The government's target to make its IT estate carbon
neutral from the cradle to the grave is a positive step, but
businesses are leading the way in reducing carbon emissions through
IT innovation.
The
Greening Government IT strategy, launched last month, which the
government wants private businesses to follow, is initially
recommending policies described as "quick wins", such as turning
computers off after work hours. Such measures cost nothing and save
money.
Private enterprises, by definition, should already be doing
this, especially with energy prices soaring, giving a commercial
reason to reduce
power consumption. But less than 40% of people questioned in a
recent survey by Brocade said they were bothered about the carbon
footprint of their employer and only 16% actually tried to buy more
environmentally friendly products.
The government's "quick wins" advice is good practice for any
organisation, but to really make a dent in the carbon emissions
emitted by private sector IT, investments in advanced,
energy-efficient technologies are required. These include the
introduction of
virtualisation technology and
thin client computing - and here the government can learn from
the private sector.
Independent energy analyst Nigel Hawkins says the higher the
price of energy gets, the more businesses will do to improve
efficiency. But they have a long way to go to reduce energy use and
still grow as businesses, he adds. "They are making some progress,
but the reality is that the amount of energy used each year is
growing." As a rule of thumb, says Hawkins, the increase in energy
use is traditionally two-thirds of economic growth.
The banking and retail sectors can lead by example, with
strategies and work in place to replace inefficient technology and
use IT to make savings in other areas of the business.
In October last year,
Barclays said it was replacing 10,000 PCs with thin clients to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 15,000 tonnes, saving £5.2m at
the same time.
In the same month,
HSBC said it would continuously save 500kW of power -
equivalent to 500 electric fires running simultaneously - in its
datacentres by using virtualisation software.
The government will also look at technology to make savings in
other areas. This includes video conferencing technology to save
people having to go to meetings, which would reduce emissions from
travelling by car, or using mobile technology to enable people to
work from home. Such measures could have a more resounding impact
on carbon emissions.
Mike Yowarth, director of group technology and architecture at
Tesco, says that cutting his company's IT carbon footprint by 25%
will reduce its total carbon footprint by only 1%.
Tesco has committed £100m to reducing its 4.1 million tonne
carbon footprint and is applying IT in other parts of its business
to reduce overall company emissions by about 20%.
Government CIO John Suffolk says that although this type of
development is more complicated, it need not be expensive. "If you
talk to the virtualisation suppliers, they say you get a payback
within a year."
There is no doubt the government's Greening Government ICT
strategy is a positive step. But private businesses need look no
further than their peers to see how IT can save money and help them
meet their own green targets.