Environmental group Global Action Plan has called on the Government to create a £1 billion IT stimulus package to create smarter, more environmentally efficient, higher quality public services.
Through its partnership with the Society for Information Technology Management (Socitm) and Logicalis UK, the organisation is pursuing the objective in association with a consortium of diverse and influential groups.
The proposed stimulus package could fund IT projects that deliver financial efficiency, carbon reduction, public service improvement or expansion, as well as to:
Stimulate public bodies to think differently and creatively, including looking at opportunities for collaboration and shared services;
Support attainment of the UK government’s international environmental commitments;
Prioritise projects that can demonstrate highest return on the three key objectives; and
Support projects that are locally conceived and delivered.
Trewin Restorick, CEO of Global Action Plan, warned the Government’s response to the current financial crisis will leave the public sector with less money, at the same time as a commitment to reduce global warming will require major changes.
“Future generations will have less money to deliver services,” Restorick said. “Bizarrely, this comes with a climate change strategy which is world-leading.”
He continued, “There’s a legally binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. Under these two pressures, financial and carbon, business as usual is not an option.”
From 2010, companies and public sector organisations will feel the pinch directly from the government’s carbon reduction legislation. The cash-neutral law will penalise those lower down the table of polluters, and reward those higher up, according to Global Action Plan.
“Central Government has been failing in its efforts to reduce carbon emissions, with the Sustainable Development Commission reporting that its emissions actually went up by three per cent last year, and IT was a major part of this increase,” Restorick said.
Local government, on the other hand, has huge opportunities through sharing services and collaboration, according to Global Action Plan. The proposed stimulus package would address one barrier to this — a lack of capital — but other issues remain, including the difficulty of accessing IT knowledge to design projects without breaking EC rules on procurement, and the privacy issues involved in sharing data between departments.
Andrew Miller MP said IT-based efficiency moves such as remote working or teleworking would require big changes, but must happen locally.
“It’s about big issues that stretch across the world, and about things you can do locally,” Miller said. “You can think that the problem is too big, but everyone can do something and every one of us should. The cost of every local authority is going up and up. The productivity gains that we can produce by improving sharing of services are massive.”
Ewen Anderson, managing director of the IT consultancy Centralis, responded, “IT strategy, like government policy, only really works when it is joined up. Investment in IT which fails to take advantage of the opportunity offered by virtualisation, standardisation and shared services to deliver both operational and environmental benefits is neither strategic nor green. An effective strategy considers energy use and resulting carbon emission as part of an overall strategy to reduce costs and increase efficiency.”
Anderson continued, “While the climate change agenda is too important to be seen as just a side benefit, it has to take its place alongside commitments to deliver flexible working, business continuity in the face of global threats such as swine flu and ever more emphasis on compliance regulation and cost savings.”
Wyse installed more than 1,000 zero clients in schools in Vestby municipality, Norway. The new infrastructure replaces 650 PCs previously used in the schools and helps reduce power consumption.
Vestby local authorities last year decided to invest £500,000 in new IT infrastructure. This investment was aimed at both widening access to high-quality IT for learning and reducing maintenance costs, freeing up budget to invest elsewhere.
“The Wyse solution provides each student with a unique personal profile, allowing them to access specific applications and course work online,” said Lars Peter Lilleng, ICT manager for education and a teacher in Vestby. “It also allows them to access their profile from home, making home work more productive.”
Lilleng added, “the project has had a great environmental impact as well. In a recent review of power consumption for the municipality’s schools, it was estimated that the switch to thin computing has delivered an 80-per cent reduction in power usage and cut the annual power costs by over £17,500.”
“This roll out in Norway is part of an ever growing trend in the education sector,” said David Angwin, director of marketing for EMEA at Wyse. “As education evolves to meet the needs of today’s students, the technology involved has to evolve as well.”
A new study from Symantec Corp. finds that senior-level IT executives are interested in green IT strategies not just for cost savings, but because they have a growing awareness of the importance of improving their organisations’ environmental standing.
Symantec’s 2009 Green IT Report finds that 97 per cent of respondents say they are at least discussing a green IT strategy, while 45 per cent have already implemented green IT initiatives. They cite key drivers as reducing electricity consumption (90 per cent), reducing cooling costs (87 per cent), and corporate pressure to be “green” (86 per cent). Furthermore, 83 per cent of respondents are now responsible or cross-charged for the electricity consumed in the data centre — bringing visibility and accountability to bear on the ultimate consumer of these resources.
