CloudApps Carbon Blog

CloudApps are excited to be sponsoring the CRC Energy Efficiency Summit 2010 – Best Practice in Energy and Carbon Saving

CloudApps is delighted to be sponsoring and speaking at this exciting CRC focused 2-day event. It takes place on Tues 6th and Wed 7th July 2010 at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in Kensington, London

CRC Energy Efficiency Summit 2010. Best Practice in Energy and Carbon Saving

Event Overview

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) is the UK’s first mandatory energy savings and carbon trading scheme targeting emissions from public and private sector groups. Now in its fourth year, the CRC Energy Efficiency Summit has provided an important platform for stakeholders and policymakers to meet and discuss the development of this scheme. Now with the CRC’s launch, this event will offer participants practical advice updates and case studies to help manage the risks and maximize the opportunities associated with this complex and important legislation.

CloudApps are sponsoring the event and our team will be available for meetings and discussions in the exhibition area. Our CEO will also be participating in a panel debate on "Data Management & Reporting"

Speaker: Simon Wheeldon, CloudApps CEO
Speaker Slot: Wednesday 7th July 2010, 10:00-10:40
Summary: Data Management & Reporting

Key Session Takeaways:
    * Find out about the latest tools and technologies for CRC data management
    * Hear how other scheme participants are managing their data challenges
    * Identify ways to reduce the administrative burden of CRC reporting

Accurate data is very important for CRC compliance and performance. Participants need to have a baseline for carbon emissions they can trust. This session will look at how organizations can develop precise and efficient data management systems.

10.00 Discussion with Expert Panel:

    * What exactly needs to be reported under the CRC and when?
    * What is evolving as best practice in data management among scheme participants?
    * What are the biggest challenges in ensuring the accuracy and timeliness of this data?
    * How can organizations simplify the data gathering and reporting requirements?
    * Who is best placed to manage the data and reporting process?

Chair and Panellists:
Chair: Ray Gluckman, Director of Climate Change Policy and Compliance, SKM Enviros
David Mole, Managing Director, Landmark Environment
James Summerbell, Senior Buying Manager for Energy and Petroleum, Tesco
Tony Rooke, Sustainability and Climate Change Leader, Logica
Simon Wheeldon, CEO, CloudApps
Paula Ivey, Founder, The CSR Group

For more information visit the official event website.

The CloudApps Team

CloudApps Carbon & the salesforce.com Chatter Launch - An Emissions Management Nirvana

Here at CloudApps we are all eagerly looking forward to todays launch event for salesforce.com's Chatter.  We have been talking to our customers and prospects about this exciting new functionality for some while now (in fact since its launch at the Dreamforce user conference last year). We have been getting some very interesting feedback.

We often talk to our prospects about a "Carbon Journey" that they will need to follow as they evolve their business to compete in the low carbon economy. Chatter will serve to greatly accelerate companies along this journey. Let me explain.

To travel the carbon journey typically requires that you first address the fixed asset elements of your business.  For example, using a tool like CloudApps Carbon you can quickly measure and manage the amount of electricity that your facilities consume, enabling you to create and execute reduction programs to bring down energy consumption. This usually involves a very small subset of an organisation who manage these facilities - collaboration is important so Chatter has a role to play here, but it is limited. 

However, when you talk to organisations that have been traveling the Carbon Journey for a while you quickly learn that they have simply exhausted a lot of the fixed asset reduction opportunities. There are after all only so many light bulbs you can replace!

They are seeking something much broader, much more challenging - they are seeking to engage every single employee in their company to participate in the Carbon Journey. Think about the traditional methods for doing this - emails, surveys, forums - all of which have very limited results and are a disjointed and fractured set of tools at best.  Now imagine a single enterprise social platform that not only measures and manages your fixed asset carbon emissions, but one that engages every employee in your emissions reduction debate, providing you with real-time insights. The result is an emissions management nirvana all delivered on one platform and one for which our customers are telling us they cant wait !

The CloudApps Team

LA fitness shapes up carbon footprint with CloudApps

LA fitness shapes up carbon footprint with CloudApps.

Retail Technology Review: CloudApps, the enterprise application provider in the management of carbon as a business asset, has announced its latest customer is LA fitness, the value for money health club chain with 220,000 members.

LA fitness will use CloudApps Carbon Summer '10 to deliver proactive monitoring of carbon emissions across its 80 clubs in the UK and Ireland and help it comply with UK regulations. Just like it does for its clients, LA Fitness will be able to compare the relative performance of its clubs, targeting energy efficiency programmes where they will achieve the most impact.

Ross Chester, chief financial officer at LA fitness says: "We are conscious of our responsibility to protect the environment as well as ensuring we keep the costs of running our clubs as low as possible for our members - CloudApps Carbon allows us to do this. Following discussions with CloudApps we feel it's totally feasible for LA fitness to cut its energy use by between 10% and 15% over the next three to five years."

See full article here

The CloudApps Team

LA fitness trims carbon emissions using CloudApps Carbon Summer '10

LA fitness is to keep a tight rein on its carbon emissions using CloudApps Carbon Summer ’10 solution.

