James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » 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.
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