Issue 5 October 2008
The first “R” – Reducing – requires a different way of enGaGInG sTaff
thinking. The IT department has a role to play in actively Staff need to be involved in Green IT initiatives. When
challenging software vendors to deliver products which energy usage was not an issue, it was convenient for
not only have more features, but which are demonstrably the IT department to tell users to leave their desktops
more efficient, which work with current versions of switched on 24/7 in case a remote software upgrade
dependent software, and which have guarantees of long was required. The technology now exists to switch
term support. Customer pressure does work. Microsoft on PCs remotely on demand, or to be able to resume
has been forced to extend the life of its Windows XP an interrupted software upgrade next time the PC is
product several times, most recently to support the available.
fashionable ‘micro laptops’ which find the newer power-
hungry Windows Vista too much of an overhead
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. Staff can be encouraged to turn off PCs, not just at
night but also when they go to a meeting or lunch.
For software developed in-house by corporate IT, robust Technology can help the forgetful: software can turn
efficiency standards have to be applied throughout PCs off automatically – for instance, when the building is
the software lifecycle, with ‘sustainability’ added to closed and the PC is not performing a critical operation
the traditional acceptance criteria such as availability, – and then switch them on again in the morning just
reliability, scalability, etc. In particular, ‘performance as people arrive in the office
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. At the most trivial level,
testing’ cannot be left to the end of the development using blank screens instead of animated screen savers
lifecycle, when delivery pressure is likely to be greatest. can save tens of thousands of pounds per year in a
This new development approach will appear to drive up large corporation
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.
the delivery cost of projects, so accounting practices
will need to change to reflect lifetime costs. At least one Longer term, the sheer size of the desktop estate
IT department in the financial services sector is now represents an even greater opportunity for waste
charging business departments based on the power reduction. In large companies, there is more computing
consumption of the applications they use
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. power spread around desktops than there is in the
data centres. Over a working week, the typical desktop
CTOs also need to explain to their customers how they PC uses only a few percent of its potential capacity.
can tailor their requirements to minimise environmental Projects such as the IBM funded World Community
impact. On the positive side, they can show how IT Grid are now trying to make this capacity available
can be the enabler for a much broader set of green for useful work. It is argued that if corporate IT could
business processes: in the supply chain, workforce actually use all the computing power currently installed
management, collaboration, facilities, and so on. in a typical company, then it would not need to buy any
Leading UK supermarket Tesco estimates that using IT new hardware for a decade.
to “green” the business could help cut its 4.1m tonne
carbon footprint by 20%
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.
6 | Perspectives on the future
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