Apple fights NYC over Green apple logo

InfoWorld posts a blog entry on Apple filing a formal complaint with US Patent and Trade Office.

Look at this logo for a moment: infoworld: Apple fights NYC over green apple logo

If you saw it on a reusable cloth shopping bag, would you think for a moment, "Hey, that must be Apple's new iBag!"?

Apparently, Apple is worried that's the case. The above logo is actually the emblem of New York City's GreeNYC campaign, the Big Apple's move to encourage denizens and visitors to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases.

In case you can't tell, the GreeNYC logo is a combination of the infinity symbol and a green apple, the implied message being something along the lines of, "Let's keep the Big Apple green for all eternity."

Apple maintains that the GreeNYC looks too much like its own corporate logo, which, of course, looks like this (in green): Apple fights NYC over green apple logo

The company has gone so far as to file a formal complaint with the U.S Patent and Trade Office against the GreeNYC logo, according to Wired, claiming that it will confuse people -- and potentially tarnish Apple's good name. "Any defect, objection or fault found with [GreeNYC's] goods and services marketed under [GreeNYC's] marks would necessarily reflect upon and seriously injure the reputation which [Apple] has established for its goods and services," the claim states.

Even though this positioned as bad Apple, speaking as an ex-Apple employee and the knowing the importance of the logo.  Apple needs to make reasonable efforts to defend their logo. If Apple stopped defending their logo, then they could use their rights to the logo.  This may be obvious its different, but when it comes to an attorney and his legal responsibility he/she will be conservative.

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Energy concepts applied to Water, Water Footprint & Water Neutral

Joel Makower has an excellent post titled A Deeper Dive into the Business of Water.

A Deeper Dive into the Business of Water

Water hasn't yet risen to the level of energy and climate as a pressing issue for most companies, but the conversation seems to be flowing lately. And that conversation includes two concepts likely to enter the green lexicon.

One of those, "virtual water," received currency last month when its foremost proponent, Professor John Anthony Allan from King's College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies, was given the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize. Allen coined the term back in 1993 to refer to the amount of water embedded in the production and trade of food and consumer products. A cup of coffee, for instance has 140 liters (about 37 gallons) of virtual water, when you consider the amount of water used to grow, produce, package, and ship the beans. Similarly, a hamburger contains 2,400 liters (634 gallons) of virtual water.

The concept of virtual water (also known as embedded or embodied water) is of more than academic interest. As water concerns flood a greater number of regions, the embedded water of common products provides a useful understanding of how water resources are impacted by global trade. For example, it explains how and why nations such as the U.S., Argentina, and Brazil "export" billions of gallons of water each year — in the form, say, of water-intensive grain or meat —  while others like Japan, Egypt, and Italy "import" billions.

The concept also could be useful in national agriculture policy, much as "embedded energy" has aided policy makers' understanding that growing and processing corn to produce biofuels can require significantly more energy than the process yields. (Not that this knowledge has dissuaded policymakers from supporting energy-intensive biofuels, of course.) And it may become a factor in the price of many raw materials, should carbon taxes or trading systems illuminate the energy and carbon intensity of things like aluminum, glass, and plastic.

He makes references to others in the industry like Peter Gleick.

Gleick went on: "I actually think the risk to companies is larger in some ways for water than it is for energy. There are substitutes for energy. You can replace oil or electricity with biofuels or with renewables. Water has no substitutes."

The evil user in water discussions is Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola recognizes that. And over the years, it has bumped up against activists, communities, and others for its water use — which is, of course, the fundamental ingredient of all of its beverages. In recent years, a series of developments pressed the need for a more comprehensive global water strategy. In the late 1990s, it began acquiring water brands (its principal U.S. offering is Dasani). In 2002, the company faced protests in India about the company's drawing down of groundwater resources. A year later, it began reporting water quality and quantity as a material risk to its business in its U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K for investors.

For a company like Coca-Cola to identify water quality and quantity as a material risk to its business gives you an idea of the WW issue in the water supply.

The post closes with.

Can it work? Will "water neutral" become the Next Big Thing in the field of corporate resource efficiency? Can it actually make a difference? It's a nascent idea, so it remains to be seen. But the high likelihood of continued water crises suggests that more and more companies will be learning about "virtual water" and "water neutrality."

For now I'm guessing that only a handful of companies — those whose products and reputation are most linked to the precious resource — will be willing to take the plunge.

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Google Talk goes Green

Just when I post I can't find any Green Google electricity news.  I find an interesting Google post on Google Talk goes Green.

