The most recent articles from BusinessGreen

BusinessGreen.com LinkedIn Group tops 500 members

BusinessGreen.com staff — 2009-07-03T13:44:00.000Z

BusinessGreen.com staff, BusinessGreen, Friday 3 July 2009 at 13:44:00

The BusinessGreen.com Group for UK Green Professionals goes from strength to strength

Less than two months after its official launch, BusinessGreen.com's LinkedIn group has grown to more than 500 members from across the green business community.

The BusinessGreen.com Group for UK Green Professionals, which was set up to provide UK green business executives with the chance to exchange contact details, best practice advice and environmentally friendly product recommendations, has attracted members from a wide range of industries and businesses.

The group has also established itself as a discussion forum, with 13 discussion threads currently open on topics ranging from complying with the Carbon Reduction Commitment to whether or not consumers understand green terms.

In addition, members can access the BusinessGreen.com jobs board and keep track of recommended stories from BusinessGreen.com and other news sites.

Professionals with an interest in environmental issues are still free to sign up to the group, and members can expect to see more dedicated information and services from BusinessGreen.com in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the BusinessGreen.com Twitter service has attracted more than 270 followers, who each receive real-time updates on the site's content, while editor James Murray's tweets now have more than 220 followers.

Cisco touts home working's environmental and business benefits

BusinessGreen.com Staff — 2009-06-30T00:15:00.000Z

BusinessGreen.com Staff, BusinessGreen, Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 00:15:00

Survey of nearly 2,000 staff reveals $277m in productivity gains and more than 47,000 tonnes in avoided carbon emissions

It might have something of a vested interest given its position as one of the world's largest providers of remote working technologies, but according to new research from technology giant Cisco its employees' use of video conferencing and online collaboration tools is resulting in big costs savings and reductions in carbon emissions.

The company surveyed almost 2,000 of its staff from across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and emerging markets and found high levels of support for its telecommuting policy, which allows staff to work remotely and limit the amount of business trips they have to take.

The research found that the average employee now telecommutes two days a week, while over two thirds of respondents said that the policy resulted in higher levels of productivity and improved work-life balance.

Cisco said that the rollout of online communication technologies – such as instant messaging tools and video conferencing – had also delivered $277m (£168m) in productivity gains and provided significant reductions in employee travel. Staff reported fuel cost savings of $10.3m a year as a direct result of telecommuting, while figures from Cisco show that online meetings resulted in 47,320 metric tons of travel-related carbon emissions.

The company said that home and remote working could also provide less tangible benefits in the form of improved employee satisfaction and retention rates, citing the fact that more than 90 per cent of respondents to its survey said telecommuting is somewhat or very important to their overall job satisfaction.

Rami Mazid, vice president for global client services and operations at Cisco, welcomed the survey results, arguing that they provided evidence that "a properly executed program for telecommuting can be extremely effective at unlocking employee potential by increasing work-life balance, productivity and overall satisfaction".

Exclusive: Big Room joins race for .eco control

James Murray — 2009-06-25T00:15:00.000Z

James Murray, BusinessGreen, Thursday 25 June 2009 at 00:15:00

Startup to formally launch bid for proposed .eco domain tomorrow

Vancouver-based startup Big Room will tomorrow formally announce its bid for control of the planned .eco domain name at a meeting in Sydney of internet oversight body ICANN.

The company will now take on rival operation Dot Eco LLC, which announced its own bid earlier this year, in the race to secure the proposed .eco domain. ICANN is expected to launch the formal bidding process early next year with a view to awarding rights over the domain by the end of 2010.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Trevor Bowden, who co-founded Big Room in 2007, along with two former colleagues from the UN Environment Programme, said that the company planned to establish the domain as a form of environmental certification that allows firms to highlight their green credentials.

"The aim would be for companies to register for the .eco domain in the same way they do for any other domain, but they would also have to disclose some additional information on their eco-credentials in order to secure the domain," he said.

Bowden said the company was currently consulting with sustainability experts on what type of information will have to be disclosed, but he insisted some degree of reporting would be mandatory. "We are looking at where we set the bar, but we realise it is critical that .eco means something," he said.

He added that Big Room would also introduce a mechanism for auditing the green claims of those firms that use the .eco domain, either by requiring registrants to secure third-party assurance, carrying out spot-checks on organisations using .eco, or providing end users with a means of reporting companies that they suspect of overstating their environmental credentials.

The company is now expected to engage in a lengthy battle to manage the new domain with Dot Eco LLC.

