REI's Summer 2012 Environmental Defense Fund Fellowship, includes Energy Efficient Data Centers

REI has a job posting for a Summer Intern.

REI has a opening for our summer 2012 EDF (Environmental Defense Fund) Climate Corps Fellowship. This temporary assignment is expected to commence in mid May and conclude in late August, 2012.
Hours: Monday – Friday, 30-40 hours (flexible).

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to support REI’s Corporate Social Responsibility Program (CSR) and REI’s cross-divisional Energy Team as a participant in EDF’s Climate Corps program.

Recruiting Processes:
In order to work for REI through EDF Climate Corps, you must apply individually to REI. If you are concurrently applying through EDF to be considered for other company placements, please inform both parties in writing via email to ekocherovsky@edf.org and ccannon@rei.com

I was totally surprised that data centers get mentioned.

As an EDF Climate Corps Fellow, you will be matched with a leading company to serve as an energy efficiency change agent. EDF provides the following training and resources throughout your summer:

• 3-day training in energy efficiency strategies for commercial buildings and data centers.
• EDF Climate Corps Handbook
• Summer Call series with experts on topics relevant to fellow workplans.
• Fellow check-in calls facilitated by EDF to share best practices
• Access to online forums, collaboration tools, EDF experts, and up-to-date energy efficiency resources
• A network of current and future sustainability leaders across sectors and regions that will last beyond the summer

If you know of a college student studying in sustainability, here is a job they should consider.

This role will include technical, environmental, and financial analysis. This intern will contribute to a fast-paced, smoothly-run organization by utilizing effective communication, teamwork, organizational skills, accuracy, creativity, and productivity. Responsibilities require independence and judgment while providing operational, administrative, and project support with a minimum of direction, as well as performing associated duties as assigned by the CSR Manager. Intern is expected to use their knowledge of sustainable business principles to guide their work and communication with colleagues.

Relationships:
The Intern reports to the CSR Manager and will also work with the cross-divisional Energy Team.



 

Coverage of Google's ISO and OHSAS Certifications, 14,900 views and 12 articles

I was up early on Jan 19, 2012 and ran into the Google post on its ISO and OHSAS certifications.  At the time there wasn't any news yet and the youtube video had only 200 views.  Now, 4 days later over the weekend,  the YouTube Video has 14,900 views and there are 12 articles.

Google Data Centers: Safe For Your Back Yard
InformationWeek - Jan 19, 2012By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek Google says its US data centers are the first among those operated by major Internet service companies to be certified to meet specific environmental and occupational safety standards, an achievement that demonstrates ...
Google's US Data Centers Earn Environmental Certification
PC Magazine - Jan 19, 2012By Leslie Horn Google has received ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 environmental and workplace safety certifications for all of its US data centers, the company announced Thursday. Joe Kava, Google's senior director of data center construction and operations ...
Google Data Centers Are Certifiably Green
PC Magazine - Jan 19, 2012By Andrew Webster Google has announced that all of its American-based data centers are now ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certified. According to the company, this makes Google the first major internet service company in the country to receive this type of ...
And the ISO/OSHAS data center awards go to Google
ITworld.com - Jan 20, 2012By Beth Bacheldor Add a new comment January 20, 2012, 4:01 PM — This time around, Google gets to toot its data center horn. The company has announced that all of its US owned and operated data centers have received ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 ...
Google US Data Centers Now ISO 140001 Certified
Environmental Leader - Jan 20, 2012Google has received ISO 14001 certification for all of its US data centers, reducing oil consumption in its back up generators by 67 percent in the process. The company says that this makes it the first major internet services company to be awarded ...
Google Data Centers Are Safe For The Environment
The Data Center Journal (blog) - Jan 20, 2012Google's US data centers have been certified to meet specific environmental and workplace safety standards and the company is confident that they are safe for the environment. Google also stated that its US data centers are the first in the genre of ...
Google data centers certified for environmental performance
DatacenterDynamics - Jan 19, 2012Google's six data centers on US soil have been successfully audited for systematic efforts to diminish their impact on the environment and for being safe and healthy work environments. Joe Kava, senior director of data center construction and ...
Google's Green Project Wins Awards
Brunei News, Brunei Headlines from Brunei fm - Jan 19, 2012Google has been working on a project to bring their facilities into a more Environment friendly system. so finally without letting all of their efforts go to waste, they have received the ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certification for their US owned and ...
Google Data Centers Are Safe For The Environment
The Data Center Journal (blog) - Jan 20, 2012Google's US data centers have been certified to meet specific environmental and workplace safety standards and the company is confident that they are safe for the environment. Google also stated that its US data centers are the first in the genre of ...
Google ramps up environmental efforts
Fresh Business Thinking - Jan 19, 2012All of the web giant's US data centres are now run to environmental management standard ISO 14001 and efforts are underway to extend the same environmental accountability across Europe and beyond. “For the last year, our data center [sic] team has been ...
Google's Green Project Wins Awards
Brunei News, Brunei Headlines from Brunei fm - Jan 19, 2012The data centers which received this dual certification are, The Dalles, Ore, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Mayes County, Okla., Lenoir, NC, Monck's Corner, SC, Douglas County, Ga. and also they are planning to pursue certification in the European data centers ...

