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Green IT

Posted by Judith on November 28, 2007 4:11 PM | 

Waterstons' technical director Andrew Kershaw talks about how IT can make a positive impact on the environment around us...

With climate change becoming a reality the importance of operating in an energy efficient way is becoming increasingly accepted. Up until recently energy efficiency in IT meant how long would your laptop battery last whilst away from the office. This attitude is clearly changing and leaders are starting to emerge to demonstrate what is possible. Two key areas in which IT can make a difference are reducing power consumption, and enabling flexible working.

IT globally is a major consumer of power. A recent study suggested that worldwide server infrastructure alone consumes 1.2% of global power usage. Typically half of this power is consumed by auxiliary items like power conversion and cooling. Cooling is a massive problem for IT infrastructure, so represents a good place to start making improvements. Are you reading this in heated space, but have air-conditioning running 24 hours a day in your computer room?

Alternative technologies exist, but it is accepted that they are currently not as widely available or as easy to implement as air-conditioning. BT as part of their 21st Century Network (21CN) project have invested in technology to replace traditional air-conditioning with fresh air cooling, yielding substantial benefits.

Another new technology which can impact power consumption is Virtualisation. This can be used to reduce considerably the number of servers you need to operate your business, a 10:1 reduction target is not unachievable in most cases. Clearly one server will consume significantly less energy than ten.

However, all of these benefits might be eclipsed by the steady advancement of the communication revolution, in particular by reducing the number of trips to the office or to meet with each other. Technology is facilitating this. It is now possible at negligible cost to use the internet to hold a multi-participant meeting, where each participant is in a different location. For a little further investment each participant can provide and receive a video feed showing the other participants. It is possible for remote workers to operate all the systems available on their work network when at home. Is the experience the same as coming into the office? No it is not. Does it require a trusting employer? Probably it does. But is it worth embracing? That is up to you.

Comments (3)

Carol Hodgson wrote...

I agree with Andrew that IT can positively impact in terms of reducing a businesses carbon footprint. As an event management company CEM increasingly promote and manage events via emarketing and online booking rather than via the traditional paper booking forms.

Technology allows us to communicate with anyone at anytime, in any part of the world, which opens up a whole raft of opportunities for small SME's. For example CEM worked with the Spanish company responsible for organising the Sevi Trophy to develop some aspects of the event at Wynyard. Business was conducted successfully by email and video conferencing with limited face to face meetings.

We are also exploring the potential for holding virtual conferences,an extention of the video conferencing concept.

The forthcoming Energy and Environment Fair www.energyandenvironmentfair.co.uk is a good example of non paper marketing and event management, however, as networking is a main benefit of the event for both delegates and exhibitors we have not gone down the video conferencing route in this case.

The key of course is to resist 'printing out' the security of paper copy is sometimes hard to resist. While I I do not believe that IT can replace face to face contact with regard to client relationships, it is true to say that developing IT and communications technology make it possible for every day aspects of our business to be conducted from home or office to virtually anywhere in the world without increasing our carbon footprint.

Posted by: Carol Hodgson  | November 29, 2007 1:59 PM

James Burke wrote...

How green in Web 2.0!?

Web 2.0 has the potential to be a liberating development of applications and services delivered over a wide range of increasingly convergent devices, but how “green” in Web 2.0!?

Web 2.0’s success has been reliant on ever increasing bandwidth at ever decreasing price that provides the basic infrastructure for delivering a range of innovative services.

However, this infrastructure needs good old electricity to power the servers and further energy to power the air conditioning units to cools the sometimes inefficient servers down so that they can operate at their optimum.

As we start to rely more and more on Web 2.0 services the increase in server farms within data centres places an increasing burdon on our energy supplies compounded by how we now access these web based services in the workplace and office:
• Increase in WiFi hubs, routers and hotspots that are always on
• Increase in laptops with WiFi (usually always on)
• Increase in multi radio phones to cater for Bluetooth, GSM, 3G and WiFi
• Increase in WiFi enabled PDAs
• Increase in music and video streaming to TV via WiFi etc.

Although some Web 2.0 services are definitely helping in reducing carbon footprint in terms of lessening unnecessary travel through ICT’s such as desktop video conferencing they are also increasing the footprint due to consumer demand for “always on” connectivity and service.

Posted by: James Burke  | December 1, 2007 10:53 PM

Andrew Kershaw wrote...

Re: How green is Web 2.0

You raise a good point James. The steady rise of communications does come with a cost. However, the argument can work both ways. The BT 21CN project demonstrates how convergence in technologies (running voice and data communications over a single shared infrastructure) facilitates a slimmed communications infrastructure which operates much more efficiently. This is a trend which is taking place worldwide and is innovation driven through a desire to be able to offer services such as web 2.0.

Posted by: Andrew Kershaw  | December 3, 2007 5:48 PM

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