Both organisations have secured high-profile endorsements, with Dot Eco announcing earlier this year that it has the support of environmental campaigner Al Gore and Big Room announcing that it has the backing of NGOs such as WWF and the David Suzuki Foundation.

Moreover, both have pledged to donate money from the sale of the .eco domains to environmental projects and charities, with Dot Eco pledging that a majority of its profits will go to green initiatives and Big Room committing an as yet undisclosed percentage of its revenues to environmental causes.

Planet Metrics launches online carbon tracking tool

Danny Bradbury — 2009-06-19T11:01:00.000Z

Danny Bradbury, BusinessGreen, Friday 19 June 2009 at 11:01:00

Software to calculate carbon emissions from across a company's supply chain

Californian software firm Planet Metrics has this week launched a new online tool designed to help companies calculate carbon emissions from all aspects of their supply chains.

The beta version of the Rapid Carbon Modelling product uses a combination of carbon emissions data gathered by Planet Metrics and data that can be entered by the client, such as bill of materials, product formulations, and transportation logistics, to calculate the full life cycle emissions associated with a product. It enables companies to look at emissions and energy use from the material extraction phase to the point at which products are disposed of.

Andy Leventhal, founder and chief executive of Planet Metrics, argued that tracking a product's carbon footprint could deliver significant business benefits. "A lower carbon footprint leads to lower cost, and as more organisations recognise that deeper understanding of the materials they use helps drive better decisions on sourcing, transportation and distribution, they will create sustainable best practices and greatly improve the bottom line," he said.

Adam Lowry, co-founder of green cosmetics firm Method, which has trialled the software, said it had already helped the company identify potential carbon and cost savings. "By better understanding volatile energy and resource prices, we can make better decisions to lessen the overall footprint and save money," he said.

Life cycle analysis is becoming an increasingly significant part of many companies' environmental strategies. Rather than simply focusing on ethical product disposal, companies are hoping to find out how much carbon is "embedded " in their products as a result of emissions further up the supply chain, including while in manufacturing plants, and during transportation.

The Rapid Carbon Modelling software also allows supply chain managers to conduct "what-if" scenarios, where they can analyse ways in which emissions could be reduced at various points in the product life cycle.

The company said the functionality allows businesses to assess energy costs at different points in the supply chain, and analyse the impact on margins of future carbon pricing schemes, such as the carbon as cap and trade legislation currently being considered in the US.

Digital Britain delivers mixed bag for green technologies

James Murray — 2009-06-16T17:46:00.000Z

James Murray, BusinessGreen, Tuesday 16 June 2009 at 17:46:00

Long anticipated report reiterates support for smart meters and green procurement, but only one page of mammoth document highlights IT's green potential

The government has today reiterated its commitment to procuring green IT and communications technologies, accelerating the roll out of smart meters, and reducing the energy footprint of mobile phone networks as part of its long anticipated Digital Britain strategy.

However, the new whitepaper is likely to attract criticism from some green groups and IT firms for largely failing to highlight the environmental benefits associated with digital technologies.

Speaking at the launch of the report, communications minister Lord Carter said that the government's digital strategy would deliver environmental benefits, primarily through its commitment to ensure the technologies procured through its £200m roll out of universal broadband access and £1bn to £1.5bn programme to deliver next generation high speed broadband connectivity meet the "highest environmental standards".

"We will expect that tender process to maximise the delivery of technology solutions that meet the highest environmental standards and act as a way of priming new environmental technologies," he said.

He added that the government would also support efforts to cut carbon emissions and energy use across mobile base stations, some of which rely on diesel generators.

The report cites evidence that a typical UK mobile radio operator's network produces 200,000 tons of carbon emission per year and commits to supporting efforts to curb emissions from the sector.

It says the government will "be more supportive of infrastructure sharing where traffic levels are light" and promote more energy efficient next Generation Mobile Networks "so as to provide conditions for earlier generation mobile networks to be phased out much more quickly".

The report also reiterates the government's target to roll out smart meter technologies to all households by 2020 - a move it claims will "help consumers to change their energy habits ... and will provide a stepping stone to the smart grids of the future".

However, the report largely fails to recognise the wider environmental benefits that should arise from a strategy intended to deliver universal broadband access by 2012 and provide fresh impetus to the UK's creative and technology industries.

Only one page of the 245 page report contains references to climate change and carbon emissions, while there is scant mention of the reduction in travel and greenhouse gases associated with digital-enabled business models and technologies, such as home working, video conferencing and online shopping.