IT executives also reported a significant increase in green IT budgets. Seventy-three per cent said they expected an increase in green IT budgets over the next 12 months, with 19 per cent anticipating budget increases of more than 10 per cent. The typical respondent reported spending $21 million to $27 million on data centre electricity.
At the same time, IT decision-makers say they are willing to pay a premium for energy-efficient products. Two-thirds of respondents said they would pay at least 10 per cent more, while 41 per cent are willing to pay at least 20 per cent more. Additionally, 89 per cent of respondents said IT product efficiency is either important or very important.
Andrew Harrison, a green IT expert at Symantec, notes that interest in energy-efficient technology even though many data centre professionals aren’t yet looking ahead to the Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme, which comes into effect in April 2010.
“At this moment there still seems to be fairly low levels of awareness of this carbon reduction commitment and what it means for businesses — not only in terms of IT but across all departments,” Harrison said. “Having said this, a lot of change and action will be driven from within the IT department as they have a big role to play in reducing their organisation’s carbon footprint.”
Harrison continued, “While they can therefore be considered as part of the “problem,” they are also very much part of the solution and some IT organisations are taking a definite lead, following EU advice and looking at ways in which they can be part of a wider solution for organisations. Most of these organisations have adopted government’s initiatives and are taking steps to implement these over the next few months.”
Rather than discouraging investments in green IT, the current recession is actually a motivator, the Symantec study finds.
“The reasons for this is straightforward — green IT is about reducing waste,” Harrison said. “Wasting energy, wasting space and wasting materials, for example, are all costing companies money and therefore, by doing away with this waste, companies are actually saving. Organisations are now starting to realise the benefits that green IT can make to their bottom line and, by adopting green IT strategies, they can reduce power consumption and other unnecessary spending, while also achieving the benefits of being seen as “green.”
IBM is making up to $3 billion (US) available to finance IT initiatives in key economic stimulus projects in Europe and Asia-Pacific through IBM Global Financing, the company’s lending and leasing business segment. Of that amount, $2 billion is earmarked for European projects.
The financing aims to help organisations still awaiting government funds move ahead with IT projects to build a 21st century technological and environmental infrastructure.
The new funding is in addition to $2 billion offered by IBM last month to help jump-start US economic stimulus programmes.
“There is a great connectivity among nations,: said John Callies, general manager of IBM Global Financing. “While the various stimulus packages in different countries were designed to keep their own economies on track, it is as joined economies that we can rise from this global downturn together. In this context, IBM Global Financing is extending its stimulus financing program to countries in Europe and Asia-Pacific to help global recovery.”
IBM has already been helping enterprises and local governments in these areas build their infrastructures to spur growth in key IT projects such as smart grid, health information technology and smart transportation. The financing will be targeted to companies and organisations in countries where government funds have been committed to help economic stimulus, create new industries and enable infrastructure improvements.
“The recession is going to drive many organisations, public and private, to make transformational changes in their IT environment,” said David Mitchell, senior vice president of Ovum, a UK-based IT research firm. “However, without access to the correct financing offerings, a significant set of opportunities will be lost and society-wide projects, like smart grid, will be substantially delayed.”
IBM has been actively involved in smart technology investments. In Denmark, for example, it has teamed with DONG Energy to implement an intelligent utility network. It’s also entered into agreement with three cities in Spain aiming to become smart cities.
Axminster Tool Centre, a family-run business located in Axminster, Devon, has reduced its energy consumption by 30 per cent and cut its energy costs with the help of IBM and Apex.
A mail-order tools and machinery business, Axminster Tools Centre has grown considerably over the past 30 years. That growth has made it crucial for its IT infrastructure to be managed effectively for a smooth-running operation and to cope with its high demand in online sales.
“Due to the deployment of too many servers, Axminster Tool Centre was experiencing an overcrowded data centre, causing serious performance issues,” said Stuart Bulley, services director at Apex, an IBM Premier Business Partner. “Not only were the servers underperforming but they were underutilised, meaning costs were increasing and orders were taking a long time from placement to fulfillment.”
Apex proposed that Axminster Tool Centre virtualise its server needs to gain better management, improved resilience and more efficient use of power.
