Green IT: IT won’t cost the earth
of corporate data centres, but also came up with many
proposals for addressing the issues, ranging from simple
Graphics cards capable of running the ’Aero’
housekeeping activities, through to setting industry
technology in Microsoft’s latest Vista operating
standard targets, and achieving improvements by using
system are equal in computing power to the IBM
new technologies (such as virtualisation) to drive up the
Deep Blue computer that beat Garry Kasparov at
usage of existing equipment.
chess in the 1990s
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‘ThrowInG hardware aT IT’ Such is the pace of consumer-driven technology that
However, IT will fight a losing battle as long as demand the life of a PC is determined not by when the hardware
for computing power continues to rise. In the past, there wears out, but by its ability to run the next version of
has been little financial incentive for organisations to use Microsoft Windows. Premature replacement of hardware
computing power efficiently, as power has increased has a double impact on the environment. Kilo for kilo,
significantly with little increase in real cost. Many a manufacturing computer equipment is ten times more
problem has been solved simply by “throwing hardware wasteful than the comparable figures for a car. At the
at it”. For example, many of today’s highly available end of its life, much of this equipment ends up in third
business web sites rely on tier upon tier of servers to world countries for disposal, with a damaging impact
provide the security, scalability, reliability, and disaster- on some of the world’s poorest and most marginalised
proofing demanded by business customers. communities
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The demand for hardware is also driven by the software
Research by the UN showed that the construction
it runs. Software becomes more complicated as it has to
of an average computer and monitor requires at
cope with new business processes, mergers, acquisitions
least 240 kilograms of fossil fuel, 22 kilograms of
and increasingly diverse global requirements. There is no
chemicals and 1,500 kilograms of water – or 1.8
business case to spend man-hours of development effort
tons in total, the weight of a rhinoceros or sports
making a program run efficiently if it’s cheaper to invest in
utility vehicle
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hardware. Similarly, if project funding is running out, then
it’s easy to drop ‘the bit at the end’ – decommissioning
the old system. reduce, reuse, recycle
IT suppliers have jumped enthusiastically on the green
PreMaTure obsolescence bandwagon, offering a huge range of green PCs, green
Business systems design has also been greatly influenced servers and green multi-function devices (all-in-one printers,
by the explosion in the use of personal computers at home. faxes, copiers, etc). However, environmentalists have long
People’s expectation of what systems should be like at drummed home the mantra of “reduce, reuse, recycle”
work are driven by their experience at home. Unfortunately, – in that order. The environmental cost of manufacturing
elaborate life-like graphic effects and big colourful screens new IT equipment and the costs of disposal of old kit are
require increasingly powerful computers. so high that “replace” is never a green option.
Perspectives on the future | 5
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