San Francisco online EcoMap goes live

Danny Bradbury — 2009-05-26T10:43:00.000Z

Danny Bradbury, BusinessGreen, Tuesday 26 May 2009 at 10:43:00

Online mapping project allows residents to compare their neighbourhood's emissions to other areas of the city

San Francisco officially unveiled its EcoMap late last week, which is an online system designed to map carbon emissions across the city.

The service, developed in conjunction with Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group, maps carbon emissions from transport, energy use, and waste. It is designed to encourage neighbourhoods to compete with each other to reduce their emissions.

In addition to seeing the number of tonnes of carbon emitted per household by a single neighbourhood, residents can also compare it to the emissions-per-household goals that have been set by the city, along with the city's average emissions. The system also breaks down the percentage of emissions coming from transport, energy and waste in a neighbourhood, and ranks that region comparatively with others.

In addition to quantifying emissions, the site also includes a section to help citizens plan actions that will reduce their emissions. They can use slider bars to adjust the investment in effort and money that they are willing to make, and can also adjust the impact they are hoping to see from their actions. The site then shows them graphically how much of a contribution they are making.

The city says it has already reduced its carbon emissions to 12 per cent below 1990 levels, and that it is on target to reach a 20 per cent reduction goal by 2012.

Cisco flicks switch on smart grid strategy

James Murray — 2009-05-19T14:18:00.000Z

James Murray, BusinessGreen, Tuesday 19 May 2009 at 14:18:00

Cisco and Oracle both announce new smart grid products, as market for intelligent energy systems gets ever more crowded

Cisco yesterday became the latest in a line of global IT giants to officially unveil a new smart grid strategy designed to beef up the networking company's presence in a market that it estimates will be worth $20bn (£13bn) by 2015.

The company said that it planned to establish a "complete communications fabric" based on the internet protocol standards it already supports through its networking equipment and designed to link electricity generators and business and domestic energy users.

John Chambers, chairman and chief executive at Cisco, said the company was " uniquely positioned" to address the fast-expanding smart grid market, arguing that much of the technology required to support smart grids will build on the systems the company already provides.

The firm offered few specific details about its smart grid product plans, but promised to deliver a wide portfolio of new systems, including IP-based communication technologies for linking smart grids and energy suppliers, data collection and analysis systems for assessing energy use, and energy transmission and distribution automation devices designed to help optimise the grid and limit the risk of power blackouts.

The company said it was also looking to partner with energy companies as they attempt to undertake smart grid rollouts.

The new strategy, which already has more than 100 Cisco staff working on it and is expected to expand rapidly, will come as little surprise and follows a number of exploratory moves from the company.

Earlier this year, Cisco launched a new EnergyWise portfolio of products designed to provide businesses with real-time data on their facilities' energy use, while only last month it announced it was teaming up with General Electric and utility Florida Power & Light on a major wireless smart meter rollout in Miami.

In related news, business software giant Oracle today announced the launch of a new smart grid family of applications designed to collect and analyse energy use data, and use it to optimise grid performance and maintenance, as well as automate customer support and billing services.

Cisco and Oracle join an increasingly crowded market that has seen many high-profile technology companies, including IBM, GE, Google and Intel, announce smart grid plans as they all seek to address the opportunity presented by ambitious government-backed initiatives on both sides of the Atlantic.

Competitive lines are yet to be drawn, with most of the companies involved insisting that smart grid technologies will have to be based on shared standards and their systems will complement each other rather than compete directly.

But with each of the companies developing products based on the transmission or analysis of energy use data, it remains to be seen how long the current détente will last.

Benchmarking tool to throw light on corporate carbon data

James Murray — 2009-05-15T11:43:00.000Z

James Murray, BusinessGreen, Friday 15 May 2009 at 11:43:00

Online carbon database to help firms compare their environmental performance

Carbon research firm CO2Benchmark will next week launch a new online carbon benchmarking tool, designed to help businesses and green consultants easily compare the environmental performance of those companies that publicly release carbon data.

The tool, which is currently in beta and will be officially launched at the Sustainabilitylive! Show in Birmingham next week, is based on emissions data from 2,500 organisations from 20 countries and allows users to search the data and compare the performance of different companies.

It also features carbon data released by those companies covered by the European emissions trading scheme, as well as more granular data on the carbon footprint of different parts of individual business.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, CO2Benchmark managing director Reginald Warlop said that the company had collected carbon data from across a raft of different annual and CSR reports and collected it together in one database for the first time.

