According to a report by computer manufacturer Lenovo, “Green PCs for a Smarter Future”, manufacturers are increasingly looking for ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, resources consumed and waste generated.

The information and telecommunications technology industry generates about 2% of global carbon emissions every year, according to “Green IT: A New Industry Shock Wave”, a report by technology research firm Gartner.

Of this figure, computers and monitors account for 39% of carbon emissions, equivalent to a full year of emissions from about 43.9million passenger vehicles, Lenovo said.

The Kyoto Protocol, negotiated through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has set a target for average global carbon emissions reductions of 5.4% relative to 1990 levels by 2012. The 17th Conference of the Parties to this framework, COP17, which starts in Durban a week from tomorrow, will debate whether to extend the agreement beyond 2012, or enter into its second phase.

South Africa has pledged to slash 34% from its carbon emissions by 2020 and 42% by 2025.

Enter green computing: the design, manufacture, use and disposal of computing devices in a way that is not detrimental to the environment. Green computing practices were primarily introduced by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 with the launch of the Energy Star programme, a consumer guide to the energy efficiency of products.

For manufacturers to earn the right to use the Energy Star label, their products must meet energy use guidelines in three distinct operating modes: standby, sleep mode and while computers are being used.

Products bearing the Energy Star label saved US consumers enough energy in 2010 to avoid greenhouse gas emission equivalent to that from 33million cars, while saving them almost $18-billion in utility bills.

But South African businesses are not following suit. Tim James, director at SustainableIT, a green information technology software and services provider, said business and IT organisations had yet to fully embrace the opportunities that green computing brings.

“Very little has been done beyond virtualisation and teleconferencing solutions. Business demands cost reductions and science demands an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 to limit global warming to 2°C. Technology adoption can go a long way towards achieving both these goals,” said James.

“In South Africa, information technology needs to be better embraced by business leaders to reduce their business emissions and costs, and ensure sustainability in their business operations.”

A study developed by The Climate Group and the Global eSustainability Initiative estimated that green computing could cut global annual emissions by as much as 15% by 2020, delivering nearly an eight-fold benefit when comparing carbon use to carbon reduction.

NextGen Research, the emerging technology arm of ABI Research, defines a “green” computer as one that is built from eco-friendly materials and features low power consumption and computer power management capabilities. It has fewer and smaller components, generates less heat than previous models and is packaged in recyclable materials.

NextGen Research said purchases of green computers will grow from less than a sixth of the $249-billion computer market in 2009 to nearly two-thirds – more than $190-billion – of the projected $323-billion computer market in 2013.

On the supply side, environmental campaign group Greenpeace International keeps a stern eye on electronic manufacturers through its monthly “Guide to Greener Electronics”, ranking them on policies and practices to reduce their carbon footprint, produce greener products and make their operations more sustainable.

The top three highest-ranked computer manufacturers for November were HP at 5.9 out of 10 points, followed by Dell at 5.1 and Apple at 4.6.

Source: Business Times 20 November 2011

Leading South African short-term insurer improves manageability of PC estate and stands to save 146,000 kWh of electricity per year – the equivalent annual electricity use of 20 homes

Cape Town, 10 November, 2011 - 1E (www.1e.com), the global leader in Efficient IT solutions, today announced that it has been selected by OUTsurance (www.outsurance.co.za), to improve patch management and save energy across its estate of 2,000 desktop PCs. The deployment will be handled by 1E preferred business partner, sustainableIT (www.sustainableit.co.za).

“Our staff would often not reboot their machines. In some cases, machines had not been rebooted for more than 50 days, which was clearly impacting patching and performance. This was when we realized that enough was enough and we needed to do something,” says Simon Faragher, OUTsurance project manager.

“We selected NightWatchman® Enterprise from 1E because we needed a proven solution for reliable patch management. Our number one goal is to keep our PCs healthy and available, while guaranteeing zero user disruption, so it was the obvious choice,” continues Faragher.

WakeUp from 1E is a feature of NightWatchman® Enterprise, which reduces the burden of administrator support while maintaining Computer Health™ to ensure that users always remain productive. It is a Wake-on-LAN solution that enables rapid deployment of patches across a network out-of-hours and automatic routine maintenance and software distribution.

