Can you Afford to miss out on the Benefits of Going Green? (26-Sep-07)
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Full story: Can you Afford to miss out on the Benefits of Going Green? (26-Sep-07)
Being seen as a “green” organisation is becoming increasingly important, a recent Guardian/ICM poll found that over half of those surveyed said they had boycotted a company because its products were damaging to the environment. Going green doesn’t have to be a hard process; there are a few simple changes that can be made to reduce energy consumption by 80%, such as not using screen savers and turning off your computer and peripherals when they are not in use.
Becoming “green” is increasingly seen as an opportunity and a heightened interest in green issues is not only having an impact on consumer buying, it is also affecting how both the public and private sector award competitive tenders. Despite the benefits of going green, the general perception seems to be that change is happening too slowly, with budget allocations and training being barriers to change.
It is widely agreed that for any green IT policy to work the CIO or IT director needs to be prepared to look across the whole organisation and understand exactly what it is he or she is hoping to achieve. Whichever angle you come at it from it is essential to take a view of joined up thinking across the whole business in order to achieve the target of a 60% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
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THERE are now over 1.1 billion computers in operation world-wide, collectively producing about one billion tonnes of CO2 through their electricity requirements.
E-waste is a serious headache too with computers, mobile phones and electronic gadgets now accounting for 5% of the world’s rubbish.
So, there are solid reasons why all businesses should be going greener.
Over 70% of PCs will not be recycled when disposed of over the next five years and globally we will dispose of 512 million. We are now legally obliged to dispose of PC equipment properly, thanks to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, but this normally incurs a charge.
Thankfully, there is a free and simple, if underused, alternative. Lots of people in the world are in dire need of our outdated computers, so donate them to the likes of www.computeraid.org.
Each year more and more computers are purchased and put to use, but it’s not just the number of computers that is driving energy consumption upward. The way we use computers also adds to the increasing energy burden.
A recent study by Fujitsu estimated that the UK alone wastes £123m on electricity powering PCs left on out-of-hours. Burning fossil fuels generates most of our electricity and it also emits pollutants, sulphur and carbon dioxide.
These emissions can cause respiratory disease, smog, acid rain and global climate change.
Travel, electricity usage and product manufacture all have a carbon footprint which is the quantity of greenhouse gases directly or indirectly produced as a result of those activities.
Organisations like the Carbon Neutral Company (www.carbonneutral.com) and the Carbon Trust (www.carbontrust.co.uk) can guide you through offsetting and it is neither expensive nor difficult.
A recent Guardian/ICM poll found that over half of those surveyed said they had boycotted a company because its products were damaging to the environment. Surely this is incentive enough to consider taking a few hours to review your carbon footprint, which can also lead to some worthwhile cost savings.
There are many reasons for applying green standards to your business: new revenue opportunities, regulations, fear of a customer backlash, or the desire to act in the best interests of the environment.
There are some simple changes you can make in your business to reduce your computer energy consumption by 80% or more whilst still retaining most or all productivity and other benefits of your computer system.
For a start, don’t use screen savers. If a screen saver image appears on your monitor for more than five minutes, you are wasting energy. A screen saver that displays moving images causes your monitor to consume as much electricity as it does when in active use. Secondly, turn off your computer and/or peripherals when they are not in use. Turning on and off will not harm the equipment. Thirdly, turn off you computer at night and over the weekend or hibernate your PC at night if, like me, you hate rebooting and getting back to where you were each morning. Finally, unless you require immediate access to email or other internet services, break the habit of turning on all your computer equipment as soon as you enter the office each day.
As customers and investors push organisations to consider environmental issues, 2008 will become a pivotal year, with many more carbon-neutral initiatives being announced.
Being more climate-friendly is not difficult for most SMEs and almost certainly helps. So, can you really afford to ignore the risks or miss out on the benefits of going greener.
- Source: ic Wales.co.uk
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The Benefits of Green IT (20-Sep-07)
The reasons for adopting a greener IT policy have become too good to ignore
Pamela Whitby, Computing Business 20 Sep 2007
If it is true that the carbon dioxide emission consequences of IT are greater than that of the airline industry, it can come as little surprise that the chief information officer is under increasing pressure to prove his or her green credentials.
Many large and small organisations in the public and private sector are beginning to take action: from power saving and recycling; flexible working and teleconferencing; to grid computing and virtualisation. Some organisations are further down the road than others - but are they doing enough?
Delays to the much-anticipated WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive haven’t helped. The laws set recycling and recovery targets for electrical goods and finally came into effect at the beginning of July.
However, change is afoot. Tony Roberts, chief executive of computer refurbishment specialist Computer Aid, says many businesses are now beginning to take action as a result of WEEE.
‘One example is soaking up computers for sale in Eastern Europe,’ he says. ‘Once implemented into national legislation, the WEEE directive ensures that any organisation involved in manufacturing, importing or retailing electrical goods will take responsibility for what happens at the end of their life.’
The WEEE directive is an important measure, but there are other significant developments in the pipeline, such as the revision of the Companies Act to include environmental impact reporting by 2008 as well as the threat of a potential carbon dioxide levy.