Some of the data will be made available for free, while users will have to pay a subscription to access the more in-depth information. "We expect it to be of use to carbon consultants and CSR execs, as it will allow them to see how a business is performing against its peers and quickly identify areas for improvement," Warlop said.

He also rejected suggestions that the absence of universal carbon reporting standards would undermine the effectiveness of any benchmarking tool, arguing that once company's disclosed carbon data they set their own benchmarks that they can be compared against.

"Companies are already starting to converge towards the GHG Protocol, but we state in the data what standard a company has used and if they have disclosed any carbon data then they have put a stake in the ground," he said.

Logica joins carbon software battleground

BusinessGreen.com Staff — 2009-05-13T15:07:00.000Z

BusinessGreen.com Staff, BusinessGreen, Wednesday 13 May 2009 at 15:07:00

Just days after SAP buys its way into the market, UK-based Logica launches environmental reporting toolkit

Logica has become the second IT company in the past week to beef up its presence in the increasingly crowded market for carbon management software, with the launch of a new reporting application designed to help firms track their environmental performance.

The UK-based firm today unveiled a Sustainability Indicator Reporting Application (SIRA), which it said would provide firms with a central point for monitoring and managing environmental metrics, such as carbon emissions, water use and waste levels.

Judith Halkerston, UK managing director for energy, utilities and telecoms at Logica, said the new application had been developed in line with international environmental reporting standards and would help firms comply with the growing number of green regulations.

"Organisations today need to navigate their way through a maze of international environmental regulation, with a number of FTSE companies now actively reporting on their sustainability performance," she said. "Often, this requires a significant investment in resource and raises challenges to present the data in an intuitive and engaging manner."

She added that SIRA, which is now being rolled out internally by Logica, would provide firms with flexible functionality that allows executives to customise reports and identify those areas that are likely to offer the greatest environmental and cost savings.

The release of the new product comes just days after global software giant SAP announced it is to acquire carbon management software specialist Clear Standards in a move that further bolsters its position in the fast-expanding carbon reporting market.

Logica will also face competition from IBM, Oracle, SAS and a raft of smaller specialist environmental software vendors, all of which have launched new carbon and sustainability reporting applications in the past year.

SAP talks up sustainability ambitions

James Murray — 2009-05-12T17:44:00.000Z

James Murray, BusinessGreen, Tuesday 12 May 2009 at 17:44:00

One day after announcing acquisition of carbon software firm, SAP outlines plans for sustainability push

SAP yesterday became the latest IT firm to tout its green credentials, releasing its first independently assessed sustainability report and inviting customers to provide suggestions on how the software giant can improve its environmental performance.

The new interactive report, which was released just a day after the company announced that it intends to acquire carbon management software specialist Clear Standards Inc, confirms that SAP cut its carbon footprint by 6.7 per cent in 2008 as part of its efforts to reduce emissions by 49 per cent on 2007 levels by 2020.

It also reiterated the company's commitment to invest "aggressively" in developing software products designed to help companies curb their environmental impact and included a new Sustainability Map designed to provide best practice business process guidelines on how firms should seek to enhance their environmental performance.

Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer and executive vice president of sustainability solutions at the company, said the interactive map would also help its customers inform SAP about the technologies they require to better manage their sustainability performance.

The announcements came just a day after SAP said it intends to shell out an undisclosed sum to acquire carbon management software specialist Clear Standards.

The company said the deal would help accelerate its push into the market for carbon reporting and management software, which is growing rapidly as large firms prepare to face increasingly stringent carbon reporting regulations, such as those currently being planned in both the UK and US.

"It is essential that organisations gain actionable insight into their carbon emissions, water consumption, energy use and other environmental factors, so they can lower their environmental impact," said SAP co-chief executive Léo Apotheker, adding that the Clear Standards deal would help SAP provide customers with end-to-end reporting on sustainability metrics.

SAP said that following the completion of the acquisition it would look to enhance integration between Clear Standards web-based carbon management applications and its existing business, and environment, health and safety apps – a move that it said would make it easier for customers using the Clear Standards software to tap into related financial and other data stored in different SAP enterprise applications.

SAP is the latest in a line of global software firms seeking to bolster their position in the fast-emerging market for carbon and sustainability reporting software.

IBM has launched a series of software and services products designed to help firms measure and track their carbon footprint, while reporting software specialist SAS unveiled a specific carbon management suite last year to help firms report on their environmental performance.

