I had some time blocked off this morning to finish off a post I’ve been working on about energy measurement, when IBM got me so confused with their announcement on Friday that I had to put my other project aside (there’s also a video here if you’re interested). The announcement starts off simple enough: a) there are lots of opportunities to save energy and money in datacenters, b) customers want to validate that they’re actually saving energy.

With the release of our CSR report two weeks ago, we’ve had some renewed attention on our overall carbon strategy. As we have been, we’re currently focused on lowering our actual carbon footprint as low as possible. We have been making good headway, and have a long list of projects still to go which we know will have a good return. And with this long list, our investments in carbon reduction will continue to focus on these projects as opposed to investing in offsets.

One of the major ironies of my job is that I end up traveling too much, resulting in a non-trivial carbon footprint. Last week, for example, I had the opportunity to speak before over 4,500 people, and to meet with a major energy producer, but the trip required four different plane flights, hotel rooms and a series of limos and rental cars. On one leg, in particular, Jonathan, John Fowler and I were going between the same two events, so I hopped on the company plane with them, and was razzed the whole trip.

The organizing principles of our CSR and Eco Responsibility efforts are Innovate, Act, and Share. Most people get Innovate and Act (responsible products and services, and responsible operation of our extended business), but Share is always tougher to explain. Sun’s got a rich history of open standards, open source and transparency, but many people, especially outside of tech, don’t understand what these really are and why Sun would bother. Hopefully that will get easier now, as last week we announced OpenEco.

Last week was one of those that deserved a timely post or two, but didn’t get them because there was so much going on. The week started at the Carbon Disclosure Project annual event in NYC. This was commemorating CDP5, the fifth reporting cycle for the project. From the website: “The CDP website is the largest repository of corporate greenhouse gas emissions data in the world.” With over 2,400 companies reporting this year, and over 300 of the S&P 500, the CDP is playing a critical role in transparency and reporting of GHG’s.

_ Dear {name of organization}, I know {PICK ONE: from your previous work, from our conversations, from your reputation} that you are passionate about addressing our climate challenges. As such, I was very surprised at the contents of the large {PICK ONE: FEDEX, Express mail, mail} package that recently arrived for me. While I’m sure that your {PICK ONE: marketing collateral, report} is interesting and informative, I have to tell you that I recycled it to the best of my ability without reading it.

Our governor has decided that either a) we dramatically raise taxes, or b) we open the state to casinos. Argh. Part of this is driven by the large number of Mass residents who visit the Connecticut casinos. Part of it, I suspect, is the big success of the Mass Lottery, which distributes over $761M a year back to communities. I suppose I should be happy - I won’t go to the casinos so others will take care of any tax increase I might have had to deal with.

Last week I visited Milano, Brussels and Berlin in a quick trip through the EU. The trip was a mix of customer activities, government discussions and press interviews. Here’s some random and unordered notes: I got to drive the Eco Rider scooter/bike thing that the German team has been driving around the country. It was lots of fun, and really captured people’s imaginations. I’m big on gimmicky promotions, but the Eco Rider somehow transcended gimmickry and put the right kind of images in peoples minds.

A month ago Sun had over 2,700 in its Facebook Network. Now its down to 2,606. Are people leaving? Did someone prune the network?

When I first read this op-ed in the WSJ last week, I thought “get real”. The steady rise in CO2 is clear evidence that markets aren’t working. Then I reminded myself that, if externalities such as the potential impact of CO2 on the globe were reflected appropriately in the prices of things (such as cars and gas, in this case), then I would actually be in strong agreement with the authors!