“By deploying an IBM server and installing virtualisation software, Axminster Tool Centre has taken steps to consolidate its IT infrastructure, become a greener company and open itself to new business opportunities,” said Helena Williams, mid market director for IBM UK and Ireland.
“We can cope easily with new projects now,” said Andrew Parkhouse, systems director for Axminster Tool Centre. “We no longer need to deploy yet another new server. We just need to go and buy the software. New applications take minutes, not weeks, to implement. Not only have we hugely reduced the space needed for servers, but we have tons of capacity for future needs. We’ve got so many plans now for what we can do with the business.”
Despite winning plaudits for their internal sustainability achievements, Europe’s top telecom operators aren’t providing their customers with a compelling range of sustainable telecom offerings, according to new research from Verdantix.
The analyst firm reached that conclusion after comparing the internal sustainability strategies with the market-facing products and servcies of AT&T, BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, TeliaSonera, Verizon and Vodafone.
“Among Europe’s leading telecoms operators only Orange stands out as a firm that has made deep and broad commitments to launch innovative sustainability offerings for their customers,” said David Metcalfe, a veteran of the telecom industry and director of Verdantix. “BT and Deutsche Telekom have impressive sustainability programmes for their internal operations addressing issues like energy efficiency, fleet fuel consumption and carbon reductions. But there is little evidence that Europe’s telcos as a whole make meaningful contributions to their customers’ sustainability goals.”
Verdantix assessed the telcos on 53 criteria using its proprietary Green Quadrant® methodology, which places the operators into three categories:
Leaders — Due to its Board-level commitment to investing in sustainability solutions, proven customer successes and sustainability-focused extensions to existing offerings, Orange is the only operator in the Leaders’ quadrant. Its internal sustainability performance is sufficient to satisfy customers’ environmental procurement criteria, which are now a standard requirement across the market;
Potential leaders — Four firms could play a leadership role in 2010, Verdantix finds. BT, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and Vodafone have long-standing strategic commitments to internal sustainability initiatives spanning data centre energy efficiency, carbon reductions and fleet fuel efficiency. To improve their competitive positioning, these firms need to leverage in-house sustainability expertise to offer customers a better range of sustainability products and services;
Laggards — Companies in this category need to clarify their sustainability strategies. AT&T, Telecom Italia, TeliaSonera and Verizon lag behind their European peers’ internal sustainability programmes and customer-facing sustainability offerings. These operators need to upgrade their sustainability management teams, apply a sustainability lens to initiatives like energy efficiency and make public commitments on CO2 reductions.
“Telecoms operators have made a huge miscalculation about the issues that interest their customers with respect to sustainability programmes,” Metcalfe said. “What interests customers is a broad range of innovative sustainability solutions that help them to reduce their energy costs, cut emissions from air travel and migrate to low-carbon operations. Customers are not really interested in the detail of telcos’ own CO2 reduction plans, the completeness of CSR reporting, charity sponsorships and the introduction of fuel efficient fleets. Customers plan to spend money with solutions innovators not with the best corporate citizens.”
The British Computer Society (BCS) has launched new three-day certification course for professionals seeking to understand best practices in green information technology.
“Organisations need to know how to comply with ever-tightening legislation, how they can create significant cost-efficiencies, and how to balance the internal and external economic drivers they face,” said Pete Bayley, BCS qualifications director. “We’re confident that individuals who complete this qualification will be able to develop a strategy that will bring significant benefit to their business.”
The qualification will provide an understanding of the regulations, legislation and policies, carbon energy accounting and how to create a green IT strategy. It will also cover business benefits; end-to-end costing; emissions and energy efficiencies; procurement, lifecycle and disposal planning; and managing stakeholder relationships and behaviours.
“We are launching this qualification in response to demand from businesses across the UK which want to develop IT strategies,” Bayley said. “The qualification has been developed by experts in the field and it offers an independent and unique opportunity for professionals from across business to gain a greater understanding of how to develop best practice in green IT.”
The qualification will launch with a three month pilot period in the UK, before becoming widely available across the globe. It will be followed later this year by a second qualification: Practitioner Certificate for Data Centre Operators. This will provide understanding of the EU Code of Conduct for data centre operators.
UK virtualisation specialist Intercept plans to host a Green Government Computing event next week to help public-sector technology leaders learn how to improve IT efficiencies while measuring environmental impact.
