The airline industry, car owners, and big business are all commonly blamed for causing climate change. But you don't see many scathing headlines about the IT sector killing off the polar bears, or protestors gathered outside a business demanding that they cool their data centres more efficiently.
IT-related emissions have for the most part evaded the spotlight, although they now account for a significant percentage of global carbon emissions with estimates generally ranging from two to three percent, hovering very closely to those of the climate change poster child, aviation.
At Global Action Plan we work with businesses every day to help them lighten their environmental impact and save money, and we’ve noticed an increasing need for guidance with IT systems and operations. Many IT departments never even see the company energy bill and are unaware of the level of emissions their data centres and office equipment are churning out.
To help support businesses in this area we are leading the UK’s first end user green IT board which will be supported by our newly appointed green IT manager.
Chaired by our director Trewin Restorick and sponsored by Logicalis, the Environmental IT Leadership Team aims to create an independent expert user group focused on exploring and publishing best practice sustainable IT strategies. While there have been other groups driven from the manufacturer side, this is the first from user perspective.
An interesting mix of organisations and businesses sit on the board, including Sony UK, the British Medical Association, E.ON UK, Lloyds TSB, CQS, the University of Cumbria and John Lewis Partnership. This variety illustrates just how pervasive and important IT is today in reducing carbon emissions.
The board will act to share knowledge within the group and wider business community and will look at policy issues, engage with government, and particularly examine ways to overcome some seemingly contradictory policy such as storing data for long periods of time whilst keeping energy use down.
Many companies are bombarded with information and confused about what is best solution for them. This board will help with independent analysis, breaking down techy and political jargon to give clear advice on best practice.
Acting almost like a select committee the board will have the opportunity to question political, industry, technology, and expert guests at its meetings.
One of the first aims for the group is to steer a research project that will be conducted by Global Action Plan. This report will be launched at an event at the House of Commons in the autumn with the backing of Peter Ainsworth MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
This research will contain two main parts: 1) Establishing the carbon footprint of IT in the UK from equipment and the energy consumed, including indirect footprint of using equipment such as the air conditioning needed to keep it cool. 2) A survey of how companies are approaching greening their IT and where they are at the moment in this process. For example, do they have a 'switch off' policy at night? Are they experiencing rapid growth in their data storage?
While there is much to be done to improve the efficiency of IT, it is important to stress how technology can greatly help businesses reduce their emissions. At GAP we've seen many businesses benefit from so-called 'intelligent building' features such as motion detection powered lighting, grey water collection systems, and smart thermostats that keep buildings at a comfortable but energy efficient temperature. Not to mention video and phone conferencing reducing the need for business travel.
But most important is the behaviour of the people in the businesses who are using all this technology. A business can have the most efficient technology around, but if the employees don't use it in a sustainable way its efficiency is greatly reduced. At GAP we know every employee can make a difference by taking simple actions such as switching off their monitors when away from their desks, turning off computers at the end of the day, and only printing documents when absolutely necessary.
Stay tuned for further developments on the IT leadership board and Global Action Plan's upcoming green IT research.
Amy Sims is Communications Manager at environmental charity Global Action Plan