The implementation will enable LA fitness to proactively monitor carbon emissions across its 80 clubs in the UK and Ireland and help it comply with UK regulations.

CloudApps Carbon is a cloud-based emission management solution that is offered on a subscription basis and built on the Force.com platform, from Salesforce.com.

The Carbon Summer ’10 solution now supports the UK Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme, a process that affects up to 30,000 companies and started on 1 April 2010.

“Following discussions with CloudApps we feel it’s totally feasible for LA fitness to cut its energy use by between 10 per cent and 15 per cent over the next three to five years,” said Ross Chester, chief financial officer at LA fitness.

See the article here

The CloudApps Team

CloudApps Carbon - Summer '10 Edition, Fully Chatter Enabled and Now Available through the AppExchange

CloudApps goes live on the salesforce.com AppExchange with our fully Chatter enabled release of CloudApps Carbon Summer '10.

Check out our new listing here and a screenshot below:

The CloudApps Team

FinancialForce.com, CloudApps Deliver Carbon Management and Accounting

Some great coverage in WebCPA of our announcement yesterday with FinancialForce.com that brings CloudApps Carbon Management & Accounting together in one cloud !

Cloud accounting service FinancialForce.com has partnered with Web-based carbon management specialist CloudApps to help the growing number of businesses beyond the manufacturing sector that are being asked to account for their carbon emissions.

Known as CloudApps Carbon, the application was developed on Force.com — Salesforce.com’s cloud computing platform — to provide an end-to-end carbon management and accounting system. Companies can use the software to measure, monitor and account for their current carbon emissions and engage with their employees to reduce future emission levels and operational costs.

CloudApps Carbon, integrated with FinancialForce.com Accounting, enables customers to measure their carbon emissions and produce compliance reports. They can benchmark their carbon footprint against other companies, engage employees to identify and manage carbon reduction programs, and smooth cash flow by forecasting future carbon allowance requirements. In addition, the software enables them to share their work with other stakeholders to further promote their brand and green credentials.

The full article can be found here

The CloudApps Team

CloudApps mentioned in Financial Times Digital Business Review

Technology takes a lead in cutting carbon

Other suppliers are suggesting software-as-a-service (SaaS) as a quick and easy way for companies to manage carbon. CloudApps, for example, was launched in April 2010 by Simon Wheeldon, the company’s director for the EMEA region and a former Salesforce.com executive.

While the company’s cloud applications aim to manage carbon right across the business – including IT, buildings, business travel, freight transport and so on – he sees an important role for IT in collecting data from different systems and ensuring its accuracy.

“Some of the data that companies will want to feed into CloudApps are readily available, in the form of half-hourly meter readings from utilities companies. But some of it is hidden away in core business systems in HR, finance and facilities management departments.

“Close integration and the help of IT staff will be needed to gather it all, in order to get the most accurate picture possible of a company’s overall footprint,” he says.

The full article can be found here

The CloudApps Team

CloudApps Carbon Summer '10 Edition: Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Support Now Baked-In

CloudApps Carbon automates the production of emission disclosure reports at the push of a button, making global compliance reporting a simple task. The CloudApps Carbon Summer '10 edition now allows you to gather your data once and report to many standards, including the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and the UK's Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC).

The popular Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) reporting standard is now used by over 2,500 companies in 60 countries. Companies can use CloudApps Carbon to segment emissions by geography, business division or even facility, across all major emission sources and directly generate their CDP submission reports.

Also included in Summer '10 is complete support for the UK Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme, a process which started on 1st April 2010 and which could affect up to 30,000 organisations.

To achieve this CloudApps Carbon supports global emissions factors published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) as well as companies own custom emission factors.

Enjoy !

The CloudApps Team

Summer '10 arrives in earnest with CloudApps

The third full edition of emission management software CloudApps Carbon has been released by developer CloudApps , continuing on from two years of research and development into companies can deal with their impact on the environment.

The seasonally named Summer ’10 edition, features the latest regulatory requirements and factors from a number of major global energy and environment agencies, including the International Energy Agency (IEA), Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Additionally, Summer ‘10 supports companies looking to adopt the voluntary Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) reporting standard, which enables major corporations to calculate and disclose their greenhouse emissions. Since its launch in 2000, the CDP is used by over 2,500 organizations in 60 countries.

CloudApps Carbon’s Summer ’10 edition builds on energy reduction functionality by introducing integrated Social Media support, which CloudApps claim will help companies engage their workforce in their carbon reduction efforts. It also includes state-of-the-art employee engagement features, including employee suggestions on energy reduction ideas allowing companies to drive down energy costs across the business. The release comes just weeks after the launch of the CRC Energy Efficient Scheme, the core programme aimed at reducing the UK’s carbon emissions.

The full article can be found here

The CloudApps Team

CRC Evidence Packs: A rapid-fire guide to when, what & who

All full participants in the CRC scheme have a statutory obligation to keep an evidence pack. It is the collection of records that you must keep to show the Environment Agency (EA) that you have complied with CRC and to enable them to audit you. The records you keep must be up-to-date, accurate and easy to understand.

