an awareness of the need for more effective management of water resource is also growing.

What does your “carbon dashboard” tool do?

It’s a sophisticated decision support, optimization and planning tool that allows a dynamic visualization and trade-off analysis of the carbon emissions of all aspects of the supply chain. It interrelates the cost benefit of these elements to their carbon consequence and facilitates simultaneous cost and carbon minimization, or at least a trade-off optimization between the two.

When companies set out to reduce their overall emissions, what areas for potential carbon savings do they often overlook?

It depends on the company. But, it might turn out to be the weight and composition of the packaging they use to ship their products, as an example, or it might be the implications of their inventory or logistics models.