The World Challenge 2010 is a global competition run by BBC World News and Newsweek, in association with Shell, and aims to highlight and reward entrepreneurs and small businesses around the world that bring economic, social and environmental benefits to local communities through innovation and enterprise at a grassroots level.

This year, 12 entrepreneurs from around the world have been announced as finalists. The winner of World Challenge 2010 will receive a US$20,000 grant from Shell while the two runners-up will each receive US$10,000.

World Challenge 2010 Finalists

Denmark: ‘Africa: Cyber Capital’ – MYC4 – inviting people worldwide to connect directly with African entrepreneurs who cannot obtain capital to develop their businesses, allowing African enterprise to attract investment at an interest rate that they are willing to pay.

Guatemala: ‘A Class Apart’ – Tecnico Maya Vocational School – creating better employment and education opportunities in Comalapa. A popular park has already been created, but the goal now is to create a mixed academic and vocational school, built from recycled waste such as car tyres and bottles.

India: ‘Burn After Eating’ – Husk Power Systems – using an innovative technology mix to run off-grid mini power stations fired by rice husks – a by-product that would otherwise be thrown away and release methane as it rotted. In the state of Bihar in India, an estimated 50,000 villagers are lighting up with bio-power.

Kenya: ‘Double-Boiled’ – Jompy Stove – a lightweight and inexpensive stove-top device that sits between a cooking pot and an open flame to rapidly boil water. This incredibly simple technology could save millions who die from drinking contaminated water. Households can cook a meal and sterilise dirty water at the same time – both lives and fuel can be saved.

Madagascar: ‘One Reef at a Time’ – Blue Ventures – offering researchers and volunteers the chance to work with local communities to protect the reefs using sustainable marine conservation areas. Blue Ventures’ project in Madagascar – home to both the world’s fourth largest coral reef and a rejuvenated octopus fishing industry – is working with local communities to make sustainable livelihoods a reality.

Malawi: ‘In a Nutshell’ – The Full Belly Project – helping to improve life in developing countries, an Africa-wide project to promote easy-to-make and easy-to-maintain technologies to improve agricultural-output sustainability.

Mexico: ‘Saving from a Rainy Day’ – Isla Urbana – developing a simple collection and filtering system which harvests rainwater, mainly using materials from local hardware stores and installed by specially trained local plumbers.

Peru: ‘Pass it On’ – Sierra Productiva – passing on the knowledge to improve organic techniques to dramatically boost production from both livestock and crops. The main technology has been harnessing springs and the use of drip irrigation systems, freeing the farmers from dependence on rainfall that gave them only one harvest a year.

Philippines: ‘The Only Way is Up’ – Running Water Uphill – using the power of a river’s flow to literally push water uphill without any other energy input, it’s proving to be a benefit for poor villagers living in mountainous regions. The ram pump can save both hours of back-breaking work carrying water and cash where expensive water pumps are replaced.

Philippines: ‘Growth Cycle’ – Bamboosero – training and supporting bike building in developing countries, using local, sustainable bamboo. The bikes sell locally, but entrepreneurs particularly love the idea of exporting their products to Europe and the USA, where there is a market for the unique and increasingly high-quality frames.

Rwanda: ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ – e.quinox – offering a solution to rural villages left in the dark, the little shop of light has set up its first solar energy kiosk in Gakenke district in Rwanda. Sealed ‘battery boxes’ are on constant charge rotation, when the lights go dim villagers can come and swap their box for a fresh one.

Tanzania: ‘Ok Coral’ – Chumbe Island Coral Park – involving local fishermen and providing sustainable employment opportunities based on a protection model that pays its way. The evidence is a string of pristine coral islands that provide refuge for 400 fish species and a string of solar powered eco-lodges that do the same for tourists.

Vote for Your Favourite Finalist

BBC World News (Starhub Cable TV Channel 701) will broadcast six 30-minute programmes profiling each of the World Challenge 2010 finalists. The finalists will also be profiled in the Newsweek magazine. For more info about the finalists and to vote, visit www.theworldchallenge.co.uk. Voting is from 27 September to 12 November 2010.

