Green Technology Best Practices: What are your 3 tips for reducing your carbon footprint?

Great comments everyone. #1--measure, report and share with everyone company's energy and carbon performance and lead regular meetings to address improvements and negative changes. #2--pragmatically review the entire operation of the main energy uses/carbon creators and find holistic solutions that meet the business need while reducing energy/carbon use (example: in data centers today, we don't use any mechanical refrigeration & servers automatically turn off when underused; 3) truly look a the needs of the business and address combined solutions to reduce carbon and support the business, i.e. re-think how to support the business with reduced carbon strategies that also improve the bottom-line (e.g.: coffee mugs for every employee instead of disposable cups, duplex printing, charge back of all energy, printing and other costs to every department, etc.)

1-In technology upgrade or modernization projects, take the time to research Green IT alternatives and emerging technology options.

2-Include Green initiative payback and ROI in your comparison of IT initiative options.

3-Solicit insights from your current set of trusted IT vendors about how their products are Green ready.

From a Green IT perspective, three important ways to reduce your carbon footprint are:

1) Extend the usable life of your equipment. The largest energy expenditure is in the actual manufacture of the equipment. If you have equipment that’s usable or refurbish-able that you no longer want, re-sell it or donate it. Likewise, if you need to purchase equipment that doesn’t need to be the latest and the greatest, consider purchasing quality, waranteed, refurbished equipment.

2) Power off any and all equipment not in use. Lower sleep times for idle machines. Consider using timed power-strips that shut down everything on the strip at a particular time or interval.

3) Virtualize, virtualize, virtualize. Make sure you have a coherent virtualization strategy in mind and when you’ve successfully made the transition, turn the old equipment off, and redeploy it, sell it or donate it. Do not put it into a closet thinking you may need it someday. If truly nobody can use it, contact an e-Stewards certified recycler to ensure that it won’t be incinerated or dumped in a landfill or shipped abroad.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is the fastest growing segment of electricity consumption and one of the world’s largest industries. With a total carbon footprint at least as large as the global aviation industry, ICT is an important element in any program of carbon emissions reduction – personal or institutional.

In an average commercial office building ICT represents a quarter to a third of power consumption. In energy-efficient buildings with a high density of ICT equipment, it can be 70-80% of all power use. However, for the equipment most of us use every day such as PC’s, laptops and mobile phones, the biggest part of the total carbon footprint is “embedded”. For devices with short lives, 60-80% of their lifecycle carbon footprint is from manufacturing and distribution, not from power consumption during use.

So, what are the 3 best things to do to reduce carbon emissions from ICT?

1) Extend the useful life of every device.

Whether it is used by you or your organization, extending the life of ICT equipment is the single most important step toward reducing lifecycle carbon emissions. It also is financially efficient and reduces the rapidly growing stream of hazardous e-waste that has to be managed. Life extension can be achieved through upgrades, re-use and by design in purchasing decisions.

2) Turn off, turn down or unplug devices not in use.

While individual PC’s, printers, monitors and mobile phone chargers don’t use much power, in aggregate they use a lot. In the USA 10% of baseload electricity consumption is from AC/DC power converters. At least half of the power they use is completely wasted and burned off as heat. PC’s, printers, and other devices left on while not in use have a similarly wasteful profile. Power consumption management doesn’t generally require new technology, just new practices.

3) Buy eco-certified equipment.

Carbon labels for individual products are in the process of development by various entities around the world. In the meantime, standards such as EPEAT, Energy Star, Blue Angel, and TCO measure energy-efficiency and other sustainability attributes for ICT products. These standards are well-established and can be used to guide purchasing decisions. Buying green not only reduces the carbon footprint for you and your organization, it also sends a strong signal to the manufacturers that sustainable, reduced carbon emissions products are important to buyers.

These three actions are simple in concept, but difficult in execution. They require changing engrained habits and practices. Most people want the latest gadgets and don’t want to be bothered with worrying about managing power consumption. Price and the “cool factor”, not eco-labels, usually drive purchasing decisions. However, whether it’s for you individually or a large institution, reducing carbon emissions and creating more sustainable models for human consumption is possible. It just means making changes, and the ICT gear we use is a good place to start.

From a corporate standpoint, the 3 suggestions I have are as follows:

1. For small or large data centers, frequently perform server audits to determine if equipment has become obsolete. Are there applications that are no longer in use, only needed sporadically (say, end of a quarter or end of year)? Are there entire servers that are no longer used or used sporadically? It's so easy to turn them off!