“The C0₂ savings we stand to make as a result of automatically shutting down our PCs was an additional reason for our purchase decision. We stand to save 145 metric tonnes a year – that’s the equivalent emissions from the average annual electricity use of 20 homes,” concludes Faragher.

Initially, OUTsurance ran a test on 1,678 machines over a period of 20 days. The solution helped the insurer see that 33% of desktops and 3% of monitors were being left on overnight, wasting energy unnecessarily. It also showed that 29% of desktops and 4% of monitors were being left on, but only 11% of PCs are actually used, during the weekend.

Tim James, director at sustainableIT, says: “It’s rewarding to see the deployment of NightWatchman Enterprise help OUTsurance solve its immediate need to improve patch manageability across the organization, save money and positively contribute to its own corporate C0₂ emissions reductions.”

Source:PRWeb

About 1E

Globally over the past five years $8 trillion has been spent on IT, which is more than half the US GDP. Maintaining this huge amount of IT accounts for 70-80 percent of each year`s IT budget. CIOs want to reduce this figure to save money or to have more discretionary spend, but lack the tools to do so. 1E is the pioneer and global leader in Efficient IT solutions. 1E`s mission is to identify unused IT, help remove it and optimize everything else. 1E solutions help reduce servers, network bandwidth constraints, software license bills, energy consumption and many time consuming IT tasks. Some of world`s most prestigious names feature among 1400 organisations using 16 million 1E software licenses to reduce their IT maintenance bills while providing a more responsive service to their users. For more information, please visit www.1e.com

About OUTsurance

OUTsurance has established itself as the leader in the direct insurance market offering car insurance, home insurance and business insurance.  OUTsurance has now also expanded its product offering into the life insurance market, offering cover in case of death, disability or critical illness. For awesome service and affordable insurance premiums that will suit your budget, get an insurance quote from OUTsurance. For more information, please visit: www.outsurance.co.za

 About Sustainable IT

SustainableIT is based in Cape Town, South Africa. The company is a pioneer in the Green IT and sustainable computing market and was recognized by Global Industry Analysts (Green IT Services – A Global Strategic Business Report, June 2010) as a key global player in this emerging market. For more information, please visit http://www.sustainableIT.co.za 

The solution, said to be the first of its kind in South Africa and developed by local consultancy sustainableIT, provides organisations with the ability to manage and report on their carbon emissions at a fraction of the cost of traditional consultancy based approaches.

How does it work?

TheCarbonReport.com is a cloud based offering which guides an organisation through an intuitive process and builds an emissions inventory based on the globally accepted Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Reporting and Accounting Standard.

The offering is priced as an annual subscription which varies based on the complexity and size of the organisation and provides not only the ability to capture a carbon inventory but also to report on it through a fully featured reporting tool.

A ‘walk through tour’ is also offered at no charge which gives users the ability to evaluate the solution before signing up to the service.

The solution also offers validation of metrics as well as certification of audits if required.

This is not another calculator

Teresa Legg, director at sustainableIT describes the solution as ”not just another calculator”. “What we have done with The Carbon Report is build an intuitive toolset that allows organisations of any size or complexity to build an auditable carbon inventory and report on it. There are few, if any, tools out there that do this as simply or as cost effectively as we have managed.”

Reporting is done with strict adherence to the GHG protocol and has been developed in such a way that ownership of the process can be retained internally.

The calculation and reporting complexity of traditional footprinting has been absorbed within the tool so as not to confuse the end user but still deliver a quality report as output.

Broaden the base

The offering is aimed at organisations of any size or complexity. “Every business has to start focusing on the triple bottom line of people, profit and planet”, explains Legg. “Understanding your carbon footprint provides a measure of your impact and allows you to develop concrete plans to reduce emissions and ultimately eliminate unwanted costs in your business”, she concludes.

The process of carbon footprinting just got a lot easier and business needs to start focusing on emissions reduction opportunities if it is to remain globally competitive in a rapidly changing low carbon economy.

Visit The Carbon Report here to get started.

