Facebook runs a sweatshop - literally. The evidence is in the yellow circle on this Valleywag-supplied photo of their Palo Alto office space.

While employees are struggling with the heat, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is clearly wearing shoes instead of his trademark Adidas flip-flops at the D6 conference in Carlsbad (photo by Dan Farber):

Therein lies the solution: bring the flip-flops back. But don’t stop there: mandate beach-wear in the office. An amazingly simple solution to many of Facebooks problems:

• - No more heat problem
• - Increased employee morale, probably enough for them to forget about revoked housing subsidy
• - Additional incentive to stay in the office longer
• - Reduced energy bill
• - Going Green is trendy, there’s another $5B added to their valuation.

I’m a genius. Sending Zuck a $10K consulting invoice.

Update: Why can’t Wordpress 2.5 dislay bulletpoints properly?

Tags: energy, facebook, green, Humor, valleywag, wordpress

We’re supposed to save trees - not only because there are laws against cutting them, but it’s the right thing to do. So Sunnyvale couple Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett were doing a good deed by planting a bunch of redwood trees between 1997 and 99.

Their neighbor, Mark Vargas must also be environmentally conscious, as he installed solar panels on his roofs in 2001.  There’s only one small (actually large) problem: solar panels don’t work without exposure to the sun.

The redwood trees grew to be giants, some reaching 400 feet, and they cast a shadow on the solar panels.  The neighbors have been fighting for years and finally Vargas filed a lawsuit.  Last December a judge ordered the couple to remove the trees. They won’t appeal, as after spending $37,000 in legal bills and can’t afford the lawsuit anymore, so they will abide. 

The lawsuit, and decision was based on California’s Solar Shade Control Act, which requires homeowners to keep their trees or shrubs from shading more than 10 percent of a neighbor’s solar panels.

Now, here comes the controversial part:

Existing trees that cast shadows when the panels are installed are exempt, but new growth is subject to the law.

CA state Sen. Joe Simitian (D) of Palo Alto plans to change it.  The bill he introduced this week would protect trees that were planted before the installation of solar panels. Those planted next to already existing solar panels would still be subject to removal.

Here’s the NBC11 video.

Update:  2009-10 will be the perfect time to install solar, as supply is expected to exceed demand.

Tags: california, energy, environment, green energy, lawsuit, solar, solar energy, trees

I’ve received an email from European SaaS All-in-One SMB provider 24SevenOffice (wow, that’s a mouthful, basically NetSuite+Office for really small businesses, see my earlier coverage):

2008 must be the year when we all act against the serious environmental threat that the world is facing. 24SevenOffice has developed “The Go Green Game”, a Flash-game that puts focus on the pollution caused by the millions of unnecessary server rooms and servers located in all companies.

In addition, 24SevenOffice will plant trees based on the number of players, in co-operation with Nobel Peace Prize winner Maathai’s Green Belt Movement. If you wish to make a direct contribution to the society, let yourself entertain at http://game.24SevenOffice.com/ or forward this e-mail to friends, colleagues and business partners who are committed to the environmental battle.

Thank you for showing responsibility for the environment! The game can be found here: http://game.24SevenOffice.com/

I had mixed thoughts at first reading: Obviously environmental consciousness is becoming fashionable. Companies rush to launch their green initiatives in order to look “responsible corporate citizens”. OK, that’s the cynical view, but after all, these are often useful initiatives, and I’ve already said you don’t have to be purely altruistic to do good.

Whatever this game may be, it’s just a “save the earth” message, it’s not a vehicle to push 24SevenOffice products…

But wait! Like Columbo, when you think he’s gone, but comes back and drops the gist of the conversation, there’s a footnote here:

NB! The products mentioned in this e-mail are not the environmental sinners in themselves.
The environmental problem is based on the fact that most businesses, unnecessarily, have their own
servers and server rooms. This is the issue that 24SevenOffice is addressing.

Ahh…so it is advertising after all. Oh, well, it still delivers a correct message .. let’s check out the game itself:

I need to practice my swing, I could barely smash a few servers, look how much they’ve already racked up! Even worse, I’m not good in reading instructions, totally missed option#2, which is…no, I can’t tell you, it’s too violent.

Joke apart, 24SevenOffice clearly has a point: maintaining millions of servers for (small) businesses is wasteful, switching to Cloud Computing allows central servers to be more efficiently utilized, we’re all saving energy.

As a side-note, I’ve just looked at a web-based service that allows us, as individual consumers “go green” - will report about it when they are ready.

Tags: 24sevenoffice, CleanTech, cloud computing, energy, environmentalism, go green, green marketing, marketing, On-Demand, SaaS