2. Make sure that you are measuring consumption, identifying trends, responding to spikes, etc. It's easy to set things up once and never look again, but monitoring devices (of both software and hardware) are also easy to come by, so make sure you're using tools that fit your business. One way to ensure better compliance with monitoring and then taking action, is to have the group (typically IT) who generates the most energy usage be responsible for reviewing and paying the power bill. When it hits your bottom line, it's far harder to ignore maintaining best practices!

3. Reduce corporate travel where possible. This can be difficult. There are certainly scenarios where face-to-face is required or results in a better outcome; but if you're traveling for training or monthly management meetings because you've 'always done it that way', then perhaps it's time to consider other options - and there are plenty. The amount of money you spend in tools to connect people via networking and the internet will more than pay for themselves in reduced travel budgets and smaller carbon footprints.

Re manufactured ink and toner, renewable energy resources and implemented recycling and re purposing programs within an IT department or company wide are all ways to reduce your company's carbon impact.

The first thing you need to do in a “green” imitative is understand your power use. You must know exactly how much power you use, when you use it, and what is using it. Without first knowing the state of your power use you will have no base line to compare any energy saving projects to. Everything that can be quantified must be quantified.

Question everything that has to do with power and demand a response. The status quo is not a good enough reason. Ask questions similar to “Do we need all the lights on all the time?” or “Is there a reason we have the thermostat at 72 and not 74?” or even “Do we really need to leave our PC’s powered on all night long when nobody is here?” Every business is different and the point is to not accept practices but question them all. If a practice is needed someone should be the champion of that cause and be able to convince you why it should remain.

Cooling is the main power use factor that can be manipulated in a datacenter. This does not really impact non datacenter businesses but I am speaking for myself here. Have someone on staff who knows your cooling system and more importantly understands the concepts behind efficient cooling. Through air flow analysis, heat isolation, and chiller/air economization you can save in the double digit percentages off of your power bill.

Personal Carbon footprint reduction:
1- Combine destinations (plan route) for auto use.
2- Use LED lighting when possible (no mercury, longer life, less energy to manufacture AND operate)
3- REUSE - not just recycle. A reuse has a zero manufacturing and raw material footprint. (Join a 're-use free group, like "Freecyclers")

In the IT World -

1- Absorbtion coolers (they can be used in conjunction with compressor coolers)
2- Virtualize as much as possible.
3- Re-plumb chillers to allow Compressor bypass and use outside heat exchanger when outside air temp. is low. Virtuall every datacenter built 6 or more years ago runs chiller compressors for datacenter cooling when it is zero degrees outside.

Ride your bike to work, turn off lights when you leave a room, take shorter showers, recycle, recycle, recycle (almost everything can be!), use natural cleaning products, paints, cosmetics, and other commodities, use a compost at your home, grow a garden, support local business, insulate your house, turn your heat down and wear warmer clothes, use low energy light bulbs, install low-flow faucets.

When it comes to reducing the carbon footprint of your company, a few things that stand out are:
1.) Recycle - This can mean anything from paper and plastic, to following guidelines for recycling your old fluorescent lamps and bulbs. Even computer monitors and hard drives need to be recycled.
2.) Retrofit your office - This will lower the amount of energy your company uses on a daily basis, which in effect will lead to fewer greenhouse gases being emitted by the power plants that are supplying power to your building.
3.) Take advantage of teleconference systems like Cisco. This will cut down on the amount of travel necessary for client meetings. Obviously a face to face is a good thing from time to time, but only do that when you feel it's necessary.

Many modern ERP solutions have a module or dashboard that allows companies to measure and track their carbon producing activities. Companies can utilize these tools to understand where they can reduce their carbon footprint and then to understand how to take cost-justifiable steps to reduce the impact. I’ve included some links below to more information on the ERP vendors' carbon tracking offerings.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/feb09/02-09jdtpr.mspx

http://www.sap.com/solutions/executiveview/sustainability/sustainability-map/...

http://www.epicor.com/mrcpr/announcing_epicor_carbon_connect.pdf

Great question! A good place to start is computer shut down during nights/weekends & holiday's. Many companies do not shut their computers down which results in uncessary energy consumption, added costs and carbon emissions into the environment. It is a simple effective response to an age old problem.

A great tool for programmed shut down is "Power Management" by DeskCenter USA Inc. included in the "Basic Package" free of charge. For report, or to test drive the free trial visit at www.deskcenterusa.com.

Valerie
DeskCenter USA Inc.