Green Sustainable Data Centres Legal and Regulatory Framework
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Green Sustainable Data Centres Legal and Regulatory Framework This course is produced under the authority of e-Infranet: http://e-infranet.eu/ Course team prof. dr. Colin Pattinson, Leeds Beckett University (United Kingdom), course chairman and author of Chapter 1 and 7 prof. dr. Ilmars Slaidins, Riga Technical University (Latvia), assessment material development: Study Guide dr. Anda Counotte, Open Universiteit (The Netherlands), distance learning material development, editor- in-chief dr. Paulo Carreira, IST, Universidade de Lisboa(Portugal), author of Chapter 8 Damian Dalton, MSc, University College Dublin (Ireland), author of Chapter 5 and 6 Johan De Gelas, MSc, University College of West Flanders (Belgium), author of Chapter 3 and 4 dr. César Gómez-Martin, CénitS - Supercomputing Center and University of Extremadura (Spain), author of Checklist Data Centre Audit Joona Tolonen, MSc, Kajaani University of Applied Sciences (Finland), author of Chapter 2 Program direction prof. dr. Colin Pattinson, Leeds Beckett University (United Kingdom), prof. dr. Ilmars Slaidins, Riga Technical University (Latvia) dr. Anda Counotte, Open Universiteit (The Netherlands) Hosting and Lay-out http://portal.ou.nl/web/green-sustainable- data-centres Arnold van der Leer, MSc Maria Wienbröker-Kampermann Open Universiteit in the Netherlands This course is published under Creative Commons Licence, see http://creativecommons.org/ First edition 2014 Content Chapter 7 Legal and Regulatory Framework Introduction 1 Core of Study 1 1 Overview 1 2 Initiatives 2 2.1 Industrial Initiatives 2 2.2 Industrial Association Initiatives 5 2.3 Goverment Initiatives 6 2.4 Global Initiatives 7 3 Standards and Labels 8 3.1 Green ICT Standards and Labels for Product 9 3.2 Green ICT Standards for ICT Equipment 10 3.3 Green ICT Standards for E-Waste Disposal 12 3.4 ICT and Environment 13 3.4.1 Environmental Management 14 3.4.2 Methodologies for Product Lifecycle Accounting and Reporting 15 3.4.3 EU ICT Codes of Conduct 17 4 Legislation and Regulations 17 4.1 EU Directives and Regulations on Product 17 4.2 EU Directives and Regulations E-Waste 18 Summary 19 Model Answers 20 – Answers to Reflection Questions 20 Chapter 7 Legal and Regulatory Famework Colin Pattinson and Ah-Lian Kor Leeds Metropolitan University I N T R O D U C T I O N The aim of this chapter is to give students both a wide ranging awareness of legal and regulatory issues relevant to the green business agenda and the ability to critically reflect on the implications of these issues for the exercise of corporate stewardship. Emphasis will be placed upon helping students to develop their own professional ethics as environmentally responsible practitioners. This course is built around the Code of Conduct on Data Centres. In this chapter the student learns about the position of this Code of Conduct in the landscape of initiatives, standards and laws. LEARNING OBJECTIVES After you have studied this chapter we expect that you are able to – know international and national legislation relating to IT energy consumption – apply industry codes of practice – understand the recording and reporting of procedures necessary to comply with legal and regulatory requirements – know and be aware of penalties for not following the rules. Study hints The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of a Green ICT legal and regulatory framework. The workload is 10 hours. C O R E O F S T U D Y 1 Overview ICT usage results in energy consumption, GHG emissions, waste generation and other environmental impacts (note: this has been discussed in Chapter 1). It is important to have a legal and regulatory framework for ‘Greening of ICT’ and ‘Greening by ICT’ (also discussed in the same chapter). This framework will provide a system of legislations, laws, standards, regulations and the means to enforce them with the ultimate goal of mitigating ICT impact on climate change. 1 Green Sustainable Data Centres In this section, we shall define several useful terms namely: initiatives, standards, legislations and regulations. Initiative – Initiative: this is initiated by individuals, communities, industrial Code of practice associations and governments who wish to establish a code of practice or a de facto standard that may become the basis for a standard or legislation1. Standard – Standard: according to the British Standards Index group (BSI)2, is an Agreed way of agreed way of doing something which may include the following: product doing something manufacturing, process management, service or materials delivery. The main goal of a Green ICT standard is to provide a reliable basis for people to share the same expectations about an ICT product, service, or its usage. The European Code of Conduct on Data Centres