If you qualify as a full participant for the CRC scheme this document provides a rapid-fire overview of the evidence pack requirements as published by the Environment Agency and why it is imperative that you start your evidence pack now.

Learn more by downloading your copy of the CRC Evidence Pack - A Rapid-Fire Guide or visit us at www.cloudapps.com

The CloudApps Team

CloudApps Summer '10 pre-release program update

We are delighted to report the overwhelming success of the CloudApps Carbon Summer '10 pre-release program which has been running for the last 4 weeks. Summer '10 will be the third release of the CloudApps Carbon solution that allows companies to manage their carbon as an asset. Built on the award winning Force.com platform from Cloud Computing leader salesforce.com, Summer '10 will deliver our customers literally hundreds of new features across our entire Carbon Journey.

Customer feedback on the new release has been overwhelmingly positive. Here is a small sample of the new functionality all of our customers will soon be enjoying:

General
- Fresh new User Interface with improved readability and usability
Measure
- Geo tagging and display of emissions sources on Google maps
- Enhanced dashboards that have been segmented to follow all steps in the carbon journey
Comply
- Support for the 2010 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Information disclosure
- Categorisation of emissions sources enabling quantitative disclosures for CDP that are then segmented by scope, geography, business division, facility, GHG gas, fuel, biologically sequestered carbon, electricity and scope 3 emissions sources.
- Generation of CDP 2010 report quantitate answers ready for direct entry into the CDP online questionnaire.
- Complete support for the UK CRC registration process, including enhanced UK CRC Footprint and Annual report generation and audit
Compare
- Footprint hierarchy enhancements that include additional hierarchy depth combined with graphical hierarchy display and navigation
- Footprint periods that allow comparison annually by calendar year, fiscal year or disclosure years, plus support for monthly periods
- Graphical performance indicators showing performance against both budget and baseline periods via absolute and pro-rata comparison
- An expanded set of Carbon Intensity KPI's for better insight and footprint comparison reporting
Engage
- Employee portal allowing employees to graphically see and manage their own carbon footprint
- Employee portal allowing employees to vote on, submit and comment upon ideas for carbon footprint reduction
Reduce
- Enhanced Margin Abatement Cost Curve display that helps to better identify reduction programs to implement
- Ability for employees to see, comment upon and interact with the owners of reduction programs
- The ability for 3rd parties to provide an organisation with information on best practice reductions programs
Administration
- Centralised graphical launch pad for simplified administration of the carbon journey processes
- Expanded emissions factor conversions support for all 6 Kyoto Greenhouse gases
- Support for a customers own custom emissions factors
- Support for world-wide emissions factor conversions, including conversion factors pre-loaded from the IEA, IPCC, DEFRA and US EPA

The CloudApps Team

A Step-by-Step Guide to CRC Registration

This simple step-by-step guide for full CRC participants outlines the process that you should follow to ensure a successful registration experience. It also provides guidance on the areas you should consider beyond registration.

Download this Step-by-Step Guide or visit us at www.cloudapps.com to find out more.

The CloudApps Team

Interesting survey results regarding "employee engagement" in the carbon journey

The PEW Center on Global Climate Change recently published a report titled "From Shop Floor to Top Floor: Best Business Practices in Energy Efficiency".  The report has some great insights based on a survey of leading US companies that have been actively engaged in sustainability programs.

We particularly liked the section on "surprises" - that again outlines and supports the strong "Employee Engagement" themes we have put into the CloudApps Carbon product suite. An excerpt is included below:

Surprises—The survey asked respondents what surprised them as they implemented their programs. The top two responses were: (1) how much enthusiasm they found among employees; and (2) the speed with which the program took off and exceeded expectations. Other companies, though, admitted that it was more difficult to get some aspects of their programs running, and that finding funding was a challenge. But they also reported surprise at the sheer volume of good ideas and specific project opportunities. The human capital resonance factor is a core theme in the survey responses that is borne out by the case studies. It suggests that the new wave of efficiency strategies is tapping a potentially powerful force for companies—the people who work there. In the past, efficiency was viewed as a technical issue and generally limited to small numbers of people in technology-related functions. But today’s strategies, driven by wider, longer-term sustainability goals, can tap a broader and perhaps deeper vein of employee motivation to make a difference beyond their immediate job function. A high percentage of Pew Center survey respondents cited employee interest and enthusiasm as the biggest surprise or unexpected result that came out of the implementation of their energy efficiency strategy.

The CloudApps Team

Great article from BusinessCloud9: Launch day for CloudApps

CloudApps, the cloud-based carbon management vendor, has officially launched today, just days after the government’s CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme came into effect.

The company, headed up by former salesforce.com director (as well as a former executive at Accenture, Business Objects and Siebel) Simon Wheeldon, CloudApps is the first European enterprise application vendor in the carbon management sector. When BusinessCloud9 last caught up with Wheeldon, at CloudForce2 in London last December, the company was in the process of putting together their client base. Four months on, and Wheeldon was quick to point out the company’s gathering momentum.

