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New Directions In Green Computing

By Tim Watkins-Idle

Tim Watkins-Idle, Senior Administrator at Lasa, went to the 2011 Green Computing Expo to find out what’s on the green technology agenda this year.

Green technology in context

The 2007 report by Gartner estimated that the environmental impact of computing is 2% of global carbon emissions - broadly similar to the airline industry. Since then, the environmental impact of the worldwide computer industry continues to grow and have a major impact upon the earth’s changing climate. Also, the extraction of minerals needed by the industry continues to add to the corruption and destabilisation of some of the areas, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they are mined. So, how is the industry reacting?

The Green Computing Expo, held at the Westminster Central Hall in London, attracted about 300 people, mostly from larger organisations and local authorities. About 20 organisations exhibited at the event, offering printing, cloud computing, equipment disposal and consultancy services.

Drivers – and driving

A common theme, expressed with a variety of different terminology, was that there are two (occasionally three) strands to green ICT:

• making the technology itself greener, for example, more efficient server utilisation using virtualisation
• using IT to do things in a greener way, like using a vehicle satnav to choose, in real time, the most fuel-efficient route to take.

The occasional third strand is when an opportunity arises for ICT to do something green which would simply be impossible otherwise - modern car share schemes like Zipcar are an example.

Usually, the main driver for green IT is the simple one of cutting energy costs. These are already at historically high levels, and are set to continue to rise. Another can be a push from suppliers and customers to be greener and more transparent, and a third is the near certainty of increased government regulation. Australia, for example, has just instituted a carbon tax, at a rate of AU$23 (currently around 15.50 GDP) per ton.

Progress – or regress?

The opening speaker from Gartner stated that, according to their research, a lot of organisations and IT departments have actually gone backwards regarding this issue over the last year, and that IT has not been very engaged. This is probably due to difficult economic times, but he noted that actually this is quite irrational, as spending a small amount now to save a lot in energy bills in the medium term is much more cost-effective.

The wider green and ethical agenda has definitely suffered; trying to cut out toxic substances from manufacturing has no effect on the headline carbon footprint numbers, and is expensive. Therefore, despite some initiatives by smaller suppliers, there has not been significant progress in recent years.

Several speakers noted that most CIO’s (chief information officers) do not know how much electricity their IT is consuming. There is a strong correlation between responsibility for the electricity bill and activity to cut costs!

Measure for measure

Green IT is an immature market, so expect more mergers and takeovers as time goes by. Also, the measurement of carbon footprints is at an early stage in its development, and this was shown by some very dubious statistics being bandied around. Despite this, several speakers urged us to measure as much as we can. “The more you measure, the more you can manage” was one phrase, and they expressed confidence that the methodologies will improve and catch up with technical developments.

In particular, for carbon footprint calculations to have meaning, they must include numbers from the supply chain. For example, if you have your servers in-house, they use a lot of electricity, and there is a substantial carbon footprint. If you put your servers in the cloud, the electricity is no longer consumed in-house, and the footprint magically disappears!

Clearly, there may well be some significant carbon savings by using cloud solutions, but it is a very new area of activity, and there is as yet no consensus on the figures.

Powering down

Desktop PC power management software can save significant sums by powering down monitors and hard drives when they’re not in use, although apparently much of the saving is based on the assumption that many PC’s are left on all light and at weekends. Most of its functionality can be done in the power settings in Windows, but software such as this can be installed centrally, and will allow exceptions by integrating with active directory.

Laser printers have the highest power consumption of any individual device, as well as emitting fumes, and several exhibitors offered management solutions to help reduce printing, and one company (Riso) promoted their high speed (130 pages per minute) inkjet printing technology.

Proper disposal of old kit, a legal obligation under the WEEE regulations (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) really shouldn’t be a problem - there were several organisations at the Expo offering to take all equipment for free, and they’d re-use what they could and recycle the rest, and all took pains to reassure us that data destruction was very thorough indeed.

Green building management

In terms of using IT to make the organisation greener, the next big thing is premises management. In the same way as telephone technology has converged with IT, the management of buildings is set to do over the next decade. This will cover heating systems, door controls, security systems, electricity, gas and water metering and a rather esoteric practice called voltage optimisation which, once the kit is installed, routinely saves 5% of electricity consumption in medium sized and large premises.

The green board

In order for green technology - or green anything - to be a serious organisational priority, it needs to become part of governance rather than just management. A possible framework for larger organisations, particularly ones working internationally, has been set up by the United Nations and smaller organisations may come across it if large organisations push for their suppliers to follow it.

I end with a quote from one of the speakers “If you think you are done (in terms of greening ICT) you haven’t understood the challenge!”