Forestry has coined the term sustainability: a forest should always be managed so carefully that, firstly, the biotope remains healthy and, secondly, the timber yield does not decrease over the generations. Sustainability therefore describes a long-term method of management. In the course of the ecological debate, this principle was then transferred to other sectors of the economy.

The concept of sustainability has also found its way into IT. At the end of the life cycle, the raw materials used should be recycled. Secondly, the energy used to operate the computers should come exclusively from renewable sources. The latter can be easily achieved today. This is nothing more than a question of goodwill. The complete recycling of technical components, on the other hand, cannot yet be fully implemented in IT services. However, our servers are working at the current maximum level of sustainability.

The fact that energy efficiency and climate protection also play an outstanding role in IT is not only demonstrated by the server farms of large digital companies, which are all located close to the Arctic Circle for cooling reasons. b.r.m. took a different approach here and now uses the waste heat from the servers to air-condition the offices.
We will be able to show our visitors these and many other measures in the field of practical sustainability when the Bremen Greens' state working group on economic and financial policy visits us on March 13, 2018 at 6:30 pm. We look forward to lively discussions about a contemporary IT service.

Bremen, March 7, 18

From the very beginning, the IT service provider b.r.m. has been a member of the Bremen-based 'Partnerschaft Umwelt Unternehmen'. The aim here has always been - and still is - to find the best possible solution for both employees and the environment. The technical term for this is 'work ecology'. In the university-affiliated working group 'NaGut - sustainable good work', this work ecology approach is tested in practice - with the help of advice, research and training. This working group has now published a brochure in which particularly successful models of implemented work ecology are presented. On pages 8 and 9 you will also find a company portrait of us ...

Those who count themselves among the pioneers of green IT in Germany are also observing developments outside the server and away from CO₂-neutral cooling of data centers. For this reason, we are also concerned about insect mortality and the end of biodiversity.

With the flowering area project is a welcome project by regional farmers in the Lilienthal area, where citizens and companies can take over the sponsorship of meadows where only 'insect food' is grown. Not only does everything that creeps and flies find enough food there, the splendor of the flowers in these meadows is also pleasing to the human eye.

b.r.m. has taken over the sponsorship of 15,000 square meters of flower meadow. Many more hectares have already been allocated to supporters. We hope that the flowering meadow project will find many more imitators.

With the discussion about CO₂-tax, the issue of consistently implementing green IT is also gaining new significance. This is because global digitalization consumes vast amounts of energy. Every email, every search query contributes to the server load. Clemens Rohde from the Fraunhofer Institute in Karlsruhe says: "The energy requirement of data centers in Germany is currently around 10 to 15 TWh. Converted into equivalents, this is roughly equivalent to the CO₂-emissions that we have in air traffic in Germany." A company like Google, for example, has the energy requirements of a city of 200,000 inhabitants - and if the internet were a country, it would have the sixth largest energy requirements in the world.

In future, the only way to be on the safe side is to consistently reduce the energy consumption of your data centers. Or those who consistently rely on renewable energies for operation. Both apply to b.r.m., for example: We have optimized our servers with regard to green IT, and we only use renewable energies for operation. On the other hand, if you don't do this, the introduction of a CO₂-tax will simply be more expensive in future.

Mitigating climate change is a cross-cutting task that is gradually affecting all sectors of society. Under the sponsorship of Forschungszentrum Jülich, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has therefore a project called TEMPRO project, which aims to provide a uniform scientific basis for evaluating the energy efficiency of data centers. It will also develop new energy-saving technologies to significantly reduce energy requirements in the IT sector. The acronym TEMPRO stands for 'Total Energy Management for Professional Data Centers'. The project is being coordinated at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg.

One of the partners in this project is the Bremen-based IT company b.r.m., which has already won many prizes and awards in the green IT sector with its energy-saving server technologies, particularly in the area of efficient cooling. As part of this project, we are using all our knowledge and experience to ensure that Germany can achieve the agreed climate targets in the IT sector on time.

If you have any questions or would like further information, please contact b.r.m. and ask for Harald Rossol or Hansjürgen Wilde.

At first glance, the term 'qualitative growth' seems paradoxical: doesn't every 'more' also require a greater consumption of resources? This may be the case when we think of 'meat products' or 'refrigerators'. But other laws apply in the field of 'immaterial services'. Here, greater productivity is perfectly possible without using more raw materials.

For years, b.r.m. has been following the path of 'qualitative growth': thanks to the consistent implementation of ideas from Green IT, our raw material and energy requirements are decreasing from year to year, our personnel requirements have remained constant over the years, while our customer base as well as the number and quality of services offered are constantly growing. We demonstrate every day that 'qualitative growth' is possible. Moreover, our commitment to climate protection and the environment has already earned us many prizes and awards.

If you would like to find out more, please contact Harald Rossol. The Managing Director of b.r.m. can look back on 20 years of experience in the field of 'qualitative growth' and various teaching assignments ...

A joint project of Optoprecision GmbH, b.r.m. business resource management Technologie- und Managementberatung and the Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen.

As part of the project, an unmanned airborne vehicle (UAV) is being developed for efficient environmental monitoring. This makes it possible to penetrate to the source of pollution and carry out direct measurements. This will be used to monitor ship emissions. Since January 1, 2015, a limit value of 0.1% for the sulphur content in ship fuel has applied in the SECA zone in the North and Baltic Seas.