“Since [CloudForce2] we’ve been in the process of building the third release of the solution; we’ve already got clients up and running on the second release, but we’re putting together the third release all around the CRC that’s finally been finalised by the Environment Agency,” Wheeldon told BusinessCloud9.com. “Off the back of the new stuff that’s just arrived from the Environment Agency we’re reflecting it into the product, which will be available to our customers in the next few weeks.”

Full article can be found here

The CloudApps Team

Cloud Start-Up Tackles UK Climate Change; Entrepreneurs deliver cloud-based solutions to manage carbon emissions at low-cost

CloudApps officially launches today !

London, 9th April 2010 - Today sees the launch of CloudApps, Europe’s first enterprise application vendor focused on climate change regulatory compliance and the management of carbon as a business asset. The company researched the market for 18 months, before piloting solutions based on customer feedback. It is now set to revolutionise the way companies across the planet proactively deal with their environmental impact.

CloudApps uses innovative cloud-based technology to deliver software over the internet, removing the need for additional on-site IT equipment. It has already attracted attention from major UK enterprises looking for a cost-effective way to manage carbon as a business asset, whilst ensuring they comply with EU regulations and the UK Carbon Reduction Commitment, which came into effect at the start of April 2010.

Full release here

The CloudApps Team

Employees Should Be Part of Any Green Solution

There are a tremendous number of business benefits of environmental and sustainability education for employees, including: improved operational efficiency, strengthened customer and community relations, innovation, supply chain management, and increased employee recruitment and retention.

by Kevin Moss, Head of CSR at BT Americas.

An interesting blog post from the Green Economy Post on driving employee engagement to achieve significant emission reductions.  It is the belief of CloudApps that an effective emission reduction strategy has to be driven as a company-wide initiative. Companies that try and manage emission reductions only from within their facilities departments are missing a trick. Employee engagement can reap significant rewards.

Complete article can be found here

The CloudApps Team

Government encouraged by national emissions statistics

Department of Energy and Climate Change

25 March 2010 - Press Release - Government encouraged by national emissions statistics

Commenting on today’s publication of the final estimates of UK greenhouse gas emissions, Minister for Energy and Climate Change, Joan Ruddock, said;

“Today’s provisional estimates for 2009 greenhouse gas emissions are very promising and show a continued decline in greenhouse gas emissions of 8.6% during 2009."

"We already know from our 2008 figures that we are well on track to exceeding our Kyoto target of 12.5% below 1990 levels and are making good progress towards our first carbon budget target in 2012. Today’s results indicate that we are still moving in the right direction.

"The significant reduction in emissions would no doubt have been impacted by the recent economic circumstances. However, we should still recognise the good progress we are making towards meeting our targets, and should not underestimate the effort made so far by government, industry, business and homeowners alike. We are determined to continue to strengthen and sustain the momentum behind the low-carbon transition in the UK.

"We have said before in response to the Committee on Climate Change that we will not carry forward any over-achievement resulting from the recession against the first carbon budget and will not be deterred from continuing to work towards a low carbon economy in the UK. There will be no let-up in implementing the measures set out in the Low Carbon Transition Plan, so that emissions reductions persist as the UK returns to trend growth."

The CloudApps Team

Firms confused over imminent CRC legislation

Despite the fast-looming April 1 deadline for the Government's Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme, many firms are confused about what the legislation means and how it applies to their business.

By Janine Milne.  Published: 23-March-2010

Simon Wheeldon, CEO of CloudApps, which develops software to monitor firms’ carbon footprint, said that despite the April 1 start date, many firms had yet to implement plans. “This is a recent piece of legislation and a lot of organisations are quite confused about what they should be doing or whether they need to participate,” said Wheeldon.

One area of confusion is over the scope of the legislation. Some firms found that they needed to monitor far more than they anticipated, because the legislation covered not only buildings they were using, but also offices that they may have sublet to other businesses.

The full article can be found here

The CloudApps Team

Carbon Monitoring Vendor Speaks Out Against CRC

While activity around CRC is increasing, businesses are in the dark about achieving compliance, according to CloudApps chief executive

By: Miya Knights, March 17, 2010

The amount of public and media interest in the government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme is mounting, as registration opens on 1 April for the first ever UK greenhouse emission regulation.

Simon Wheeldon, chief executive of CloudApps - a software firm that develops systems for businesses to track, monitor and report on their carbon footprints - has told eWEEK Europe that businesses too have begun to think seriously about compliance, but are faced with a confused situation.

“We already work with 20 to 30 percent of the top 100 companies in the UK on CRC and have already had a couple of releases of our software. But we’ve noticed a dramatic increase in activity over the last couple of months, particularly as the deadline looms,” he said. “But we’ve found confusion over the levels of participation in the scheme and what businesses are supposed to be including.”

