The green agenda for the IT industry has never been more
topical. The BCS has launched, through its Carbon Footprint group,
several initiatives to stimulate discussion and action on the
topic.
Work includes a white paper on datacentre efficiency, the
development of a datacentre metrics simulation tool, and the Carbon
Intent project by the Communications Management Association.
David Clarke, BCS chief executive, explains, "The IT sector's
carbon footprint urgently needs to be addressed. We hope that by
promoting professional standards in this area, it will encourage
more IT organisations to adopt best practice.
"The winners of these two awards are part of this drive. They
demonstrate that taking the environmental impact of business
processes into consideration can provide real benefits and results
in terms of an organisation's bottom line."
BP Environment Award
Fivium collected the BP Environment Award for Spire, its UK
export licensing system, which was developed to enable the
Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to
process export licence applications more efficiently.
The technology has transformed a complex paper-based manual
process with multiple systems into a single, centralised, highly
secure, paperless web application.
The system, which was launched on time and to budget, has
provided several environmental benefits, including a reduction in
paper consumption of up to 95% in the first year, equating to three
million pages, or 15 tonnes of paper.
The organisation has also reduced its carbon footprint and
energy costs by removing the need for couriers to transport licence
information between government departments across the UK. In
addition, the organisation has gained greater efficiency,
flexibility and the ability to monitor the progress of applications
easily.
Clarke says, "This is a near perfect example of a
business-driven IT project that clearly delivers in all areas. It
demonstrates passionate and competent delivery from a small
organisation, which surely has a bright future."
Medallists in this category were Zogix for the Carbon Management
Platform and Memset for the Memset Miniserver Virtual Machines.
Green Organisation of the Year
The Green Organisation of the Year Award was won by gm2
Logistics. This specialist logistics operation, owned by the James
McNaughton Group and Premier Paper Group, was created to handle
logistics for the two companies. Every working day the gm2 team
delivers 600 tonnes of paper, board and display products to 1,350
customers.
Award judge Bob Harvey, chair of the BCS Carbon Footprint group,
says, "The green aspirations shown by gm2 Logistics are embedded
throughout the company. It is a trend-setter for its industry."
The implementation of several systems, including an
environmentally friendly storage infrastructure, has helped the
company to increase resource utilisation, decrease the need for new
equipment and minimise the costs associated with powering, cooling
and housing equipment. As a result, gm2 has cut its datacentre
footprint by a third.
An additional benefit of the new storage has been a greater
degree of flexibility within gm2's IT infrastructure, inspiring a
more agile way of working throughout the company.
Transport scheduling software has enabled the firm to remove 36
vehicles from its fleet, cut CO2 emissions by 975 tonnes a year,
and reduced its annual road usage by 1,036,800 miles. The company
plans to introduce electric vehicles in the near future.
Additional initiatives include the production of an energy
efficiency survey in conjunction with the Carbon Trust, and the
conversion of the company's electricity supply for its UK sites to
100% green energy from renewable resources.
Senior executives have specific green IT discussion points on a
monthly basis to report on the effectiveness of existing programmes
and generate ideas to keep carbon reduction initiatives at the
heart of the company's commercial strategy.
Medallists in this category were IBM and BT.
Photos from the awards ceremony
Photos of the
BCS IT Awards 2008 winners (part 1) >>
Photos of the
BCS IT Awards 2008 winners (part 2) >>
Photos of IT folk enjoying themselves at the BCS awards dinner
>>
Profiles of award winners
BT Flagship
Award for Innovation winner >>
Individual Excellence
Award winners >>
Organisational Excellence
Award winners >>
Project Excellence
Award winners >>
More information about the BCS IT Industry Awards can be found
on the
BCS awards
website.