Google Talk goes green

Tuesday, April 01, 2008 12:01 AM

Here at Google, we're committed to helping build a clean energy future and reducing our carbon footprint. And now Google Talk is part of the solution. We don't know about you, but we were surprised to learn the inconvenient truth that every character (byte) we send in a message results in about 0.0000000000000000034 metric tons* of CO2 being released into the atmosphere! So if we can reduce the number of characters we send when we chat with all our friends, we can help the environment at the same time.
Teenagers (and some adults) must be aware of this, because they already reduce their character usage by abbreviating words and dropping vowels when they send IM and SMS (text) messages. We think this is a great idea. If all our millions of users started using IM-speak, we'd save hundreds of millions of wasted (and environmentally damaging!) characters.
For example, if we want to say:
As far as I'm concerned, you can give me the twenty dollars you owe me when I see you later.
You could save more than 50% in wasted characters by saying:
AFAIC, U can gve me the 20 $$ YOM whn I CUL8R.
In honor of Earth Day (3 weeks from today: April 22, 2008), on that day our Google Talk servers will start automatically sending your conversations using IM-speak instead of normal words. But you can help save some computing power (and more wasted energy!) by shortening your conversations yourself.

Is this really Green, or the smart Google guys have figured out that this is a way to position a cost reduction?

It is posted on April 1, so it is an April Fool's joke.  Being Green to the point of being silly. :-)

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Where's the News on Google Electricity efforts? Achieving Carbon Neutral in 2007. Google: jolly green giant?

I wrote about Google as an electric company back in Nov 2007.

I searched news.com's GreenTech and no real news on Google's green energy efforts since Nov 2007 posting Google: jolly green giant?

Google: Jolly green giant?

By CNET News.com Staff

Last modified:November 28, 2007, 11:26 AM PST

The search and advertising company is a force to be reckoned with across the Web. Now it's looking to do the same in alternative energy (along with many others, large and small).

Google's energy push: Distraction, PR, or good business?

People are wondering why Google's getting into renewable energy. The answer is simple: it believes in innovation.
November 28, 2007

Google in energy: Imitator or innovator?

In Google's renewable-energy initiative, there are new ideas, and some reruns. Is the eSolar investment more of a VC deal than a way to push the frontiers of science?

Compared to rapid pace of innovation in Web Technologies, electricity development moves at a glacial pace.

Where is the press release from Google on achieving Carbon - Neutral in 2007? I couldn't find it on their press release site.

Reducing our Carbon Footprint to Zero

Our business powers the platforms that drive the Internet. With hundreds of millions of Google users, it takes extensive computer infrastructure to keep our tools and services running. And that takes a lot of electricity. Generating that electricity requires energy, and as our business grows, we want to make sure we minimize our impact on the Earth's climate. So we’re taking every step we can to produce electricity using renewable energy resources that don't add to the production of greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of that responsibility, Google has committed to being carbon-neutral for 2007 and beyond. To honor our pledge, we’re taking a three-step approach. First, we’re increasing the energy efficiency of our own operations. Second, we’re actively pursuing the use and creation of clean and renewable sources of electricity. Third, for the emissions we can’t reduce directly at this time, we’re investing in projects that help offset carbon generated.

I did find one entry saying Google was going carbon-neutral in 2008, but the article was written in June 23, 2007, and the Google web site still says 2007.

Google's green PR images are date June 18, 2007.

Has Google's stock price decline caused the company to put the Green message on the back burner and focus on revenue?

Google does have a Green store though.


The Google Store is going green. We only have one Earth and we want to do our best to take care of her, so we've worked hard to make our store more eco-friendly. From organic cotton T-shirts to pencils made of recycled blue jeans, you'll find that most (though not all) Google products are now made of recycled material or other stuff that goes easy on our planet.  We are also using more environmentally sound, recycled polybags, to individually package your items and to protect your items during transit.


Thoughts, comments or suggestions? We'd love to hear from you. Click here and let us know what you think.

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Lesson from US Biofuel Subsidies, similar problems in IT Chargeback models

WSJ has a post about how US Biofuel Subsidies are being exploited in a practice to game the system.

The U.S. taxpayer forks over a $1 subsidy for every gallon of biodiesel that is blended in the U.S. for export later. The idea was to give a nudge to the U.S. biofuel industry. But it is boomeranging, as the Guardian reports today in the latest installment on biodiesel “splash-and-dash.” (Other stories on this here, here, and here.)

Increasingly, traders ship biodiesel from Asia or Europe to U.S. ports, where it is blended with a “splash” of regular diesel, the paper reports. That qualifies the shipment for U.S. export subsidies. Then it is shipped back to Europe where it is also subsidized. European biofuels organizations talk about between $30 million and $300 million in U.S. subsidies being exported that way to Europe.

The result? Biofuel’s already-tarnished environmental reputation comes under more fire, because round trips across the Atlantic add unnecessary transport emissions to the mix. And Europe’s own biodiesel industry has been shutting plants, despite its own efforts to ramp up production to meet political mandates. Imports are undercutting local producers on price.

When reading this it reminds me of how IT chargeback systems can be gamed and are actually the cause of inefficiencies like the above example. When the business units are not charged for their power use, then they have no incentive to purchase energy efficiency features like energy efficient power supplies.

The hardest in going green in the data center are the pockets of self-optimizing behavior who only have their own self-interests in mind.

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