Unexpected costs
He said some customers, for example, have found their estate, according to the guidelines is almost twice the size than they thought, because they include not only the buildings they occupy, but ones they might sublet as well.

Recent reports by the Financial Times have highlighted this confusion, where the original regulations were only meant to apply to about 5,000 to 6,000 companies in the commercial sector. But the numbers of companies whose electricity is metered by the half hour and whose total electricity consumption exceeded 6,000 megawatt-hours in 2008 will require them to monitor and report their electricity use under the scheme. This has made the scheme’s remit far broader and could apply to as many as 30,000 UK businesses.

Wheeldon added that finalising the scheme’s legislation and guidelines has been slow and that his own firm’s attempts to find out how to get its software accredited have been rebuffed by the regulation’s enforcer. “It’s silly really because we are in a good position to work a little more closely with The Environment Agency.”

Full article can be found here

The CloudApps Team

Countdown to CRC Registration - Immediate Actions & Future Considerations

With less than two weeks to go to the start of the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) this guide outlines the immediate actions you should undertake to ensure a smooth registration experience.

It also provides an outline of the key questions you should be considering when moving beyond the registration phase.

Learn more by downloading your copy of Countdown to CRC Registration or visit us at www.cloudapps.com

The CloudApps Team

Manage CRC Like You Manage Your Financials

15 Secrets to CRC Success.

Now that the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme is upon us, the time is right to review how you will manage this new annual carbon-reporting requirement.

CRC demands accurate and auditable compliance submissions, requiring you to institute best practice and process in your organisation.

Want to know which criteria you should consider when determining how to manage your carbon reporting?  Learn more by downloading your copy of 15 Secrets to CRC Sucess or visit us at www.cloudapps.com

The CloudApps Team

Businesses face emissions law shock

An interesting article from FT.com that exposes the current lack of understanding about just how far-reaching the impending UK CRC Energy Efficiency legislation could be ....

"The government has underestimated by six times the number of businesses to be covered by greenhouse gas emissions legislation that will take effect in just over three weeks.

Ministers have told the business community for more than a year that about 5,000 to 6,000 companies in the commercial sector will be covered by the regulations, but in fact as many as 30,000 could be involved, the Financial Times has learnt."

See the full article here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3a6bea94-27b9-11df-863d-00144feabdc0.html

The CloudApps Team

Firms not ready for name-and-shame carbon table

Thousands of businesses are woefully unprepared for a government pollution-cutting scheme that comes into force in six weeks. Failure to comply will mean daily fines running into tens of thousands of pounds.

The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which requires companies to measure, report and pay for carbon-dioxide emissions, comes into force on April 1. It is aimed at companies with annual power bills of more than £500,000 and is expected to ensnare supermarkets, hotels and other firms that escaped the EU’s stricter programme that cracks down on energy producers and heavy industry.

The Times Online reporting on the unprepared state of companies for the UK CRC energy efficiency scheme.

Full article can be found here: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/entrepreneur/sme/article7034882.ece

The CloudApps Team

UK Leads Other European Nations into Building their own Climate Change Legislation

Finland latest to signal interest in Climate Change Act

An interesting article from businessGreen.com - other nations proactively taking the UK's lead on setting Climate Change legislation.

Finland joins Hungary, Germany and Ireland in expressing interest in new climate change legislation

The campaign to deliver national climate change bills across Europe has received a further boost after both Finland and Hungary edged forward with plans to develop legislation loosely modelled on the UK Climate Change Act.

The full article can be found here

-The CloudApps Team

6-Point CRC Best Practice Check List

If your organisation qualifies for the CRC scheme, the following 6-point CloudApps checklist will help you understand the very basic things you should be considering now and the questions to which you should be seeking answers:

1. CRC qualification check: if qualified-in, rapidly accelerate the design and implementation of a CRC compliance reporting strategy. You should collate your 2008 energy consumption data and calculate your resulting emissions. This will be your baseline.
2. Treat CRC as a corporate-wide initiative: To be successful you should engage your key stakeholders to develop and institute a corporate-wide carbon management strategy. This should include your employees, customers, partners, suppliers and your executive management team. You should consider energy reduction programs across the entire business, including facilities, transport and distribution, product, supply chain and employee functions.
3. Create ownership: Assign an executive sponsor and a program owner for your CRC strategy.
4. Take immediate action: Identify and start implementation of “early action” activities for emission reduction now to achieve higher league table rankings and recycle payments. Starting now is imperative, not only to achieve improved league table standings, but every energy cost saving made now will see even greater returns as energy prices rise.
5. Communicate: Engage with your corporate communications team to prepare for the media spotlight that will inevitably fall on the published performance league table. Develop a corporate communication strategy that projects your performance and activities to your key stakeholders.
6. Forecast your exposure: Prepare for your cash-flow exposure; based on your 2008 baseline emission figures and growth projections you should forecast the cost of allowances that you will be required to pre-purchase.

For forward-thinking, commercially astute companies, the legislation can represent an opportunity to enhance brand and reputational performance, significantly improve operational and environmental efficiency, benefit from a financial bonus and be well positioned to manage a new carbon asset in the business.