In addition, SAP arch-rival Oracle announced earlier this year that it has partnered with UK software startup Zogix to develop a new application that allows firms to automatically track carbon emissions arising from employee travel. The two companies said they are working on extending the application so it can also help track carbon emissions from buildings and supply chains.

Updated: Miami to roll out over one million smart meters

Danny Bradbury and James Murray — 2009-04-21T09:31:00.000Z

Danny Bradbury and James Murray, BusinessGreen, Tuesday 21 April 2009 at 09:31:00

Miami aims for grid that is "more like the internet than an electric network "

The City of Miami is to roll out a smart grid infrastructure using $200m in funds from President Obama's stimulus package.

The two-year Energy Smart Miami initiative will see local utility Florida Power and Light (FPL) roll out over a million wireless smart meters to homes in the Miami-Dade County area, in a bid to regulate demand-side management.

"It will make our electrical grid smarter, more like the internet than an electric network," said Miami Mayor Manny Diaz. "It will connect smart meters, high-efficiency transformers, and other equipment through a centralised system. This will allow FPL to monitor energy and more effectively react to outages."

Alongside the smart meters, the project will trial separate consumer technology in a thousand homes that will provide residents with in-home energy display units designed to help them automatically manage their electricity demands. The units will communicate with smart appliances to help reduce their electricity demands at times of peak demand, Diaz explained, adding that programmable thermostats will also be linked to the smart meters to create a fully automated in-home energy network.

Engineering giant GE is to provide the smart meters, while Silver Spring Networks will provide the secure wireless network communications platform. Cisco is to provide customers with home energy management information and controls.

The project is part of a larger $700m investment in smart meters that the mayor hopes will reach each of FPL's four million residential customers over the next five years.

It is hoped that the initiative will generate between 800 and 1,000 direct and indirect jobs and will begin later this year with a view to completion by the end of 2011.

The announcement came just days after Vice President Joe Biden detailed plans to plough almost $4bn of the US stimulus package into smart grid and energy storage projects.

Under the plans, more than $3.3 billion in smart grid technology development grants will be made available, alongside an additional $615 million in funding for smart grid storage, monitoring and technology viability projects.

"We need an upgraded electrical grid to take full advantage of the vast renewable resources in this country – to take the wind from the Midwest and the sun from the Southwest and power areas across the country," said Biden. "By investing in updating the grid now, we will lower utility bills for American families and businesses, lessen our dependence on foreign oil and create good jobs that will drive our economic recovery – a strong return on our investment. "

The new funding was unveiled as the government also announced plans for a high level Smart Grid meeting in Washington, D.C. early next month, which will aim to begin work on how to develop the industry-wide technology standards needed to build an efficient smart grid.

EcoSwitch prepares green shopping comparison site

James Murray — 2009-04-21T00:15:00.000Z

James Murray, BusinessGreen, Tuesday 21 April 2009 at 00:15:00

New website to compare green tariffs, cars, hotels and appliances

UK start up EcoSwitch.com is currently putting the finishing touches to a new online shopping comparison website that aims to help businesses and consumers compare the environmental credentials of a wide range of green products.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com at last week's UK Aware green consumer show in London, company chief executive William Worthington said that the new site was scheduled to launch in June and would provide users with the ability to compare green cars, energy tariffs, hotels, investments and electrical appliances.

The site will be limited to carrying information on "green products"; for example, only featuring information on low emission cars that are in the A and B tax break or electrical appliances that have been certified by the Energy Saving Trust.

"There are so many comparison websites out there, so many products, so many companies saying 'we are the greenest or we are the cheapest''," Worthington said. "What EcoSwitch seeks to do is provide an independent comparison service that cuts through all of the greenwash."

The company plans to emulate the business model operated by shopping comparison websites, charging companies a small fee to have their product listed on the site and then charging an additional fee based on how many customers it secures through the site.

Worthington said that basic product listings on the site were free prior to launch and would then cost £99 per listing up to £999. He added that firms could also pay for a premium listings featuring their company logo and a more detailed profile of listed products.

New software to make it easy to offset online purchases

BusinessGreen.com Staff — 2009-04-20T00:15:00.000Z

BusinessGreen.com Staff, BusinessGreen, Monday 20 April 2009 at 00:15:00

Online shopping application allows customers to make small contribution to emission reduction projects

A US startup has this month launched a new free service designed to make it far easier for online retailers to offer customers the opportunity to offset some of the emissions associated with their purchases.