The Asia-Pacific information communications technology sector has developed at an exponential rate in the last 10 years. It is also producing a growing environmental footprint which must be managed in the long-term.

Companies the world over are beginning to look at Green IT and sustainability issues in information and communication technology (ICT), which in itself has irrevocably changed the way we work and provided us with solutions to connect, engage, and collaborate.

We see that ICT plays a dual role in being both a cause and a solution for environmental sustainability issues, with a significant amount of energy usage – which generates a large ecological footprint on one hand, and plays a vital role to help address environmental sustainability problems on the other. By recognising and addressing this delicate balance, it is our view that ICT organisations can help employ more energy-conserving ways of working.

Industry players are in the last few years, slowly awakening to the fact that there is a need to do their part to reduce this. Adopting intelligent solutions, such as converging IT and telecommunications technologies and, implementing tools such as videoconferencing, can help in the development of sustainable business strategies. By taking on sustainable practices, businesses have not only reduced their CO2 emissions but also benefitted in some tangible form from upfront cost savings through the reduction of energy consumption.

Looking at the environment in which we operate, it is heartening to see for example Wipro – one of Asia-Pacific’s biggest IT service providers – taking first steps towards Greening their products. It earlier this year sold its first computer made without any potentially hazardous materials to human health. The new computer, called “Greenware”, reported to be completely free of PVC (polyvinylchloride) and BFR (brominated flame retardants) and now lights up a path that hopefully will be followed by many international PC makers, not already in that space.

Such developments are a welcome change among businesses in the Asia-Pacific, where developments such as e-waste is fast becoming a particular concern in some countries which are ‘landing spots’ for shipments of dumped waste from developed countries for crude recycling. However, the need to managing e-waste is only one of the environmental hurdles confronting the region’s ICT industry.

Research figures by Gartner estimate that ICT accounts for two per cent of worldwide carbon emissions – the same level of CO2 emissions as the airline industry. And this figure is expected to double over the next decade as large numbers of new internet and phone subscribers as well as data-heavy communications services are added to ICT networks.

Playing our part for the sustainability of our environment is also something we, at Cable&Wireless Worldwide, are fundamentally committed to in our business. In our operations in Asia Pacific and abroad, we have actively worked as far as possible to reduce energy consumption by adopting ICT technologies and practices that balance environmental and business goals.

It is this success which has led us to extend this approach to the services and products we offer our customers, many of whom are businesses who widely use ICT in their daily operations. For instance, one of the first things for businesses looking to reduce their energy consumption, is perhaps to start by optimising their data centre infrastructure. Where possible, data centres should be consolidated onto fewer, more technologically advanced servers, which release less heat and deliver greater performance per watt of power dissipation.

Better utilisation can also be brought about with virtualisation, which splits one physical server into multiple virtual servers. By simply consolidating and “virtualising” servers in on-site or external data centres, companies can improve their total server utilisation from 10 per cent to as much as 70 per cent. These improvements are important because fully loaded servers, proportionally, consume much less energy than under-utilised ones.

A further way to build on the cost and carbon emission savings generated by data centre consolidation is to improve an organisation’s overall efficiency in its ICT networks and processes. Specially designed software packages and services, such as Application Performance Management (APM), are ideal for this. APM is designed to deliver optimal network performance and efficiency by monitoring and managing the applications, user profiles and services on an organisation’s Wide Area Network (WAN). This can eliminate the longer working hours and excess infrastructure needed to overcome poor productivity caused by slow networks – significantly cutting carbon emissions in the process.

Changing ourselves in the next generation

Another way that businesses throughout Asia Pacific are tackling carbon emissions is by changing their work practices. Managed video conferencing (MVC) solutions – particularly systems incorporating telepresence and high definition (HD) technologies for ‘live’ meetings – is increasingly helping regional organisations reduce their business travel costs.