What might be considered standard business practice now is unlikely to be sufficient in the very near future and there will be very compelling economic reasons to change, says Ian Osborne, Intellect’s project director for the DTI funded initiative Grid Computing Now.
‘The government is looking at sustainability and carbon trading but my feeling is that in the end we will all have carbon allocations,’ he says. ‘The IT director will have to fight his or her corner with the rest of the organisation over how much power he or she is allowed to use as opposed to getting away with using it. This is going to be an ugly battle.’
Green light for growth
A battle it may be but organisations with the right tactics look set to benefit. Roberts says the green agenda is increasingly being seen as an opportunity, which probably explains why the public relations machines of multinational corporations are working on a range of green initiatives. ‘Quite apart from the fact if you don’t address green issues the planet will die, it is good business sense to do so,’ he says.
BT, the UK’s incumbent fixed line operator and consumer of 0.7 per cent of the country’s electricity, has certainly taken the green agenda on board. One of its recent campaigns has been to launch an advice service to small businesses in an attempt to help reduce their carbon footprints. Donna Young, BT’s head of climate change, calls the service enlightened self-interest. ‘If you don’t view it this way, then you will lose out because this is what the consumer wants,’ she says.
BT is probably right, given that customer buying habits are increasingly driven by ethical concerns. Sixty-four per cent of consumers are more likely to buy from an ethical company than not, up from 20 per cent just two years ago. Heightened interest in green issues is not only having an impact on consumer buying power, it is also affecting how both the public and private sector award competitive tenders.
According to Mark Blakeley, IT director for Hestia Managed Services, a housing and energy consultancy that deals primarily with the public sector, the weighting criteria for environmental issues in a competitive bid has gone up by as much as 40 per cent during the past three years. ‘In terms of tender preparation, green issues now need a lot more attention,’ he says.
Companies bidding for work, therefore, need to prove they are doing their bit. So Hestia uses the zero carbon managed hosting service of Rackspace, a company that plants a tree every time it makes a server sale. Another environmentally driven decision was to plant trees instead of sending Christmas cards to its customer base. ‘We calculated how much carbon dioxide an average Christmas day is responsible for and we planted 300 trees, one for each of our clients,’ says Blakely. Of course this information is used when bidding for public sector work, which Blakeley says is very well received.
In Blakely’s view, the public sector is leading the way with green procurement standards, but Computing Business found that getting anybody to talk about it was a bit like pulling teeth. Somewhat surprisingly, the Department of Food Rural and Environmental Affairs (Defra) was unable to provide a spokesperson to speak about how they are running their own shop.
UK communications regulator Ofcom, however, was more forthcoming. In a statement from its press office, Ofcom said it ‘is taking opportunities in this area to be as environmentally responsible as possible’. The regulator seeks to purchase hardware that adheres to the latest and highest power management standards, taking account of Energy Star ratings when procuring equipment to minimise power consumption.
In addition, it aims to buy Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (Epeat) approved hardware. Epeat is a system that rates desktop computers, laptops and monitors based on environmental attributes. Ofcom’s other initiatives include putting its PCs into standby or power off mode at short intervals, as well as extending the life of and recycling hardware wherever possible.
Extending the use of the PC is at the core of Computer Aid’s agenda. Roberts says reuse is one part of the green programme that is often overlooked and is particularly important because the environmental cost of producing computers is very high. The PC, for example, consumes 75 per cent of the energy used across its lifetime during the production phase. ‘It becomes imperative to extend the life of a PC for as long as possible in order to claw back some of the carbon used in production,’ says Roberts.
Slow to change
While IT directors can increasingly see the benefit of a green approach to computing, the general perception seems to be that change is happening too slowly. Dr Jason Carter, an independent consultant who has worked with a range of organisations including BT, certainly thinks so. ‘UK organisations seem to be reluctant to move to what they deem to be new technology,’ he says.
Budget allocations, historical procurement agreements and training are among the issues cited as barriers to change. Procurement departments, for example, might not have a piece of kit on their list or they might have negotiated a term with the supplier for a particular piece of equipment. Another factor is that companies are somewhat risk averse and want to see another organisation try innovative technologies first.
Baring Asset Management is one company, however, that has completed a proof of concept and has successfully utilised green computing strategy virtualisation for 29 business-critical applications. In the event of disaster, Barings can continue investing for its clients by instantly switching on virtual applications; it is no longer reliant on a team of people to restore IT desktop application functionality. Although Barings’ Business Continuity IT Desktop strategy has been heralded a success, it did require taking the bull by the horns.
According to Intellect’s Osborne, however, virtualisation is beginning to enter the mainstream. He believes that 2007 will be the year that grid computing and in particular virtualisation takes off. ‘If you scratch the surface a fair amount of innovation is happening in some fairly big places,’ he says. Grids, which enable vast amounts of data to be collated, processed and shared across organisations, are widely used in scientific and manufacturing sectors.
‘If I was an IT director, I would definitely be thinking about creating a virtualised IT infrastructure,’ says Osborne. Grid offers tangible advantages for businesses. Instead of investing in processing capacity which is rarely used, companies should look to purchase capacity on a pay-per-use basis, a trend that is expected to become increasingly popular with companies hoping to improve efficiencies.