This was a USA certification and we expect the same type of efforts from Google in Europe.

Google sets a high standard, all US Data Centers are ISO 14001 environmental and OHSAS 18001safety Certified

Google has posted on their achieving ISO 14001 and OSHAS 18001 certifications for environmental and safety standards.

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All of our U.S. owned and operated data centers have received ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001certification. We’re the first major Internet services company to gain external certification for those high standards at all of our U.S. data centers.

In a nutshell, both standards are built around a very simple concept: Say what you’re going to do, then do what you say—and then keep improving. The standards say what key elements are required, but not how to do it—that part’s up to us. So we set some challenging goals for ourselves, and we asked our auditors to confirm that we’ve followed through on them.

Two improvements listed are in diesel generator maintenance and handling of batteries.

Here’s an example of the kind of improvements we’ve implemented: Like most data centers, ours have emergency backup generators on hand to keep things up and running in case of a power outage. To reduce the environmental impact of these generators, we’ve done two things: first, we minimized the amount of run time and need for maintenance of those generators. Second, we worked with the oil and generator manufacturers to extend the lifetime between oil changes. So far we’ve managed to reduce our oil consumption in those generators by 67 percent.

A second example: each of our servers in the data center has a battery on board to eliminate any interruptions to our power supply. To ensure the safety of the environment and our workers, we devised a system to make sure we handle, package, ship and recycle every single battery properly.

Joe Kava and a few other Googlers are featured in this video discussing the achievement.

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Check out this Google logo with a tree for letter "l" and moon hovering.

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This is the closest to a tour of inside a Google data center many will get.

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What is more important a LEED certification or meeting environmental and safety standards?  Google has hopefully woken up some data center decision makers that there is more to being a green data center than a low PUE and LEED certification.

I am curious on how many views this video will get through out the day.  so far it has 201.

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Some good reasons why your Mom should have an iPhone 4S, monitoring health, safety

Two weeks ago, my brother, sister and I decided it was time to get Mom to upgrade to an iPhone 4S.  Part of what triggered it was my mother-in-law falling in the bathroom and dislocating her shoulder on Dec 23, and on Xmas day my sister not being able to get a hold of my mom all morning.  Mom was OK, but had taken a medication that made her drowsy and she took a nap in the backyard far away from the phone, and her hearing isn't the best.  Finding my mom could be easy with the IOS Find Friends app if she was set up.

 

Find My Friends and Find My iPhone

Find the party. Find your family. Or find a place to meet up after work. And if you lose your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac, iCloud can help you find it, too.

My mom is in her 70s and living in the home alone.  My brother and I live 2 hr plane flight away, and my sister is only 10 miles away.  The nice thing is her living in the same home for 45 years and being born in Alameda, CA there are lots of friends and family in the area to ask for help, but we needed a way to know if mom was in trouble.  So, let's upgrade mom to an iPhone 4S and see if it would work.

Previously my mom had a clamshell simple phone that she would carry around, but leave off most of the time.  Getting her to change habits and get a more complicated device is an obstacle that is typical.  The safety and monitoring seemed worth the effort.

I worked at Apple and my sister, so getting my mom set up with an iPhone is not an issue.  Even though my Mom has not had a problem using her iPhone having kids who worked at companies like HP, Apple, Oracle, Intuit, and Microsoft (not all at the same time) gives her tech support that is hard to match.

Having FaceTime to enable us to see how mom is doing at home is great for the grand kids and for us to check on Mom's health and safety.  Seeing a person's face in a live video feed besides being social is a great indicator of health.  Think about the term "you don't look so good."  It is pretty hard to do when talking on the phone. With FaceTime you can see.  Luckily my sister sees my mom a couple of times a week and I see my mom at least once a month on my frequent trips to the bay area.

After two weeks, my mom is using her iPhone to check her e-mail, surf the web, and text her family.  Mom is using text so much, my sister upgraded her text messages to 1,000/month.  Find Friends apps has worked great.  We can check out here mom is and mom can check on us.

Typically, some one in their 70s is going to want a simple to use, low cost phone.  Paying the extra money for an iPhone 4S would block most purchases.  But, when you think of monitoring the health and safety of your parents, seems like it is worth the cost.

Fujitsu launches big data services in the cloud

Next week I am moderating a panel discussion on "Opportunities in Big Data" at a small Fujitsu conference in SJ.  And Fujitsu just announced data services in the cloud.

Fujitsu Launches Cloud Services as a Platform for Big Data

Tokyo, January 16, 2012 — Fujitsu today announced the launch of Data Utilization Platform Services, which use cloud services as a platform leveraging big data(1).

This is a cloud service for gathering, compiling, and integrating massive quantities of sensing data; combining it with knowledge; processing it using realtime processing or batch processing; and using it for such purposes as making future projections. It covers four specific services offerings: Data Management & Integration Services, Communications Control Services, Data Collection and Detection Services, and Data Analysis Services.

Fujitsu is promoting Convergence Services that leverage big data to help resolve business and global issues, generate new sources of value, and bring about a more prosperous society. Data Utilization Platform Services will act as the core of these services.

...

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One of the personas Fujitsu has is the "data curator"

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I'll look for more information on this topic while I am at the conference.