Before you can get a grip, you have to get a grip. IBM aims to help.

I'm starting to wonder how much extra storage devices will be needed to archive all the carbon emissions and other green-related data that companies are desperately trying to start tracking as a way of figuring out where to go from here!

The latest addition to this admirable service/software category comes from IBM, which has introduced something called the Supply Chain Network Optimization Workbench (aka SNOW), which measures carbon dioxide emissions, fuel usage, storage requirements, production and sourcing impacts, and other green "costs" across a company's supply chain.

In its press release, IBM cites as one customer success story COSCO, which is a shipping and logistics company based in China that used the analysis provided by IBM to pare down to 40 distribution centers, whereas it previously used 100. This move saved it 23 percent in logistics expenses and 15 percent in carbon dioxide emissions (the equivalent of 100,000 tons of emissions).

The tool that IBM is using to analyze the data and help advise decisions builds on its WebSphere software and other software. SNOW is related to IBM's Carbon Tradeoff Modeler consulting practice. This Flash demo gives you a sense of how the benchmark works.