Joined up thinking
Analysts, experts and consultants broadly agree that for any green IT policy to work, the chief information officer (CIO) or IT director needs to be prepared to look across the whole organisation and understand exactly what it is he or she is hoping to achieve. For Barings, it was a solution that would enable staff to remain at their desks in the event of a disaster or business continuity test. ‘We wanted one desktop strategy to support our production and disaster recovery infrastructure configurations,’ says Neil Elliott, Barings ISS project manager. Construction company MJ McCabe & Sons’ objective, on the other hand, was to move from a predominantly paper-based environment to one where all documents are held online.
Whichever angle you come at it from, however, what is essential is joined up thinking across the whole business, says Monica Wilson an executive consultant in sustainability at Capgemini UK. ‘Doing a little bit around the piece and playing a bit with a bit of power here or on functionality there isn’t going to get us to meet targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent in 2050,’ she says. Nor is it likely to prevent the IT industry hitting resource shortages. And Computer Aid’s Roberts says that it is simply not necessary for technology companies to be continually extracting aluminium, copper and silver. ‘There is already plenty of that in today’s product cycle that can be reused,’ he says.
Hitting targets requires management buy-in and BT’s Young says the telecoms operator’s strategy and vision for climate change is being driven from the top. ‘It is essential that we run this programme at a very high level because if we don’t we won’t meet our targets,’ she says. In 1996 under the Kyoto Agreement BT set itself a target of reducing its carbon footprint by 25 per cent. Although it has already managed a reduction of 60 per cent, over the next ten years targets must be further reduced to 80 per cent. ‘That is extremely challenging and needs commitment from all sectors of the business,’ says Young.
The test then is to ensure that companies use renewable energy or low carbon electricity. And where electricity consumption is a real issue is in the data centre, says Osborne. ‘The classic profile of a server is that it is used for 15 to 20 per cent of the time,’ he says. ‘Then suddenly you get a huge peak and it is overwhelmed and you can’t apply computing power unless you go and buy bigger boxes. At the same time, the boxes next door are hardly being used at all.’
Companies need to do find ways of harnessing all computing power within a business - and some organisations are already making moves in such a direction, mainly in the financial services and engineering sectors. There are a few key drivers behind the energy-saving trend, says Osborne: companies can no longer afford to spend more on additional storage systems; there is insufficient room in the data centre; and there an increasingly powerful processors, even at the desktop level.
What is clear, though, is that for most IT directors, resilience and availability are still key priorities, ahead of energy and corporate responsibility. A survey of 244 organisations, conducted at the London Energy Summit by conference and information specialist DatacentreDynamics, found 71.4 per cent of technology specialists believe resilience would not be sacrificed for energy efficiency.
Still, some companies are keen to transform their energy activities. One of BT’s recent projects has been to audit ten UK and three European data centre sites. Although the evaluation is still underway, Young says the early indications are the company could save between 7 and 10 per cent per data centre. ‘We are developing a fairly radical strategy going forward that will make a significant impact but we are not ready to announce this just yet,’ she says. ‘I hate the expression but we are looking outside the box for things that will really shake things up.’ Could it be that BT is undertaking a proof of concept for the virtualisation of its data centres?
Another area where BT is saving money and energy is by allowing seventy per cent of its workforce to work flexibly. A conservative figure of 54,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide is being saved each year from the organisation using conferencing and collaboration services alone.
What is clear, then, is that the role of the CIO is undoubtedly becoming more complex and challenging. Today’s successful technology leader needs to be something of a chameleon. They need imagination and vision, an understanding of technological developments as well as business acumen.
Summary
The implementation of the WEEE directive, tax breaks, revisions to company reporting and the threat of a potential carbon dioxide levy means CIOs now have a compelling reason to adopt a green strategy. Increasingly being green translates into tangible financial benefits; flexible working and services such as telephone, web or video conferencing can greatly reduce associated travel cos ts.
Organisations are waking up to the public relations benefits of being green. The move is driven by an increasingly ethical consumer but also may be the difference between winning and losing a competitive tender. Smart CIOs will let customers know that a tree has been planted after a server purchase.
Many organisations now send electronic Christmas cards to reduce waste, a gesture which may have been considered lazy a decade ago but is now ethical business practice. A ‘think before you print strategy’ is another simple policy which many CIOs are adopting.
The switched on CIO is starting to think about power use across the entire organisation: from intelligent light systems and buildings, ensuring computers automatically power off at short intervals; to grid computing and virtualisation, to harness computing power across several organisations.
When purchasing equipment, a CIO will probably consider whether equipment meets certain environmental standards, for example longer battery life.
Extending the life of equipment, or refurbishing it for reuse, is another key strategy. In anticipation of the WEEE directive, some companies are already purchasing old computers for resale in other parts of the world, an example of how being green is also a growth opportunity.
No longer a pure ‘techie’, the CIO must be able to sell the benefits of a project to the board. Understand how IT can benefit the business. And recognise that replacing legacy systems may not yield immediate benefits, but in the medium term may help solve space issues and energy consumption in the data centre.
- Source: vunet.com
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