 

These companies will have a multi-year strategy and goal to reduce their carbon emissions, they will have invested in the right tools to help them manage and communicate their energy efficiency journey and they will have considerably increased their competitive advantage.

 

Contact us at crchelp@cloudapps.com or call us on +44 (0)845 052 1384 if you would like to discuss the creation of an emission reduction strategy that is core to your business.

The CloudApps Team

UK firms to pioneer employee carbon cap and trade

A small group of UK firms is poised to trial an innovative personal carbon trading scheme that promises to slash employees' carbon emissions by offering the greenest members of staff financial bonuses.

Interesting article from BusinessGreen.com on driving employee engagement to achieve significant emission reductions.  It is the belief of CloudApps that an effective emission reduction strategy has to be driven as a company-wide initiative. Companies that try and manage emission reductions only from within their facilities departments are missing a trick. Employee engagement and behaviour will reap significant rewards.

Complete article can be found here

-- The CloudApps Team

CloudApps - looking forward to the Force.com Spring '10 release

Here at CloudApps we are eagerly awaiting the delivery of the Spring '10 release of the Force.com platform from salesforce.com that powers our market leading CloudApps Carbon solutions.



The latest release of the Force.com platform is in preview mode and is set to deliver a series of enhancements that we think will prove to be extremely powerful additions. We are particularly excited that as well as delivering new features, this platform release has also focused on improving the users experience, which we believe will help us continue to drive the engagement and success of our customers.

In particular we are really looking forward to:

• The new Spring '10 user interface which looks cleaner, is easier to navigate and will provide an enhanced user experience for our customers. See a sneak peek screenshot of our CloudApps Carbon solution with the new face-lift below.
• The introduction of sophisticated data modelling and database aggregation functions will allow us to further enhance the analytical capabilities we are able to offer our customers.
• Improvements to the packaging capabilities, namely the ability to package standard overrides, will allow us to simplify our customers installation experience.
• Modifications in XML Dom parsing will improve our ability to push out even more critical emission reduction reference data to our customers and is a step closer to the provision of real-time reference data.

This is just a small handful of the features that we are able to take advantage of in the up-coming Spring '10 Force.com platform upgrade.  It is this continued speed of platform innovation that is allowing us to build new functionality into CloudApps Carbon at a rate unheard of with traditional development platforms, allowing us to accelerate away from our competitors and helping us deliver the functional capabilities that are delighting our customers.

New, cleaner and fresher Spring '10 User Interface

-- The CloudApps Team

CloudApps supports the call of Multinationals asking the EU to raise emissions targets

It has already been demonstrated by many of the UK's leading multi-national companies that there are healthy operational cost savings to be had by placing a focus on emission reductions across the entire business.

CloudApps fully supports the call of these same companies who are asking for the EU to be more ambitious with its emission reduction targets. In a global economy that is crawling out of recession, managing cost is key to ensuring organisations can transform their operations and eliminate unnecessary costs.

It is already evident from the EU ETS carbon market that there is a correlation between a country's emission reduction targets and the price of carbon allowances. Without a strong and predictable carbon allowance price, the motivation for organisations to invest in emission reductions will be severely diluted.

CloudApps believe that rather than taking a defensive stance against other nations targets, this presents an opportunity for the EU to showcase a business model to the world that demonstrates growth can still be achieved alongside an investment in emission reduction, which would in turn encourage other emerging economies and the US to follow.

Shell, Tesco, Vodafone and Kingfisher are leading the way - the full article from businessGreen.com can be found here.

The CloudApps Team

5 Fast Facts for the CRC Introductory Phase

The first annual reporting year for the government-led Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) will commence in April 2010. The CRC scheme will impact approximately 20,000 large and medium-sized organisations in both the private and public sector and is designed to promote a focus on energy efficiency and drive a reduction in overall energy consumption.

A subset of 5,000 organisations will be active participants in the scheme, as they will meet the threshold of 6,000Mwh of annual energy usage. It is likely that the entry threshold will continue to trend downwards as the government look to widen the net and bring more companies into the scheme.

1. From 1st April, 2010 organisations that fall under CRC will be required to track and report on emissions resulting from their energy consumption.
2. Organisations will be subjected to significant financial penalties by the Environment Agency for non-compliance, this ranges from non-registration to incorrect reporting.
3. For each CRC year participating organisations will be ranked in a government published performance league table with organisations receiving a bonus or penalty depending on their rankings.
4. Implementing early action programs to reduce emissions will result in an improved league table standing and will bring direct energy consumption savings. Faced with the predicted rise in energy costs these savings could be significant.
5. In April 2011, organisations will be required to buy allowances at £12 per tonne of CO2 based on their forecasted emissions for the following year.

>
 Joan Ruddock speaks about the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme

The CloudApps Team

Interesting blog post from leading sustainability analyst quocirca we thought you might enjoy

Plan for carbon trading - or pay the price

For some time now, those organisations deemed to fit into the “high energy intensive” space, such as mining and refining, have had to adhere to laws around setting and achieving energy usage targets.  As of 1 April 2010, however, less energy intensive organisations will also have to start looking at lowering their carbon footprints.

