March 21, 2007 - Today is International Earth Day, a day celebrated each year around the world on the vernal equinox. It's also a good time to remind ourselves that even small changes in the way we conduct business can have a big impact on our environment.

At Sun, eco responsibility is about changing the way we approach business, IT, and the environment through sustainable computing. To do that, we innovate, act, and share.

"At Sun we have a comprehensive eco responsibility initiative that covers everything from how we create energy efficient products, to the way we operate our company, to how our employees commute, bascially to everything we do and how we go about doing it," says Dave Douglas, Sun's vice president of Eco Responsibility.

How We Innovate

Sun's products help people tackle some of the world's most difficult challenges, including a growing number of environmental ones. Sun's systems are helping to run computer models of global climate change, design more efficient cars, search for new sources of energy, and help people avoid energy usage through network-enabled lifestyle changes. Because of our role in driving towards sustainability, it is critical that our products are not a major drain on the environment.

As a company, we're focused on building eco responsible products and solutions that have a minimal environmental impact. Our goal is to benefit our customers and the environment by improving energy efficiency, using fewer harmful materials, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions, while increasing computation and storage. We're not there yet, but we're making good headway.

We develop products and programs that reduce energy needs and CO2 production at all levels, including the microprocessor, servers, thin clients, and computer grids; we even reduce CO2 by providing remote access work environments for employees. For example:

• Sun's energy sipping Sun Fire servers with CoolThreads technology consume one-third less energy, generate less heat, and take up one-half the space in the datacenter while delivering twice the performance. By installing these machines in Sun's Broomfield, CO datacenter, Sun's power usage dropped from 617,000 kilowatt hours to 39,000 kilowatt hours, resulting in a cost avoidance of $40,000 in electricity, with an additional $60,000 of costs avoided in cooling.


• Sun Ray technology enabled Sun to avoid approximately $24 million in energy and systems costs last year.


• Sun's Project Blackbox provides highly efficient datacenter space that can be placed near abundant and environmentally friendly energy sources.


• Last year, when Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) offered rebates as part of an energy-efficiency incentive program, Sun's servers were the only servers that qualified. PG&E offered to pay California organizations a $750 to $1,000 rebate per server if they traded in power-hungry systems for an energy-efficient Sun Fire T1000 or T2000 server.


• Sun is actively working to minimize eWaste and mitigate pressures on natural networks and social systems.


• We use a common chassis and many common components across major server lines to minimize waste and enable reuse.


• Sun's current recycling program exceeds current WEEE (Product Take Back) Directive requirements and new products released in 2006 and beyond will be RoHS compliant.

How We Act

We're extending our commitment to sustainable computing throughout our organization by reducing the environmental impact of our own operations. We choose fewer harmful materials, minimize hazardous chemicals, and reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing. We also work to recover, remanufacture, and recycle our products at the end of their useful life, and innovate to lower greenhouse gas emissions so our products have as little environmental impact as possible.

• Through our Open Work Practice, nearly half of Sun's 34,600 employees work from home whenever possible to avoid commuting. The Open Work Practice helped Sun avoid spending $67.8 million in 2006 for real estate and associated operating costs.

How We Share

Sharing is in Sun's DNA. It's as important to us to provide leadership as it is to build communities to open source ideas, findings, and technologies that support eco responsibility and sustainable computing.

• As a global climate leader, Sun has committed to lowering its greenhouse emissions from an estimated 2002 baseline of 263,465 metric tons to affect a 20 percent reduction in CO2 by 2012.


• Sun is also a board member of The Green Grid, an association of information technology professionals who have come together to develop a unified voice around datacenter efficiency issues. We encourage anyone interested in driving these new standards to become active participants.

Call for Action

Sun's commitment to eco responsibility extends beyond our own footprint on the planet. We recently joined the Ceres coalition, which is a group of more than 70 investors, environmental organizations, and investment funds that work with companies to address sustainability challenges. On March 19, Sun signed Ceres' call to ask the U.S. government to provide leadership for global climate change.

"What we're asking for are clear policies and direction. We're joining together with other corporations to send a clear signal to our lawmakers," explains Douglas. "We'd like to see a framework in which businesses can take action, set goals and engage in long-term strategies, including taxes, rebates, and long-term costs for companies."

But Douglas emphasizes that companies and organizations don't need to wait for guidance from government to act. "By measuring and modifying energy usage, companies can lower their environmental impact today. Businesses don't need to wait for the government to decide, they can put their own longer term sustainability strategies in play."

Douglas also believes that government itself could benefit its operations and the planet by measuring its energy usage and setting goals. "Given its size, we believe it's important that the federal government commit to being a good example in its own operations. Beyond legislation, our government has the power to influence innovation and business practices by only procuring products, for example, that are energy efficient. As a major market force, it makes a lot of sense for government to set out its own longer term strategy for energy use."

For more information: www.sun.com/eco