Scheduled for 19 May at the Marriott County Hall, London, the event will focus on the widespread adoption of practical technology that offers Government departments both financial and environmental savings. It is targeting public-sector IT departments as many do not have the resources and specialist skills to manage and implement virtualisation.
Richard Gilder, chief executive at Intercept, says the public sector can learn from peers in local government about how to improve service and delivery while reducing costs through virtualisation.
“Many organisations are intimidated by the challenge of implementing new software such as virtualisation,” Gilder said. “We are delighted to stage this event as it’s vital the public sector has an opportunity to learn how new software and technology can add value for their citizens and local communities.”
Keith Clark, head of business improvement at Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and keynote speaker at the event, says the results achieved through virtualisation are too good to ignore.
“Virtualisation has been hugely positive for our organisation,” Clark said. “We have reduced our energy bill by a staggering 44 per cent and predicted a saving of around £1.7 million on projects during a three-year period. Our citizens are benefiting from virtualisation right now. Council workers are freed from their desks, information is secure and always available, and consolidation through smarter solutions create a greener, more flexible working environment creating leaders in government computing.”
Other speakers set to attend the event are Iain Berry, server manager at Bracknell Forest Borough Council, and Jason Mason, infrastructure manager and customer support at Basildon Council.
An independent survey of senior data centre professionals from across Europe carried out on behalf of Digital Realty Trust has revealed heightened concerns about government regulation in the European data centre industry.
The survey, conducted by Campos Research, found that nearly 70 per cent of companies said they are extremely concerned or very concerned with the potential impact of green regulations on data centres. It also found that 60 per cent of companies surveyed already have green data centre strategies in place.
“This survey clearly shows that there is a high level of concern about the impact of green regulations on data centre facilities,” said Jim Smith, CTO of Digital Realty Trust. “While the new Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) regulations in the EU address a number of questions about the new rules, new concerns about how companies will achieve compliance have arisen. That uncertainty is reflected in these results in terms of how the new rules will impact operations, finance and customer relations.”
The survey questioned high-level employees at companies with either €500 million in annual revenues or more than 2,500 employees. Firms in the survey also had to be responsible for managing a data centre, implementing a new data centre, executing contracts for a new data centre or expanding existing data centres.
Other findings from the study included:
57 per cent of respondents felt there was now a clear definition of what constitutes a green data centre;
Energy efficiency is viewed as the key criteria for a green data centre;
While many respondents mentioned a green strategy as a factor in choosing a data centre provider, no company emerged as a green leader in the survey;
Among companies that have a green data centre strategy, the qualities they seek include knowledge of current regulations and emerging green standards, experience building facilities with LEED or BREEAM certification, the ability to meet ISO 14001 and Green Grid standards; and
55 per cent of respondents said they would reject a data centre provider with no green strategy.
While energy efficiency was seen as the dominant characteristic of a green data centre, recycled materials, carbon issues and transportation were nearly equally important to those surveyed, who also included targeted cooling, efficient UPS and metering equipment on their “wish list.”
Companies that have already adopted a green strategy said the most important goal of their strategy was to reduce energy costs, although other benefits — climate change, customer image, cost of compliance and updating data centres — were also important. Despite the challenges facing the global economy, 58 per cent of respondents had increased their focus on green initiatives and 69 per cent said carbon credits were part of their strategy.
NetApp has been named to the Global Green 100 List for 2009 by the Uptime Institute, a research-based think-tank and corporate advisory on business and technology issues related to critical computing environment reliability and energy efficiency.
The Global Green 100 List was established to provide global recognition to companies that demonstrate an integral commitment to and progress toward reducing their energy consumption and carbon footprint. Companies making this year’s list were named during the Green Enterprise IT Awards ceremony last month.
NetApp creates cost-efficient storage and data management solutions for businesses.
Visit the Uptime Institute to view the complete list of Global Green 100 companies.
Environmental group Global Action Plan has called on the Government to create a £1 billion IT stimulus package to create smarter, more environmentally efficient, higher quality public services.
Thin computing firm Wyse Technology is helping schools in Norway 
IBM is making 
Axminster Tool Centre, a family-run business located in Axminster, Devon, has reduced its energy consumption by 30 per cent and cut its energy costs with the help of IBM and Apex.
The British Computer Society (BCS) has launched new three-day certification course for professionals seeking to understand best practices in 
UK virtualisation specialist Intercept plans to host a 
NetApp has been named to the