The IT industry uses a lot of power. It’s arguable that its entire history is determined at a fundamental level by the properties of electricity. Processors have gone multi-core because single cores have cooling problems at higher speeds, some peripherals such as display adapters have their own cooling units for the same reason, there’s a massive global shift to virtualised infrastructure for power and efficiency reasons, and datacentres have been redesigned to be as efficient as possible.

One of the biggest wakeup calls was published in 2007: a study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that estimated that the US spent nearly $3 billion in 2005 keeping its datacentres on and cooled and that the world in total spent $7 billion. But since then, datacentres, by far the hungriest consumers of power, have gone virtual.

David McMurdo, sales and business unit manager for enterprise server and storage at HP SA, says that unit counts – the number of boxes shipped – from Q1 2007 through to Q4 2010 haven’t changed.

“There’s been no change up or down. We can say that the virtualisation trend has kept the unit count constant.”

Tim James, director at Sustainable IT, says that although the unit count has stayed the same, utilisation has increased.

“You are using more of each server. A normal server sits at 15 percent utilisation; a virtual one is up around 75 percent.”

Chris Norton, regional director for southern Africa at VMWare, says the saving isn’t as big as everyone thinks.

“The metric is that an idle machine still uses 70 percent of the power requirements as a fully-utilised machine,” he says. “A study in 2009 shows that there are more virtual machines than physical ones, so one would expect the size of the physical footprint to come down over time. But the trend we’ve seen is that people are looking to save power so they can fit more servers in the datacentres, not to be good corporate citizens. Companies run out of physical power on the grid and they have two options then: build another datacentre in another location, or use their existing resources more efficiently.”

Barry Hatfield, business development manager for cloud services at Internet Solutions, agrees that it’s all about efficiency in the local market but there’s also another key reason.

“I think specifically in the Johannesburg area, there’s only so much power available in certain areas. In our datacentre, we’ve put in cooling technologies and are becoming more efficient. That is a green initiative but the driver is so we can put more racks down.”

Dan Engel, regional sales manager for Polycom, says the reasons for going green vary from country to country and should be driven by governments.

“Once a government gives tax relief benefits because a company is able to show that it’s green, it becomes not just a CIO issue but a CEO and CFO issue. When the government is pushing it, then adoption is much faster.”

Sean Wainer, country manager for Citrix SA, says it won’t be driven by government in South Africa but purely by capacity.

“The fact of the matter is that our utility does not have the ability to provide the power required. So our adoption is not going to be driven by rebates but by demand. We need to build datacentres and we need to power them. Our utility isn’t going to come up with clever ways of supplying more power.”

HP’s McMurdo points out that green IT isn’t coming through in procurement either.

“It’s not a requirement on a tender. The typical ones are there: processing power, memory, storage and so on, but there are never questions about power requirements, recycling and re-use. We’ve just shipped an order to government and it was all about price and capacity. It’s tough for hardware vendors who invest a lot of R&D in lowering power consumption and government takes no notice. The hosting providers are charging by kilowatt but outside that, not much.”

Dell SA’s Kobus de Beer, product marketing for enterprise products, says the efficiency drive by vendors has been prompted by the IT industry’s carbon footprint.

“We did a study that showed that the IT industry generates more carbon than the airline industry. That’s why there’s so much research from the hardware vendors, so see if you can consolidate 180 servers into 22.”

Sustainable IT’s James says he’s seen companies starting to be quizzed on their environmental track records.

“Some of the big corporates are starting to drive that. That means smaller suppliers have to report that because the bigger companies have voluntary requirements to be greener. But we’re miles away from it being driven from government.”

VMWare’s Norton says that modern hardware and software has efficiency and green elements built in already because they source technology from global vendors.

“So to go greener in this country, it’s really just a light bulb that has to be turned on somewhere. I think government should be involved in the same way that BEE is a government initiative. In the manufacturing and IT sector, there should be a similar one. For every server you take out, you’re removing one and half tons of emissions per year. Until government make it a requirement, other companies won’t make it a requirement to do business with them.”

Cultural considerations

HP’s McMurdo says that the culture in the office is important. Laptops with docking stations still draw power if plugged in overnight.

