Sleeping Beauty awakes?

Date

11 December 2008

By Molly Webb, Head of Smart Technologies, The Climate Group.

Today, while the EU Council debated the climate and energy package, Commissioner Viviane Reding and senior executives from company sponors of  the SMART 2020 report discussed how to capitalise on the huge potential for information and communications technologies to deliver energy efficiency.

Senior execs:

• Larry Stone, President, Group Public and Government Affairs, British Telecoms Group
• Andy Lockhart, Vice-President Europe, Cisco Systems
• Albert Esser, Vice-President Power & Infrastructure Solutions, Dell
• Ignacio Campino, Board Representative for Sustainability and Climate Change, Deutsche Telekom
• Klaus Hieronymi, Chairman of the Environmental Board, EMEA, Hewlett-Packard
• Gordon Graylish, Vice-President, EMEA, Intel Corporation

The SMART 2020 report will be used to back up the public policy announcements on ICT and climate change expected next year (February and March).

As the stringency of the climate package comes under lobbying pressure, people are turning more seriously to energy efficiency. Companies seem ready to deliver products and services that would increase efficiency of power, transport, manufacturing and building sectors, but what do they need?

The most obvious answer to that is: new partnerships. Bring the solutions to the problems. Sounds simple? It hasn't been in the past, so will we manage it today?

If in fact the financial crisis is the kiss that wakes the energy efficiency sleeping beauty, we may see a lot more partnerships developing out of necessity.

See a longer description of the event on The Climate Group's website.