All organisations in the UK that are affected by the new rules will have been informed, and should be well advanced in planning how best to achieve their energy reduction aims in the coming years. However, Quocirca fears that many have been burying their heads in the sand on the matter, and have not done much beyond a few guesstimates and half-hearted plans based on a lack of real knowledge of what the new regulations mean.  Further, this is likely to be the thin end of the wedge, and Quocirca expects that more organisations will be drawn into the regulatory web as time goes on and the UK struggles to meet its self-imposed carbon reduction targets.

The full blog post can be found here: http://quocirca.computing.co.uk/2010/01/plan-for-carbon-trading-or-pay-the-price.html

The CloudApps Team

CloudApps Carbon - driving customer success, built 100% on the Force.com platform

CloudApps are benefiting greatly from using the Force.com platform from cloud computing leader salesforce.com.  These benefits fall into 2 broad categories - Commercial and Technical.

Lets start with the technical benefits we have seen. The Force.com platform has given us incredible speed and agility.  We are able to build new functionality at a speed unheard of in the past with traditional development platforms.  Prior to CloudApps, our CTO was used to 18+ month release cycles, his team is now supporting our continued path of delivering 3 major releases a year and about to deliver their 2nd major release. Fresh from putting the final touches to the Winter '10 release, the CloudApps development team already have the next release (Spring '10) firmly within their sights.  This speed is allowing us to accelerate away from our competitors and helping us to deliver the functional capabilities that are delighting our customers, all in a fraction of the time of traditional software development. 

Delivering solutions in an evolving marketplace means we also face the challenge of ever-changing regulatory requirements, so it is key for us that our solution can quickly respond to this change.  Force.com allows us to rapidly make product enhancements and roll these out to our customers in days not weeks or months.

Lastly, commercially, we are afforded a tremendous advantage. Salesforce.com supply all our development, test and QA environments. This is a great advantage that frees us from the huge hardware and software infrastructure costs required to deliver a cloud-computing based solution. We can take advantage of the same trusted platform that is running over 200,000 applications for over 2 million subscribers already. This means that our cost model is completely aligned to our revenue model allowing us to put out investments where they matter most, on the functionality that our customers are demanding from us.

The combination of this lower cost, rapid development, agility and revenue/cost alignment are key differentiators to our ability to drive customer success with our CloudApps Carbon solutions.

The CloudApps Team

www.cloudapps.com

Carbon Management Software and Services Market to Grow More than Tenfold by 2017

Very interesting article from Pike Research showing the dramatic growth in the need for Carbon Management Tools

January 5, 2009

Enterprise carbon management tools are now being adopted and implemented all over the world, as corporations grapple with ways to accurately measure and reduce their carbon footprints to meet targets set by their own corporate sustainability programs, industry initiatives, and government mandates.  According to a new report from Pike Research, the global market for carbon management software and services will expand from $384 million in 2009 to more than $4.3 billion by 2017, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 40%.

(see here for the full article): http://www.pikeresearch.com/newsroom/carbon-management-software-and-services-market-to-grow-more-than-tenfold-by-2017

Start of the Journey - The Copenhagen Accord

The outcome of 2 years of preparation and 2 weeks of intense negotiation at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit  ended up with the "Copenhagen Accord" which at the very best can be positioned as a "Letter of Intent" by the major polluting nations.

The tumultuous events of the past few days with last minute deal making by world leaders have left all of us trying to answer the question "what was achieved and what next?". While this accord is generating many headlines from environmental groups and smaller nations who were not involved in the final deal, we have noticed the business community have largely stayed away from making any comments.

Here at CloudApps, we have also had quite an interesting debate on the outcome, and have settled on the following 3 highlights;

1) Though the much vaunted legally binding agreement has not been achieved, the intense level of focus and commitment from all major global players has reinforced the view that Climate Change as a problem is now well understood by everyone and now the race is on to find an equitable solution.

2) An overall framework has been signed by all major parties (including those that were not involved in the Kyoto agreements) - including the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. This bloc of countries (along with Europe) will generate the majority of future emissions and it was therefore absolutely critical for all of them to agree a common starting point.

3) The post 2012 world: All the talk of discontinuing CDM has been put to bed. Everyone has recognised that though CDM has got it's own faults, it has proved to be an effective mechanism for financing and reducing emissions. We have seen a range of proposals put forward by the CDM board to rectify some of the current malaise that is in the system. This provides the carbon markets with some guidance but it is still not enough.....

But the ambiguity of past few days have also raised couple of key questions;

:: Managing Expectations - this is something the world leaders have to understand and ensure. In the 21st century politics of a multi-polar world, no one country / bloc can exercise all the influence and control. 

:: Process - the entire UN process of involving 192 countries to sign up to a global agreement is fraught with risk and lot of time and energy can be wasted dealing with issues which at the end can have a minimal impact....is there a better / more moderated process?