We also believe in practising environmental stewardship. In fact, we have used such solutions ourselves to save money and reduce our carbon footprint as an organisation. As a user of what we ourselves sell, we have made video conferencing easy and accessible with suites in the United Kingdom, Europe and key sites in Asia, Australia and the United States.

Using ourselves as an example, in February this year, our CEO led a worldwide meeting for colleagues in Bangalore, Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK on video conference – and this delivered cost savings of some £40,000 in travel and accommodation costs. We have also converted our monthly operations meetings between colleagues in London and Bangalore to video conferences, saving an estimated 120 days of management time, some significant direct travel costs in the first month. Furthermore, we have purpose built an application to measure our travel savings and CO2 emissions savings and estimate that in the last year, we have made annual savings of 600,000 kg CO2 per year.

In the Asia Pacific, we have also collaborated with Regus to provide Telepresence solutions which give businesses of all sizes the opportunity to take full advantage of this technology, and the green benefits associated with it through its meeting facilities and business centers.

Another industry-wide development growing much in popularity across Asia Pacific, is the concept of remote working – where employees work from home part of the time – and.there are many benefits associated with this.

Not in the least, the major ‘green’ benefit of remote working is the reduction in unnecessary travel, which can have a massive impact on an organisation’s carbon emissions, and the accompanying reductions of emissions seen in the reduced use of office space, equipment and power. With employees working away from the office, organisations can save on heating, cooling and energy consumption, all of which adds up to a significant reduction in its carbon footprint. Of course, remote working is also a significant way to help employees achieve a better work/life balance.

While many businesses believe the necessary IT and network infrastructure changes required to implement remote working may remain a barrier to ‘true’ mass adoption, because of complexities and costs in implementation, solutions such as IP Virtual Private Networks (IPVPNs) provide the backbone for remote working. Our IPVPN is a managed service for carrying voice and data traffic across the public network and is designed for organisations that want to connect all their employees and sites for example, in the UK to a single corporate network. Based on our next-generation network, IPVPN converges voice and data lines to ensure businesses have the necessary bandwidth to deal with all the applications businesses now require. It also supports mission critical communications in the office and facilitates remote access seamlessly.

The Impact of Green in industry

The cost savings gained by adopting such green initiatives can be dramatic if pursued correctly and in a systematic way. According to the business value analysis study, “Symantec Corporation: The Green Data Centre,” Symantec, the largest maker of personal computer security software, was able to save more than US$2.1 million in energy costs by implementing green IT practices in its data centres.

Many other successes have also been widely written about. For example, Hewlett Packard made similar gains in India. In early 2008, the company consolidated 14 data centres into one large site in Bangalore, which was cooled by an air conditioning system equipped with 7,500 temperature sensors. The facility’s 40 per cent savings in power consumption equated to annual savings of approximately US$1.2 million.

Such energy savings at the individual corporate level are as we hear of them, very impressive. However, it is our belief that a far greater impact can be achieved if the industry ‘greens up its act” together with global governments to establish standardised ways of calculating and monitoring the energy consumption of our products and the CO2 emissions of our activities.

Improved international and national standards could also do its part to drive environmentally-friendly innovation in ICT. For instance, it could push product designers to ensure recycling is a key consideration in the manufacture of electronics hardware and equipment. This means having an idea of which components will be re-usable, recyclable and biodegradable once the devices become obsolete, and actively including this in the making of such hardware.

The SMART 2020 report, commissioned by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, estimates that the ICT sector could enable a reduction of up to 15 per cent of global emissions – more than five times the footprint of the sector itself. In the process, green IT could create new business lines worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

What then an amazing incentive it would be for more businesses to follow the lead of the many companies who have already starting their journey towards green IT!

About Nick Lambert

As Managing Director of all Global Markets outside of the UK, Nick is responsible for Cable&Wireless Worldwide’s businesses in Africa, Asia, Continental Europe, Ireland and the United. States. In his current role, he holds overall commercial and strategic responsibility for sales, marketing, HR and service delivery operations for those markets.