“Our offices here aren’t that intelligent. There are no IT systems working the buildings, shutting off things when they aren’t needed. We can’t just focus on the datacenter, we have to get the culture everywhere.”

The technology does exist – Polycom’s Engel calls it basic functionality.

“In our offices in Israel, a relatively warm country, we have motion sensors connected to the lights and the air conditioning. This is something you can implement and save immediately on the electricity bill.”

Citrix’s Wainer asks whether that sort of culture is driven bottom-up or top-down.

“Is it a company’s responsibility to enforce green or is it a personal thing to unplug your power supply?”

James says he’s seen more than 90 percent of corporate desktops stay on 24/7 and a quarter of laptops stay in the office over the weekend.

“To be honest, there is technology to power stuff up and down when it’s needed. We just don’t get it in this country. We’re in the Dark Ages from that point of view.”

Ereeza Ryland, chief marketing officer at Powertime, says it should be a top-down thing.

“You have to build it into your mission statement. But IT can be used as the enabler for this: software and hardware sensors can be used to measure everything right up to buildings and infrastructures.”

Gus Pinto, brand manager for Fujitsu at Di-Nostix, has some examples.

“One of the things we have is zero power devices. When the device goes into standby mode, the power goes down. That also works for AC adapters, notebooks and docking stations. The minute you walk out of the office, click – it’s off. But this has to be adopted from the top down otherwise most people won’t bother.”

IS’ Hatfield says the easiest driver is cost.

“We don’t build datacentres based on how many racks we can fit in, we build them based on how much power we can get into a site. Clients who use more power in their racks get charged for that. Those clients are very aware of what their kit is drawing. Those are the people who start looking for more efficient solutions.”

Dell’s de Beer agrees that culture change can be nudged in the right direction by cost.

“When there are budget issues or interest rate hikes, we start pushing. We turn off our geysers. At companies, when things get tight, IT guys ask how much power they can save. But from a culture point of view, we’re just not there yet. I’m just as guilty. I don’t recycle and I’ve investigated putting in a solar geyser at my home for the last seven years and wondered about the ROI.”

June Julyan, sales director at Bateleur, says cultural attitudes are heavily influenced by knowledge – or lack of it.

“I don’t know, for example, whether leaving my cellphone charger plugged in draws power or not. You start discussing that at the office and someone will say it’s a fallacy. Someone pooh-poohs it then it gets pushed away.”

Coming changes

But despite the ad-hoc nature of most South Africans’ attitudes towards greener policies, there is at least one document pushing for more sustainability: the King III report. Sustainable IT’s Tim James says corporates are starting to take more notice.

“King III mentions corporate sustainability and it’s definitely starting to get onto the agenda of CIOs and CEOs. They’ve heard about it and they don’t know what to do about it, just that they have to tick the box. And it really is just box-ticking at this stage. But the reality is there are big cost savings. The technology has it built
in already.”

Powertime’s Ryland notes that power costs are going up by 25 percent per year for the next three years.

“If a company goes over a certain usage, they will be penalised. Perhaps we should be looking at which department uses more power.”

Norton says it comes down to gluttony.

“There’s over $140 billion worth of excess server capacity out there in the industry. That equates to a three-year supply to the industry. We’re running way more technology than we really need. Most organisations provision for the peak. Instead, they should be provisioning for the average and outsourcing the peak to the cloud.”B

Source: Paul Furber, Brainstorm Magazine, April 2011

Although based in South Africa and Australia, our services engagement model is deigned to be delivered anywhere, leveraging low carbon technology such as web and teleconferencing where appropriate.  This provides our global customers with access to a low cost, highly skilled consultancy arm, geared to deliver a sustainable computing strategy anywhere on the planet.

IT Footprinter^TM , a unique offering from sustainableIT delivers a carbon footprint of the IT service based on the globally recognised Greenhouse Gas Protocol accounting standard, thus allowing you to integrate the output with your broader CSR reporting initiatives.

IT Analyser^TM is an in-depth assessment of the IT service from procurement through to disposal of assets, based on Industry best practice and intellectual capital developed by sustainableIT.  IT Transformer^TM takes the engagement full circle to assist you in developing a sustainable computing strategy.