But at the end, as they say, the key to success is 99% perseverance and 1% luck! The Copenhagen accord moves the process forward and keeps the momentum moving in the right direction, which in our opinion is the only silver lining from the past 2 weeks.

The alternative outcome from the summit would have be disastrous to even contemplate...

CloudApps: Copenhagen Summit Update

 

The summit that can make or break action against the threat of climate change began with quite a flurry of optimistic news and ended up with some slightly pessimistic news!  For those of us in businesses who are working towards the low carbon economy and anxiously await the outcome of the summit, this was a week of quite some "drama". 

We have identified the top 5 highlights from the past week that really resonated with us. 

1. A flurry of news from the US across to South Africa:  With the US EPA announcing GHG as a health hazard to Americans, this has raised the prospect that the US will be able to sign up to binding emission cuts. Adding to that, the core BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries -- that are representing the growth economies -- have provided firm emission reduction targets which is a first in the climate talks.   
2. Towards the end of the week, the EU put forward a $10.6 billion fund to support developing economies tackle climate change. This will be paid out over a 3 year period starting from 2010, though it was slammed by some groups...we believe this is better than nothing! 
3. Deforestation and reform of the CDM mechanism:  Progress has been made on some of the major stumbling blocks of the current global emission abatement mechanism with the proposal of adding deforestation to CDM being supported by majority of the member states. In addition proposals to rectify some of the issues with the current CDM mechanism has also been widely supported.   
4. We are now seeing global businesses support the climate change agenda and communicate it to the political leadership through the "copenhagen communique". This has now been signed by more than 900 companies across a range of profiles; from global multinationals to SME's across 63 companies. CloudApps is proud to be one of the signatories.
5. The week closed with President Obama accepting the nobel peace prize and drawing a direct link between national security and climate change. .

We expect this week to be the one for "action" where deals are done and hopefully a broad framework agreement is put in place which will help businesses to continue their investment in low carbon technologies. More to follow ....

The CloudApps Team

CloudApps Carbon: Winter10 pre-release

CloudApps are delighted to announce the immediate availability of the CloudApps Carbon Winter10 pre-release programme. Winter10 will be the second release of the CloudApps Carbon solution that allows companies to manage their carbon as an asset. 

Winter10 will deliver our customers hundreds of new features, including:

• Instantaneous CO2e calculations performed in the background during data load and on data entry
• 12x performance improvement in allocating Business and Asset structure based footprint hierarchies. Making the GHG footprint calculations faster and more scalable than ever before
• Improved User Experience. A move to batch based data calculations and footprint allocations provides a greatly enhanced user experience
• Enhanced CRC Information disclosure and Evidence reporting, Generation of disclosure reports and evidence packs that meet all of the reporting requirements as defined by the current Defra regulatory guidelines
• Re-vamped Audit Trail. Compliance reports showing that all energy source data covered under the CRC legislation has been appropriately converted and disclosed in the pre-built CRC disclosure reports
• Updated GHG Conversion Factors. All conversion factors reflect the very latest requirements (including latest UK Defra/ DECC guidelines)
• New Hierarchical and overlapping Footprints. Enabling significant improvements in the analysis and reporting of an organisations carbon footprint.

Winter10 is scheduled for production delivery during Q1 2010.

Lastly, here is our new Winter10 logo - let us know what you think ... we hope you like it !

The CloudApps team

CloudApps signs the Copenhagen Communique

CloudApps has signed the Copenhagen Communique on Climate Change. See http://www.copenhagencommunique.com/ for more details.

The Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change is the definitive progressive statement from the international business community ahead of the United Nations (UN) climate change conference in Copenhagen this December.

It has already secured the support of over 900 companies, from the US, EU, Japan, Australia and Canada, to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

In just two pages, it sets out the business case for an ambitious, robust, effective and equitable UN climate framework and offers a progressive global consensus on the shape of an agreement. It warns that business will suffer if a credible deal is not reached in Copenhagen.

We think you should consider signing it too ...

The new face of CloudApps launched today - www.cloudapps.com

CloudApps are proud to announce the launch of their new website today, promoting leading solutions that help companies manage their carbon as an asset. Check it out at: www.cloudapps.com and let us know what you think !  We hope you like it, here is a sample.

CloudApps on the road at the salesforce.com "CloudForce2" Event in London today

CloudApps were today presenting our CloudApps Carbon solution at the salesforce.com Cloudforce2 event in London, which attracted nearly 1000 attendees. Our very own CloudApps CEO, Simon Wheeldon was on stage during one of the breakout sessions, talking about the benefits of CloudApps Carbon and how it is helping companies in the UK to meet their Carbon Reduction Commitment requirements.

Simon showed a demo of the current CloudApps Carbon Winter10 release and walked through the CloudApp Carbon Journey, a unique approach that is helping companies to focus on managing their carbon as an asset.

Exciting times ahead at CloudApps. Stay in touch with us on this blog for the latest news or visit our website at www.cloudapps.com

The CloudApps Team