becamp has signed up to the pledge of 1010, ie to reduce C02 by 10% by 2010. It would be great to see all be2camp members sign up (if you havent already done so) here (www.1010uk.org)
One contribution that be2camp can make is to create a top ten list of practical steps people and organisations could take to reduce carbons through the use of web 2 technology or social media.
Here's some quick suggestions (in no particular order) to get us going:
Hold more meetings online/virtually - cut travel-related carbon emissions
Collaborate electronically - avoid transport of paper, CDs, etc
Collaborate electronically - avoid consumption of printing consumables, use of printers, copiers
Adopt SaaS-based IT (accessable via browser) - no need for expensive, high spec PC
Adopt SaaS-based IT (online hosting) - software located in one place and frequently utilised, not multiple locations where it mainly remains idle
Consult/collaborate early - undertake community/end-user consultation processes online (eg: YouCanPlan) and early in design process to avoid costly design/construction mistakes
Consult/collaborate late - undertake post-occupancy community/end-user consultation processes online to learn lessons, capture them (Wiki) and apply to future projects
Campaign online - use Web 2.0 to build broad coalition/consensus on climate change, and link different elements of the movement
Build connected environments - tools like Pachube can give us real-time reports on our carbon habits (no more 'guesstimates'!)
Apply open standards, open source - avoid huge interoperability issues (highlighted by NIST report) that prevent us re-using information, necessitating rekeying, etc
Engage/Empower Gen Y and Gen Z - they are the future of the AEC-related professions - get them applying their ideas, enthusiasm and energy to cut carbon now and throughout their careers
- Use your web site and or blog to promote the cycling facilities you have at your office to enable / encourage visitors and staff to cycle
- Allow staff to use social media in lieu of or in addition to intenal'social' email - to reduce storage requirements,
- Make site, project, office meetings availble on sykpe, gtalk or other VOIP to reduce travel.
- Stream and record online your next staff event or confernce type meeting, allow staff to blog, cover it live and tweet, to reduce travel CO2 of far travelling staff, guests, suppliers, clients etc
- Share documents through collaboartive tools, simple data sharing, basic BIM eg woobius
- Install energy readers, Record, log and share your energy data on eg Pachube
- Calculate, record your carbon footprint and share on google carbon
- Allow staff to work from home, on the road etc using web technologies such as google docs
- Use google docs or other cloud software to reduce internal doc storage space, energy costs and colling costs
- Use google map mashups or similar to show local facilities to the site or office.