Nick has brought extensive professional experience to Cable&Wireless Worldwide since he joined in October 2007. He previously served as the Asia Pacific Vice President of Infrastructure Management Services for IBM, its Asia Pacific General Manager for its market-leading ‘i series’ mid-range servers, and was also Managing Director of IBM New Zealand, where he drove a dramatic turnaround in profitability and growth.

Nick has also held senior leadership positions with Wang Computers and Sequent Computer Systems in different regions including the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

A graduate from Victoria University with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, Nick has also attended Wharton Business School and Boston University’s Executive Management Programme.

About Cable&Wireless Worldwide

Cable&Wireless Worldwide (LSE: CW.) aims to be the first-choice provider of mission critical communications. The Company is one of the world’s leading critical communication providers delivering a range of high-quality managed voice, data and IP-based services and applications to large corporates, multinational companies, governments, carrier customers and resellers across the UK, Asia Pacific, India, Middle East & Africa, Continental Europe and North America.

In the UK, Cable&Wireless Worldwide owns the country’s largest fibre network dedicated to business users of telecoms reaching 20,500km in length, and providing ubiquitous UK access through a combination of fibre, digital, microwave, radio and leased circuits. The network has presence in more than 400 towns and cities in the UK, with 802 unbundled exchanges covering 55% of the population.

On an international scale, Cable&Wireless Worldwide’s global next-generation network (NGN) stretches to more than 500,000km, including interests in 69 global cable systems, and provides connectivity to 153 countries. The Company’s Multi-Service Platform, an IP-based next-generation platform that operates across the NGN, offers a single environment on which voice and data applications can be converged to drive business efficiencies. The network is uniquely designed with inbuilt resilience and the capability to re-route traffic across diverse paths in the event of failure of one or more paths, particularly at the international level.

With more than 6,300 colleagues globally, Cable&Wireless Worldwide is committed to delivering exceptional customer service and developing long term partnerships with its customers.

To find out more, visit www.cw.com

At today’s Singapore Environmental Achievement Awards (SEAA) organised by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) and the Singapore Manufacturers’ Federation (SMa), ten companies were recognised for their green practices and commitment towards sustainable development. The ten winning companies include:

SEAA Top Achievers Award

• Gammon Construction Limited – Promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the construction industry and committing to sustainability efforts at their project sites
• Samwoh – Pushing for the use of recycled aggregates in Singapore and using it for their new office building
• Siloso Beach Resort – Minimising the impact of the resort operations and preserving the natural environment

SEC-Senoko Energy Green Innovation Product Award

• Winrigo (S) Pte Ltd – Recycling of plastics and producing bio-composite made from polypropylene and rice husk fibre

SEAA Merit Award

• CDL; EnGro; Keppel Land; NatSteel; Panasonic; and ST Marine

At the award presentation ceremony, Ms Isabella Loh, Chairman of SEC, shared SEC’s new vision:

To be the preferred non-government organisation partner for communities, businesses and governments to achieve best-in-class sustainable city development in Singapore and beyond.

International Singapore Compact CSR Summit 2010

This timely summit organized by the Singapore Compact for CSR brings together experts from various sectors to discuss on how to plan, measure, and implement CSR strategies for sustainable business success.

The Inaugural International Singapore Compact CSR Summit of last year was a great success, attracting about 400 delegates from multinational corporations, small and medium enterprises, unions, government, academia and the general public.

Let’s join other business leaders, CSR professionals and many other stakeholders to hear and learn from the experts, local and overseas, to address the following challenges:-

HOW TO PLAN     |     HOW TO MEASURE     |     HOW TO IMPLEMENT

• How can my organisation make CSR an effective strategy for sustainable business success?
• How can my organisation keep pace with the ever changing energy challenge?
• How government policies shape along with the global impetus?
• How can my organisation effectively respond to the global trends which affect my organisation?
• How can I measure my organisation’s response to the climate change challenge and sustainability developments?
• How is the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) relevant to my organisation and where shall I start with?
• How can I measure the social impact of my organsiation?
• How can I start with my first sustainability report with a universally accepted standard?
• What are the cost and time-effective ways to do sustainability reporting?

