Microsoft has selected CarbonSystems Environmental Sustainability Platform software to meet its sustainability and environmental reporting needs, as its new global standard for carbon emission tracking and management for its 600 facilities in 110 countries. Meanwhile, Red Hill Studios, in collaboration with World View of Global Warming, announces the release a Climate Change  iPad App that lets you explore how the world around you changes.

Paul Baier, GreenBiz.com (13 March 2012):

After an undoubtedly extensive evaluation, Microsoft has selected CarbonSystems software to meet its sustainability and environmental reporting needs.

This is an important win for CarbonSystems and illustrates that vendor leadership for sustainability software remains very much up for grabs. The deal also definitely puts to bed the notion that spreadsheets are sufficient to track sustainability data for large, global companies.

Microsoft selected CarbonSystems’ Environmental Sustainability Platform as its new global standard for carbon emission tracking and management for its 600 facilities in 110 countries. “Microsoft is committed to measuring, transparently reporting, and minimizing the carbon footprint of our operations.

“We view CarbonSystems as a key part of our effort to achieve Microsoft’s business and environmental sustainability goals,” said Rob Bernard, chief environmental strategist at Microsoft in a press release.

The choice of CarbonSystems over other, well-known sustainability software leaders such as CA Technologies, Credit360, Ecova, Enablon, Hara and PE International, SAP and others is impressive.

When we did our sustainability software analysis in the spring of 2011 (which GreenBiz resells), we named 10 early leaders, and CarbonSystems wasn’t among them.

This win catapults CarbonSystems forward: Selection by Microsoft means that many global companies will likely now consider CarbonSystem for their future sustainability tracking and managing needs.

Based in Australia, CarbonSystems has leveraged its Australian success to enter the market in the United States in the last several years. Other customers include AzkoNobel, Canon, Deloitte and FujiXerox.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s decision to invest in supported, enterprise software instead of using spreadsheets dramatically and decisively ends the debate about whether spreadsheets are sufficient for tracking sustainability data for large companies.

In an article back in July, I argued that it was time to give up spreadsheets for tracking carbon emissions at large companies. Technical purists disagreed, writing emails and posts that hailed the merits of spreadsheets and newer capabilities of Microsoft’s Sharepoint.

If the world-leading developer of spreadsheets and portal software decides that spreadsheets don’t make sense for tracking and reporting sustainability data, then the argument is over.

Since Microsoft has stopped using spreadsheets to track and report emissions, so should all other large companies.

Congratulations to CarbonSystems.

Paul Baier is vice president of sustainability consulting at Groom Energy and a senior contributor at GreenBiz.com.

Source: www.greenbiz.com and www.globalcarbonsystems.com

SAN FRANCISCO, (15 March 2012):

Red Hill Studios, in collaboration with World View of Global Warming, announces the release of Painting with Time: Climate Change, the second in a series of remarkable time painting iPad Apps, that lets you explore how the world around you changes over time.

Brought to you by the creators of the Painting with Time app and Exploring Time international documentary series (www.exploringtime.org), the Painting with Time: Climate Change App (PWT Climate in the App store) lets your fingers reveal how global warming is rapidly changing our world.

Explore how glaciers have drastically retreated in numerous places around the world.

Discover where rising temperatures are contributing to floods and droughts.

Examine the ways that climate change is disrupting the timing of natural events such as flower buds opening.

“It’s very hard for people to really appreciate long term events – our brains are not wired that way,” notes Red Hill Studios Creative Director Bob Hone. “This ‘temporal myopia’ has helped us ignore our impacts on the planet. Fortunately, with digital imagery and high tech satellites, we can extend our time perception to visualize the long term effects of climate change.”

Programmed and co-designed by Red Hill Senior Engineer Charlie Brown, PWT Climate provides a range of time brushes and special time slicers that let you manipulate photographic sequences in powerful new ways.

It features:

• 17 time sequences showing striking visual impacts of climate change
• Painting Time and Slicing Time manipulation modes
• Eight preset brushes and slicing patterns
• Capturing Change step-by-step tutorial

Distinguished climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University served as content consultant on the App. Dr. Hayhoe shared in the Nobel Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007. Dr. Todd Sanford, climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, also served as a scientific consultant on the project.

Gary Braasch, creator and photographer of the World View of Global Warming web site (www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org), led the image research that scoured the global for striking visual examples of how climate change is altering the planet.  “From grade school assemblies to political conferences, I’ve seen how time-series photos of changes to glaciers, coastlines and habitats really can show the effects of rapid climate change.  Now people can experience the transformation of our planet much more directly and tactilely.”

“With today’s digital cameras, everyone can help chronicle the transformations underway due to climate change,” Hone comments. “This visual evidence may help people understand their impact and begin to change the way they live and use energy. Together with new advances in alternative energy production and conservation, these combined efforts may help stem the rising tide. Rapid climate change is upon us.  How we rise to this challenge will define our place in history … and the history of our planet.”

Red Hill Studios is an award-winning transmedia design company that creates online science games and Apps, interactive games for health, and immersive museum exhibitions. It also conducts research into new educational and health gaming paradigms.  Red Hill Studios is based in San Rafael, CA.

Gary Braasch is a leading environmental photojournalist who creates images and reports about nature, environment, biodiversity and climate change around the world.  His documentary and educational project World View of Global Warming is in its 12th year.

Painting with Time: Climate Change is an extension of the Exploring Time documentary series and web site, which was supported by a generous grant from the Informal Science Education program at the National Science Foundation.

Source: www.sacbee.com