BA will
cut the amount of energy used by its IT systems 25% by
2011.
Paul Coby, chief information officer of BA, told a
Green IT conference in London that an independent audit of its
IT systems found it was already onschedule to meet its 2011
energy-saving target.
It was forecast to cut IT energy use 25% in the current
financial year, ahead of schedule. "I suspect that's because we hit
the low-hanging fruit. Going forward will be much harder. But it
does show you can take a lot of emissions out of your estate by
just doing the basics," said Paul Coby.
IT efficiencies hadhowever contributed only 0.15 reductions in
its Scope One reductions, which concerned the use of kerosene. An
IT programme had worked out more efficient ways to run BA's fleet
of aeroplanes. IT efficiencies made amore substantial 23% reduction
on BA's Scope Two reductions, concerning energy use.
By June 2009, BA willhave implemented ethical procurement
standards, selecting suppliers with green credentials. It would
help decide its next PC procurement, said Coby.
BA reduced annual energy consumption at its
Boadicea House datacentre by 7% in April 2007. 80% of the
workforce's PCs were forced to shutdown at night.
InApril 2008, BA invested £5m in its "green IT portfolio",
recycled80% of its IT equipment and gave10% of it away to charity.
It invested £7.5m in green IT in the last financial year and £10m
again this year.
"There's no magic wand," said Coby. The initiative required
"hard detailed work". He had employed a range of measures from
virtualisation to
making employees print on two sides of paper and
tracking how many print-outs they made.
He said IT chiefs had to have "responsibility and
accountability", but it also helped that green initiatives cut
costs.
"Green IT coincides with pretty much everything else on
everyone's agenda right now: being efficient, driving out waste and
saving costs.
"We have found that green IT is very consistent with that."