*Fees reflected above are based on per delegate.

Please visit www.singaporecsrsummit.org for more information about the International Singapore Compact CSR Summit 2010.

For registration, please download the form from http://www.singaporecsrsummit.org/registration.php and fax the completed form to 6471 1278.

Please feel free to contact Mr Cedric Miranda or Ms Fion Tsang at 6827 6825, or email to enquiry@singaporecsrsummit.org for any enquiries or the sponsorship opportunity for the International Singapore Compact CSR Summit 2010.

Guest-of-Honour & Keynote Speaker: Dr Amy Khor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources and Mayor, South West District

Government, educational institutions, not for profit organisations, business representatives and students will gather together at the 2nd National Sustainability Conference on the 29th & 30th of July to discuss the latest sustainable developments in the Asia Pacific region. The theme of this year’s conference is Sustainable Strategies for Singapore and the Asia Pacific Region with a focus on the sustainable workplace. The conference is jointly organised by The Office of Environmental Sustainability (OES), National University of Singapore and the Workplace Research Centre (WRC), University of Sydney.

The conference will be opened by the Guest-of-Honour for the event, Dr Amy Khor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, and Mayor, South West District, and she will be delivering the keynote address.

What is Singapore doing to mitigate climate change and how is this filtering down to our major corporations and enterprises? These are some of the questions that will be answered at this year’s conference. Business Leaders and Policy Makers from both Asia and Australia will be presenting on topics such as Sustainable Leadership, Achieving Sustainable Business Practices, the Economics of Climate Change, Green Jobs and the Future of the Sustainable Development in the Asia Pacific Region.

Some of the prominent speakers include Mr Ong Seng Eng, Director of the Resource Conservation Department at the National Environment Agency (NEA) – the country’s major statutory board for environmental protection, Associate Professor Simon Tay, Chairman, Singapore Institute of International Affairs and former Chair of the NEA, as well as Dr. John Buchanan, Director of the Workplace Research Centre, University of Sydney and Mr. John Person, Head of the UK Regional Climate Change Network in Southeast Asia.

The National Sustainability Conference will take place in the Amara Hotel, 165 Tanjong Pagar Road, Singapore 088539. It will be a great insight into Singapore’s present responses to Climate Change and the emerging opportunities in the area as well as an excellent platform of interaction and connection for anyone who is passionate about achieving a more sustainable Singapore.

Visit the National Sustainability Conference website for registration and details.

JTC Corporation (JTC) recently unveiled the masterplan for the CleanTech Park (CTP), Singapore’s first eco-business park for companies involved in clean technologies and sustainable urban solutions. The CTP also serves as a R&D and testbedding site for early adoption of clean tech products and solutions for the urban tropics. Besides clean tech companies, the CTP could also house companies providing eco-friendly products and services, and companies with strong CSR or green practices.

The 50-hectare CTP will be developed next to the Nanyang Technological University so as to enhance the integration between the academia, research institutes and the business industry, and provide synergies for the full value chain of the clean tech industry. The development will take place in 3 phases over 20 years. Phase 1 will commence in July 2010 and will provide about 17 ha of business park land when completed in 2018. Phase 2 will be developed from 2019 to 2025, and Phase 3 from 2026 to 2030. The CTP will house a working population of 20,000 when it is fully built by 2030.

In the masterplan, the CTP will be developed as the most sustainable eco-business park in Singapore with the implementation of green strategies and its emphasis on retaining the natural environment and biodiversity. The green strategies to be implemented in the CTP include:

1. Stormwater management

Making use of the existing topography of the site to channel stormwater into the low-lying areas for storage and reuse. The stormwater within CleanTech Park will be channelled into a central wetland where the water can be treated and be reused for irrigation or toilet flushing. The pond will also reduce the ambient temperature through evaporative cooling.

