Cox Cuts Its Carbon Emissions

In line with other industry verticals, the cable sector prides itself on going green and helping the environment. Today, Cox Communications Inc. is telling its peers how it's achieving its green goals. While Cox Enterprises has decreased vehicle idle time in its fleet from 90 minutes to less than 15 minutes per day, the free-standing canopy solar array at the company's headquarters produces 140,000 kilowatt hours of energy annually and is reducing carbon emissions by 94 tons. By 2017, Cox aims to bring its total carbon footprint down by 20 percent. These are a few of the statistics Kevin T. Hart, Cox's CTO is presenting Wednesday at the Smart Energy Management Initiative (SEMI) Forum hosted by the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), which also features speakers from Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and numerous vendors. The event, held this year in Atlanta, follows the inaugural SEMI Forum, which took place in Philadelphia. Scheduled sessions will cover energy management strategies, applications, and infrastructure considerations. According to Mark Dzuban, the SCTE's president and CEO, the industry has made great strides in improving energy efficiency. "[We have] a clear set of MSO teams working these issues," notes Dzuban, while formal coordination between the SCTE and Cable Television Laboratories Inc. (CableLabs) is aiding standards development. So far, the collaboration has produced 16 new standards designed to reduce equipment density, decrease energy usage, and improve reliability. Dzuban predicts energy benefits from these standards will start to materialize between 2015 and 2017. (See also Cable's New Power Play.) — Mari Silbey, Special to Light Reading Cable