Services are delivered remotely but on occasion, on-site visits have been costed into the solution for our clients.

From a technology perspective we represent 1E in Africa as their distributor as well as market and support the product set.  Being part of 1E’s global sales engine, we can assist you with your requirement wherever you are located.

Contact us to learn more.

For many companies that are supposedly “going green”, changing the light bulbs is where it starts and ends and this lack of continuous commitment leads to significant energy waste and unnecessary costs.

Powering off PC’s overnight remains the number one priority for ICT departments when it comes to sustainable IT, the challenge is to make sure that the solution is enterprise ready and meets the needs of the business concerned.

Tim James, CEO of local consultancy sustainableIT, highlights that the failures of power management strategies are a direct result of the lack of understanding around the complexities and requirements of an enterprise power management solution.  “Most tools, including Active Directory, rely on operating system inactivity to place workstations into a lower power state.  The reality is that power management is not a one size fits all and a successful power management strategy relies on a combination of standby, shutdown and hibernate policies”, James states.

“We see many customers that have tried standby and hibernate strategies, using either group policy or other toolsets.  The result in that certain applications do not transition effectively into standby which often leads to issues elsewhere in the infrastructure such as application failures and database corruptions.  When IT departments realise these issues, the standby policies are immediately removed and are never revisited”, James elaborates.

Building blocks to success

A successful solution is one that requires little administrative overhead and enhances the delivery of the IT service, whilst delivering measurable savings at the same time.  James points to 5 key ingredients for a successful enterprise solution; namely accurate reporting, flexibility in shutdown approach, no end user impact, the ability to resolve PC Insomnia as well as secure wake-on-lan.

PC Insomnia

A fundamental problem with standby based solutions is that as much as 25% of the estate may not transition to a lower power state due to a phenomenon known as PC insomnia.  What happens under the covers is that certain processes keep the operating system ‘awake’ despite the fact that the machine is idle, resulting in no sleep or hibernate and wasted energy; classic insomnia.  Any PC power management solution must have the ability to address and resolve this issue or an organisation is just leaving money on the table.

Wake-on-lan

James believes the failures of wake on lan in a secure network is often mistakenly the main reason why power management is not adopted.  Without the ability to wake machines for out of hour’s maintenance, IT departments will simply not power off.  “An enterprise power management solution should provide wake on lan out of the box with no network changes required, if it doesn’t it is not worth the investment” James concludes.

As the pain of energy increases becomes more apparent, coupled with a growing requirement to reduce CO2 emissions, it remains to be seen whether IT departments start to manage their device up time in the appropriate manner.

This is according to Jean Cox-Kearns, who leads the Dell Take Back Organisation for the EMEA region.
She explains that a lot of recycling infrastructure in SA has been focused on general waste, such as plastic and paper, but not enough investment is being made in the development of infrastructure to facilitate recycling of computers, mobile phones and ink cartridges.

Cox-Kearns indicates that in SA currently lacks infrastructure to facilitate e-waste recycling. “Recycling infrastructure cannot be sustained without the volume of e-waste to encourage recyclers to set-up facilities in these countries,” she notes.

During a sustainable marketing conference recently held in Sandton, Cox-Kearns pointed out that there has been growing interest among global IT vendors to invest in e-waste recycling programmes.
Cox-Kearns indicated that more needs to be done around awareness and education programmes to incentivise business and consumers to recycle used and old electronics.

She said the problem of e-waste is a challenge that needs to be solved via public and private partnerships. “The government has asked industry to recommend a solution rather than government just implementing a solution by itself.”

“Africa is the number one continent where e-waste is being shipped in disguised as reusable equipment.
“Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria are getting an influx of e-waste and are trying to manage it. The problem is that a lot of poor families depend on informal recycling as a living. They burn old computers to try and get the copper. The IT industry as a whole needs to look for ways to bring that into a formal recycling environment, but also to protect the incomes of these families.”

“We are working with other companies and schools to facilitate open dialogue in the industry and Dell’s goal is to propose solutions to the SA government to manage e-waste and investing in recycling infrastructure.