2. Sky Trellis

The sky trellis will be constructed between adjacent buildings and covered with plants. By shading open spaces between buildings, it can reduce heat gain by the buildings from the environment and enhance walkability within open spaces in the area.

3. Conservation of Green Zones

Conservation zones are demarcated areas within CTP where trees and plants are conserved. Development works are planned around these conservation zones to protect the existing trees and plants.

4. Protection of biodiversity

Keeping the existing trees in the park will help to retain the biodiversity, such as the birds and butterflies to remain within CTP.

5. Designated Green Corridors

The designated Green Corridors are green areas between the buildings and land parcels within CTP. These green corridors are strategically located to provide secondary greenery between the buildings and land parcels and are aimed at promoting enhanced walkability within the Park.

6. Building a Green Community

CTP will nurture the fist green business community and environment by way of introducing and inculcating green practices such as recycling programmes and car pooling programmes.

7. Green Features that reduce demand on resource utilization

Building orientation with minimum East-West facing facades; Creating the wind tunnel effect to maximize wind-capture within the buildings; Using recycled and green materials for infrastructure development.

Source and images credit: JTC

Panasonic Asia Pacific has achieved and exceeded its ‘eco ideas’ declaration targets set in 2009, and aims to be the number one green innovation company in the electronics industry by 2018.

Panasonic first announced the following ‘eco ideas’ declaration targets in 2009, and announced yesterday that it has achieved and exceeded its targets:

‘eco ideas’ for Products

• 80% of total sales by March 2013 contributed by eco products

Increased percentage of sales contributed by eco products (energy efficiency, water efficiency and long lasting) from 24% of total product sales in March 2009 to 49% in March 2010. Panasonic uses an internal environmental assessment system for assessing the environmental impacts of its products, including energy efficiency, resource conservation and reduction of chemicals.

‘eco ideas’ for Manufacturing

• Reduce 240,000 tons in total CO2 emissions over three years from April 2007 to March 2010

Reduced CO2 emissions across its 49 manufacturing sites in Asia Pacific by 37.2% instead of the original targeted 30.8% over three years. A total of 290,000 tons of CO2 was reduced, equivalent to planting about 16 million trees.

• Create model ‘eco ideas’ factories to promote clean production

Set up three model ‘eco ideas’ factories in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand that manufacture eco-friendly products with sustainable industry practices and are utilised in outreach activities to raise the level of eco consciousness in the community. These factories place an even greater emphasis on energy efficiency, waste management and recycling.

‘eco ideas’ for Everybody, Everywhere

• Spread ‘eco ideas’ through strong partnerships with key external stakeholders and educational roadshows to raise public awareness, especially among the youth.

Organised 76 eco-related educational activities and corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes to raise public awareness in Asia Pacific.

Panasonic also announced its new vision to become the number one green innovation company in the electronics industry by 2018 (its 100th anniversary), and its new ‘eco ideas’ declaration. Panasonic pledges to achieve the following by March 2013:

‘eco ideas’ for Lifestyles

• Increase regional sales contributed by eco products from the current 49% to 80%.
• Develop a Panasonic Global ECO LEARNING PROGRAM, and leverage on the Environment Champions (Schools) Industry Module in Singapore to enhance awareness of environmental issues among youth and encourage them to take eco action.
• Utilise social media platforms to generate eco awareness and inculcate eco habits. It launched the ‘Make a Change‘ Campaign, an eco advertisement design competition. Three entries with the highest amount of votes stand to win eco-friendly TVs worth S$3,000 each. One winning design will be used by Panasonic in an ‘eco ideas’ advertising campaign.

‘eco ideas’ for Business-styles

• Reduce CO2 emissions by 500,000 tonnes vs business-as-usual level
• Develop four more model ‘eco ideas’ factories in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines

Continued from Part Three.

The third step to our 4 simple green strategies is to explore the demand for green products and services, be proactive to meet this need, and gain a competitive advantage by offering greener alternatives first, thus increasing your revenue.

Here, we present our fourth and final step:

4. Enhance Brand

After adopting the previous 3 strategies, SMEs will be in a better position to build up their reputation and enhance their brand as a sustainable company.

