You’ve probably seen the television advertisements from IBM with their aim to create a smarter planet. IBM aims to harness technology and better processes in order make our world a more efficient place. I conducted an interview last week with Richard Leichner, the company’s first vice president of Energy and Environment, and asked about the company’s approach to sustainability.

“When we talk about sustainability we focus on energy, carbon and water. We categorize each of these into three broad areas. We have infrastructure, whether data centers and IT equipment, vehicle fleets, buildings or manufacturing systems. Operations, which is everything from supply chain to distribution networks to product development to workforce management. And we also look at the macro systems that comprise the world, whether that be intelligent utility networks or water infrastructure or transportation systems.

We have created those categories and have been developing a robust ecosystem around those. We’re working on energy management with providers within and outside the IT space, to go into a client and be able to deploy energy monitoring, management and optimization across a very wide set of assets. The Green Sigma Coalition is an effort to help companies optimize their efforts for energy, carbon and water in concert with companies like SAP, Johnson Control, Honeywell and the like.”

Read the full interview here.

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