is an example of a standard. Another word for standard is a covenant. – Legislation and regulation: according to the US Environmental Agency Legislation (EPA)3, legislation is synonymous with law or statute, and it is established Law by a governing authority but generally, enforced by the courts. The basis of Regulation legislation could be an initiative or a standard. A regulation is synonymous with a rule (or directive), and it is developed by a governing authority. It typically provides more specific and prescriptive information for how the broad legislative objectives will be met. European Union In the European Union legislation is as follows: Regulation –A regulation is a legislative act of the European Union that becomes Immediately immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously; enforceable Directive – A directive is a legislative act of the European Union, which requires member states to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving that result. It can be distinguished from regulations which are self-executing and do not require any implementing measures. Directives normally leave member states with a certain amount of leeway as to the exact rules to be adopted REFLECTION 1 a How should an organization react to legislation, code of conduct, regulation and directives? b If you have identified that the reactions are different, why is this? 2 Initiatives 2.1 INDUSTRIAL INITIATIVES Many pc manufacturers are getting greener with their green initiatives and we shall list some of them in an alphabetic order: – Dell Green IT Initiative Dell’s green IT initiative is subsumed in its 2020 Legacy of Good Plan4 with 21 strategic sustainability goals listed in the website5. 1http://www.sustainability-perspectives.com/perspective/environmental-regulations# article-more 2http://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/standards/Information-about-standards/what-is-a- standard/ 3http://www.epa.gov/air/aqmportal/management/reg_imp.htm 4http://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/corporate/corp-comm/en/Documents/2020-plan.pdf 5http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/corp-comm/2020-goals-overview?c=us&l= en&s=corp&cs=uscorp1 2 Chapter 7 Legal and Regulatory Framework Task 1 List the sustainability goals. The environment is one of the foci of the plan, which addresses the following issues: reduction of the environmental impact of their operations; drive social and environmental responsibility in the industry and their supply chain; enable customers to reduce the environmental impact of their IT infrastructure; promote technology’s role in addressing environmental challenges. – Fujitsu Green IT Initiative Fujitsu is focused on Green ICT throughout the entire product lifecycle and in 2009 Fujitsu achieved a global reduction of 2.37 million tons CO2 emissions, exceeding the target of 2.13 million tons CO2 emissions. In the same year, Fujitsu was awarded ‘Super Green’ status or three stars under a Garnter/WWF Green IT labelling scheme which is the highest achieve- ment for environmental consciousness6. Fujitsu extended their global Green ICT Initiative to become the Green Policy Innovation which encompasses Green IT products and solutions. Task 2 Watch this youtube video on Green Policy Innovation7 and relevant activities are found here8 The Green Policy Innovation exploits Fujitsu’s cutting edge green technology for the reduction of environmental impacts through ‘Greening of ICT’ and ‘Greening by ICT’ which is depicted in Figure 1. FIGURE 1 Green Policy Innovation (ibid) – IBM Green IT Initiative In 2007, IBM announced their Big Green Initiative known as the Project Big Green9,10 which aimed at building and redesigning green data centers. The five components in the project are: 6http://www.fujitsu.com/uk/news/pr/fs_20101028.html 7http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuDDiyBNFmE 8http://www.fujitsu.com/global/about/environment/green-it/approach/ 3 Green Sustainable Data Centres – DIAGNOSE: Evaluate existing facilities -- energy assessment, virtual 3-D power management and thermal analytics; – BUILD: Plan, build or update to an energy efficient data center; – VIRTUALIZE: Virtualize IT infrastructures and special purpose processors; – MANAGE: Seize control with power management software; – COOL: Exploit liquid cooling solutions -- inside and out of the data center; Task 3 Watch these videos on the Project Big Green11,12. IBM’s Energy Efficiency Initiative13 is subsumed in Project Big Green and it focuses on energy efficiency in data centers. In the mid-2009s, IBM embarked on the Six Green IT Initiatives which addressed target, energy efficiency, and GHG reduction14. For this initiative, a Green Sigma coalition15,16,17 (comprising IBM, and other industries) was formed. Green Sigma is used to develop a tailored carbon management solution