Africa a dumping ground

Tim James, founder of SustainableIT, explains that the biggest stumbling block in the control of e-waste is poor communication. “SA, as the economic hub of Africa, should be taking the lead in terms of e-waste.

James agrees with Cox-Kearns, adding that Africa has become a dumping ground for e-waste.

“A lot of companies think that donating PCs through their social responsibility initiatives is a good way to get rid of their old equipment. The reality is that their equipment is often not fit for use for charities and disadvantaged communities and ends up on a dumping ground anyway.”

James indicates that the Waste Management Act that was promulgated in March last year does not deal with the e-waste problem effectively. He calls for more to be done from government.

Lacking legislation

Keith Anderson, chairman of the e-Waste Association of SA (eWasa), says that SA is far behind Europe in terms of e-waste legislation and does not meet the same European standards in recycling initiatives.

“In the EU, the total weight of electronic appliances dumped in 2005 was 9.3 million tonnes and the figure is growing. Our market is far smaller than that, but it’s still a problem because a lot of global companies are sending computer donations into Africa, particularly in Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya.”

Anderson explains that a more holistic solution is needed. Anderson recently visited the Nigerian government to help educate people on ways to curb e-waste. He says the government is linking to change legislation in terms of how computer donations are accepted.

“Some companies think they are doing good by donating computers, but they are actually adding to the problem.” He says a solution to this problem lies in tracking of the equipment.

eWasa is currently involved in an initiative that monitors and tracks electronic goods that are donated to charities from collection point until the end of the machine’s lifecycle where it will be safely recycled.

According to Anderson, currently there is no exact figure on the amount of e-waste that is being generated in SA nor the effect it is having on landfills and the environment. However, eWasa is currently busy with a research project to put together an e-waste estimate in SA.

eWasa defines e-waste as electronic waste that includes ICT equipment, consumer electronics and household appliances. According to the association e-waste contains both valuable and potentially hazardous materials.
According to a landmark report released this year by the United Nations Environment Programme, ‘Recycling – from e-waste to resources’, found that by 2020 in SA and China, e-waste from old computers will have jumped by 200% to 400% from 2007 levels, and by 500% in India.

Alex Kayle, IT Web 15 October 2010

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If one examines the issues we face at a macro level, we really need a 3 pronged attack to survive as a species and IT needs to play a significant role in all of these:

1.  We need lots and lots of abundant clean energy, which is affordable.

There is no doubt that moving to clean energy, be it renewables or nuclear (don’t discount this) is going to be more expensive than the cheap carbon we have today.  This however should not become a hindrance in pursuing this objective.  IT’s role in this paradigm shift, moving to a low carbon economy, will be paramount.  Smart green energy is the only way forward and technology will enable this.

2. We need to continue to pursue energy efficiency to ensure a sustainable future. 

If we assume that energy is going to get expensive, the only way to ensure sustained growth and get the majority of the world’s population out of energy poverty is to ensure that we become more efficient.  In simple terms, do more work with less energy that is more expensive.  If we fail to achieve this, we will hinder economic growth and ensure that poverty persists.  The major consequence will be that poverty stricken communities that cannot afford ‘expensive clean energy’ may pursue dirty energy strategies.  So becoming more efficient is critical and in reality underpins what IT is all about.  

The use of technology is almost always around becoming efficient.  The simple task of turning a bit on or off is actually about doing a piece of work more efficiently, be it a calculation, word processing or getting your companies books out earlier than ever before.  From a business perspective, IT is a large consumer of energy and making the service you deliver as an IT professional more energy efficient will become more and more important as the cost of energy continues to escalate.

3. We need to conserve our natural resources.

It is all well and good getting access to clean energy and becoming more efficient, however, if we don’t continue to manage, conserve and preserve our natural resources, the future of our species on the planet is questionable.  We have to continue to look after our water resources, our oceans and our natural wilderness.  These are critical to ensuring that our biome remains in balance and will ensure that water and food security do not become threats leading to conflict.  Again, the role of technology in monitoring the effects of climate change and managing these rapidly decreasing resources will become key.  Taking this further, moving to ‘birth to birth’ manufacturing processes which reutilise raw materials after usage will again be driven by advances in design driven by technology.