However, in your green marketing, it is important to avoid being accused of greenwashing – a term to describe the perception of consumers being misled by a company on its environmental practices or the environmental benefits of its products or services.

To avoid being accused of greenwashing and prevent negative feedback from consumers and environmentalists, it is important to ensure that the green claims of your business are true. Acknowledge the areas of your business that are not yet green and commit to work on it.

Engage your stakeholders, both internal and external, in a dialogue on your green marketing, and gather feedback from them on whether you’re on the right track or seen to be greenwashing.

SMEs can enhance their brand as a sustainable company only after implementing the previous 3 strategies, and also have to ensure that their green marketing is free of greenwashing.

We hope that the 4 simple green strategies will give SMEs some ideas on how to be more sustainable and help them start greening their businesses.

Image credit: weatherbox via stock.xchng

Continued from Part Two.

The second step to our 4 simple green strategies is to find opportunities to reduce unnecessary wastage and inefficient practices in your business.

Here, we present our third step:

3. Increase Revenue

More consumers are increasing aware of environmental issues, and some of them would even choose eco-friendly products over the normal ones, even though it costs more. The demand for green products and services present new opportunities for SMEs who are willing to explore this new green market.

SMEs can survey the needs of their existing customers (or even potential new customers) and find out whether there is a need for greener products and services. Next, look at your own products and services, and explore whether it is possible to make them more sustainable or even design new greener products.

Find ways to reduce the environmental impacts of your products throughout its life cycle. In addition, you can ensure that your products meet certified eco labels, such as the Singapore Green Label. This will enable your products to have a green premium over normal products but remember that it is still important to first meet the customer’s quality and cost needs.

By exploring the demand for green products and services and being proactive to meet this need, SMEs can gain a competitive advantage by offering greener alternatives first, and thus increasing their revenue.

To be continued in Part Four.

Image credit: mm904ut via stock.xchng

We visited the Siemens City of the Future recently to learn more about Siemens’ portfolio of innovative solutions for a sustainable future. City of the Future was inaugurated in March 2009 at the Siemens Center in Singapore, led by Siemens’ Center of Competence for City Management and working with other business divisions. It includes a public gallery and the City Management Solutions Center.

At the public gallery outside, visitors can use the interactive UBIQ touch screens to navigate the content using their fingers, like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. The gallery showcases Siemens’ innovative portfolio of Green, Smart, Mobile and Safe city solutions.

Inside the City Management Solutions Center, we found several interactive applications on city management:

City Game

This interactive game is to help participants understand the importance of cross-functional collaboration across city departments and agencies, when building and managing a sustainable city. They must consider aspects such as water, energy, transportation, finance and security, which is dynamic and changes according to the decisions made.

Green IT Solutions

A holistic approach towards exploiting IT across communication, energy, real estate and other platforms can help individuals and companies reduce costs and be green at the same time. One solution is the use of smart energy meters and appliances that can monitor energy and water consumption, and suggest usage during periods when the energy prices are lower.

Smart Solutions

City authorities can use information technology to help deal with the complex and growing challenges within a city. One solution is the City Cockpit, which is an integrated Management Information and Decision Support System to assist authorities in managing the growth of a city based upon key performance indicators such as traffic, environment, and finance, and to ensure that the city is sustainable for the future.

Mobile Solutions

Mobile solutions, from intelligent real-time information systems and fleet management for public transportation to traffic offence management, can help to reduce a city’s transportation and congestion problems. One solution is the Mobile Parking, which allows car users to pay for parking fees using their mobile phones, instead of using parking coupons. This solution is convenient for car users, and helps the authorities to reduce the infrastructure and maintenance costs.

After touring the Siemens City of the Future, we gained new and better insights on how cities can manage their challenges and growth, and plan for a sustainable future through the use of innovative IT solutions across different industries and platforms. We look forward to seeing some of those solutions being implemented in Singapore in the near future.

Source and images credit: Siemens Pte Ltd