Flickr user: cmurtaugh

GREEN and Carbon Neutral have become buzzwords in the past few years, increasingly so in the IT industry, with Internet Service Providers Internode and Exetel both claiming to be doing “their bit”, but are they really making a difference?

Exetel has taken the steps of switching to Green Power through its electricity provider, as well as offsetting its carbon emissions through carbonneutral.com.au, though only appears to be offsetting its electricity emissions.

Internode offset carbon emissions through Carbon Planet by purchasing 3900 ‘carbon credits’ at a cost of $25 each, and includes employee services, flights, equipment, third party services and ground transportation as well as its electricity usage.  In addition, Internode is powering 12 communications towers using solar technology.

I spoke with designer of sustainable settlements, Mike Stasse, about these endeavours and their usefulness, starting with Green Power and his comments were interesting if not eye opening:

“’Green Power’ isn’t that green at all.  You’d think they’d be buying lots of power from grid connected solar arrays on houses like ours but there are only, wait for it, 400 or so of them!  That means there’s only about 585,000 kWhrs of solar energy available annually from domestic sources.  There are others from commercial buildings, but they’re even scarcer…” he said.

“By the time you split all that ‘green power’ between all the people who are feeling guilty, it’s all disappeared, and it’s actually been exposed as a bit of a con!  The rest of that green power is co-generation (burning bagasse – trash from sugar cane grown with fossil fuels, and methane from garbage tips, also sourced from fossil fuels!”

Mr Stasse suggests offsets seem to be a cop out to reduce guilt, and is interested in exactly how these companies are measuring their footprint, which neither company we’ve covered here has detailed. He does however state that this action, is something all businesses should be taking, though feels that overall it’s like “putting bandaids on a cancer patient” and is unsustainable regardless in the long run.

Other action he suggests could be taken by companies interested in reducing their overall footprint include making their offices more energy efficient, screwing PV’s to their roofs, and changing their car fleet to small diesel cars.

From Mr Stasse’s input, it would appear that these companies have made a start, and shouldn’t be discouraged from their efforts, but more could be done to reduce their environmental impact.

Exetel in particular seems to be flaunting its actions as a public relations tool. We tried to contact Exetel’s Managing Director for comment and to expand on what action they’re taking, but he failed to respond.

Internode was contacted for comment but no response was forthcoming at the time of publication. If either company does eventually respond, a follow up article will be published.

What do you think of these efforts? What are you doing in your own home?