Business Apathy towards sustainability (and sustainable IT)

Business in many instances is still apathetic towards global warming and climate change.  The most common excuse is the responsibility to the shareholders to make money.  If we continue to hold that view, we are on a very slippery downhill slope into oblivion.  However, even if we do work within these confines, there is not a single shareholder that would not agree with efficiencies that lower costs and improve the bottom line?  You would struggle to find a shareholder that would fight against improved market perceptions of their business leading to financial growth?  Few shareholders would prevent an organisation lowering their tax liability by lowering their carbon footprint, or improve their global market competitiveness by reducing the carbon intensity of their manufactured product.

The steam train that is the ‘low carbon economy’ is actually nearing the station.  It may have already arrived and ‘green IT’ is one of the carriages.

The role for the IT Department and sustainable computing

If we accept that we are entering a paradigm shift, and that technology is going to be a key enabler moving forward, then the IT department and the role of IT is going to become more and more important.  IT is going to be the change agent to drive efficiencies in organisations.  IT will enable companies to measure where they are and build plans to make improvements.  IT will be the means whereby companies will become ‘smart’.  ‘Smart’ in respect of all aspects of the business from, logistics to facilities management, manufacturing processes to full dematrialisation of carbon intensive business processes.

The ‘smart’ CIO is the leader who is going to realize this sooner rather than later and start to lead these initiatives in the boardroom.  Never has a more telling opportunity faced IT before than what the low carbon economy brings.  The opportunity for IT in many organisations is to move up the value chain and be at the forefront of business strategy and business leadership.  The change within the next 10 years is going to be enormous and companies that will win in this new economy will be the innovators, innovation led and driven through technology.

Tim James, CEO of green IT consultancy sustainableIT says the proliferation of sustainable IT practices are becoming more apparent and getting more focus on the CIO’s agenda, however tangible action needs to happen in this untapped area for energy efficiency in the enterprise.

He says IT administrators in many organisations continue to insist that PC’s should remain on 24 hours a day to allow for out of hours management such as patching updates and virus scans.

“The reality is that this is an inefficient way of delivering the IT service, both in terms of cost and energy Power management tooling exists which allows companies to automate power downs and power ups of infrastructure, ensuring cost savings as well as facilitating IT department’s requirements.” 

The findings of a recent PC Energy Report commissioned by 1E and the Alliance to Save Energy, indicated that despite spiralling energy costs globally and the environment playing an increasing role in the corporate agenda, much further action is required by both individuals and employers.

Key statistics show that the environment is the main reason why 27% of UK workers power down their computers at the end of the workday compared to only 10% who cited this reason in the US.

If the 17 million workers in the UK who regularly use a computer turned it off at night, it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approx 1.3 million tons, the equivalent of removing 245 000 cars from the road.

James that although the research was conducted in Germany, the UK and US, the findings have as much relevance, if not more so, within the South African context. “We are still in the midst of an energy crisis and we interact with organisations on a daily basis that are leaving PCs in an idle state overnight. In some organizations we are seeing in excess of 95% of machines being left on overnight.  We are certainly less aware of our environmental impacts than UK-based employees and would have a similar profile to the report’s findings on US employees,” he says.

The report indicated that if all of the worlds 1 Billion PC’s were powered down overnight, the energy saving would be enough to power the Empire State Building in New York, inside and out for 30 years.  Put another way, the same saving in energy would power the entire South African grid for 2 days.

The simple step of powering down a PC can reduce a machine’s energy use by 80%, allowing companies to save more than R260 per desktop PC per annum.

“Powering down inactive PCs can provide a simple yet effective way for businesses to reduce overhead costs and environmental impact,” says Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy.

“The economic crisis and volatile energy prices make it even more imperative for businesses to save money by saving energy.”

A computer uses energy even when it appears to be idle. Shutting down PCs when not in use will help businesses to significantly reduce costs while preventing tons of CO2 from being emitted into our atmosphere.

“Although much focus has been placed on data centre efficiency, according to Gartner, the majority of energy is consumed in PC’s and monitors from an ICT perspective.  Organisations simply must adopt tooling to power this infrastructure down”, James concludes.

Published in Business Day,  22 July 2010