Green initiatives taking hold, Verizon says

The man heading Verizon’s efforts to be more energy efficient says the US telecommunications industry has made significant progress on going green within the last year, though work remains on tying together global energy-saving efforts.

Chuck Graff, Verizon's director of corporate and network technology, outlined Verizon’s efforts to create a more energy-efficient network at a Broadband Forum meeting last week in New Orleans and said in an interview afterward that he was pleasantly surprised both by the reaction to his speech and by a dramatic turnaround in attitude and approach to going green by the US telecom industry. While once considered environmental laggards compared to counterparts in Europe and Asia, US companies are now becoming more proactive in their efforts, Graff said.

“I’m pleased that we are finding more of a cooperative spirit,” Graff said. When Verizon announced it would require vendors to cut energy usage by 20% for any products Verizon purchased after Jan. 1, 2009, vendors had not spoken up to offer their input, Graff said. “Now we’ve had vendors seeking us out, telling us what they are doing – we are starting to see a very proactive stance from vendors.”

Some of that change in attitude is a practical matter – many believe the Obama administration will sign the Kyoto agreement, which will impose energy-savings requirements, with direct financial penalties for those who don’t comply, Graff said. “This is will the bottom line,” he said. “We are ahead of the game, and now everyone is realizing they need to get ahead of this as well.”

As an international group, the Broadband Forum provided global exposure to what Verizon is doing, and Graff said the response was positive. He also was able to use the event to meet with Kevin Foster, head of BT’s environmental initiatives, and said BT is seeking Verizon’s input on a planned white paper regarding building energy efficiency into broadband architectures.

“There are lots of groups at work on this in Europe and Asia,” Graff said. “We still need to bring the groups together to create an international standard. There is still some work to do here. People are pleased we put our stake in the ground and got the 20%, that’s a really good start. We will cooperate with what they are doing as well. The one thing we all agreed on is that it’s great that everyone get on the same page.”

Graff also noted increased European interest in the work being done through the US-based Network Equipment Building System, or NEBS, conferences, which enable engineers and others to share information.  

“We have a NEBS conference coming up in October in Baltimore, and I was surprised  how many of the European folks are familiar with NEBS and thought it was pretty good,” Graff said. “Regarding energy efficiency, we did do NEBS testing on fuel cells. This one was natural gas, and it did great. We have the video of that on the Web site , and a lot of them had seen it. It shows we can do things green, and we can provide good service to our customers, and it’s not that hard when you design it in.”