Rather than requiring online retailers to invest in complex carbon calculators, the new ShopGreen application from California-based GreenWorld simply integrates with US eCommerce sites and allows customers to make a contribution equivalent to one per cent of their order towards the purchase of carbon offsets when they reach the online checkout.

The carbon credits are provided by offset specialist EcoSecurities, while the customisable web application allows either the online retailer or the customer to select the type of project they wish to fund and then track the progress of the emission reduction project.

"ShopGreen removes the cost and complexity of creating and managing a carbon offset program for US-based online retailers," said Jason Sperling, managing director at GreenWorld. "Additionally, the program's transparency and automation increase the relevancy, participation, and cost-effectiveness of the program."

The company said that the new application will integrate "seamlessly within any shopping cart", making it easy for customers to offset some of the emissions associated with their purchase.

It added that 14 online retailers had deployed the beta version of the application since its launch in March, and that it was now talking to a number of firms across a range of sectors about deploying the technology.

Sperling said that the application was currently only available in the US and in English, but he added that plans were underway to expand into non-US markets.

Spam epidemic results in giant carbon footprint

James Murray — 2009-04-15T16:37:00.000Z

James Murray, BusinessGreen, Wednesday 15 April 2009 at 16:37:00

New study claims unwanted emails responsible for carbon emissions equivalent to more than three million cars

Anyone with an email account knows that spam is a nuisance, but as well as wasting time, unsolicited emails are also guilty of wasting huge quantities of energy, according to new research released today.

The study from environmental research firm ICF was commissioned by security software firm McAfee and found that the 63 trillion spam email messages sent each year waste 33 terawatt hours of energy – enough to power 2.4m homes.

The research also assessed the carbon footprint associated with individual email messages and found the average message results in 0.3g of CO2 being emitted.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Dave Marcus, security research and communications director at McAfee, said that while each individual email resulted in just a "tiny puff of CO2" the global spam epidemic meant that overall unsolicited emails resulted in carbon emissions equivalent to those produced by 3.1m passenger cars.

"There is an energy cost with the transaction, storage and deletion of any email," he said. "When you add it up, we are talking about a significant impact."

Marcus argued that while firms could not eradicate spam completely, they could limit its carbon impact by implementing software and policies designed to intercept messages before they reach staff.

"The research showed that 80 per cent of the energy use associated with spam came from the user pruning their email account," he explained. "The opening, closing and deletion of the message is the most energy-intensive part of the process as the loading of images and text has a processor and heat cost that translates to energy use."

Digital River to take e-waste compliance technology to US

James Murray — 2009-04-03T00:15:00.000Z

James Murray, BusinessGreen, Friday 3 April 2009 at 00:15:00

Technology designed to help manufacturers comply with EU WEEE directive to be adapted for North American market

Software provider Digital River is poised to launch technology designed to help firms comply with e-waste rules in the North American market, ahead of the expected expansion of legislation designed to promote the safe recycling of consumer electronics and IT equipment.

The company, which specialises in e-commerce software that automates the payment, delivery and shipping processes for shopping web sites, already offers functions designed to help European online retailers comply with the EU's waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) directive and is now preparing to launch a version for the US and Canadian markets.

Julie-Lynn Tikekar, European product manager at the company, said there were already 10 US states and three Canadian provinces with electronic waste legislation in place largely modelled on the WEEE directive, while a further 10 states will introduce new rules this year.

In addition, the Obama administration has asked regulators to assess whether federal legislation is needed to help promote electronic recycling and address the issue of potentially hazardous e-waste.

Under the WEEE directive, manufacturers of electronic equipment have to pay into recycling funds to help cover the cost of recycling, while in certain countries they are also obliged to provide purchasers with information on the WEEE surcharge they are paying towards recycling.

Tikekar said that Digital River's technology helps online retailers to automate this process, providing them with a fee database that calculates how much they should be paying into a recycling fund. In addition, it allows them to provide customers with information on their invoice about the WEEE surcharge and how they should recycle the product they are buying at the end of its life.

"One of the main aims of the WEEE directive and the new legislation in North America is to involve the consumer in recycling and make it easier for them to get information on a product's environmental impact at the point of purchase," she explained, adding that the company's technology would help ensure online retailers also comply with the "spirit of the law".

She added that many online retailers in Europe were continuing to breach the WEEE directive by failing to adequately inform customers of how to recycle products. "The majority of companies are financially compliant with WEEE but they are not necessarily promoting WEEE at point of sale," she said. "It is an issue for companies, and in particular online retailers who can update their product catalogue every few days."